Listeners to WXRT-FM had a rude awakening Wednesday when Mary Dixon, the rock station’s longtime morning show news anchor, was missing from the airwaves.
Dixon, who had co-hosted the morning show with Lin Brehmer for more than 20 years, was home, asleep, and out of a job after the station eliminated her position.
“I slept until 7:30 this morning and it was glorious,” said Dixon, 54.
In addition to eliminating Dixon’s position, the legacy adult alternative rock station announced late Wednesday that Brehmer would be shifting to midday in early 2020. Station owner Entercom, the Philadelphia-based chain that acquired WXRT and a half dozen other Chicago radio stations through the 2017 megamerger with CBS Radio, issued a news release confirming Dixon’s departure and announcing Brehmer’s new air shift.
Richard Milne, current midday host at the station, will be moving to mornings.
“Like a veteran centerfielder who moves to first base, I look forward to batting second,” Brehmer said in the release.
While Dixon’s departure was abrupt, the decision was weeks in the making, sources said. Dixon was offered one of two open anchor positions on news stations WBBM-AM 780 and WCFS-FM 105.9, which also are owned by Entercom. The position, sources said, was the 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. overnight slot.
“I was offered a position at Newsradio (WBBM),” Dixon said. “It was not a good fit for my family, and I had to say no. I am no longer on the air at WXRT.”
Brehmer joined WXRT as music director in 1984 and took over the morning show in 1991. He soon teamed up with Dixon, and they’ve been partners on air for most of the last 25 years.
Change has been in the air since Entercom purchased CBS Radio for $2.4 billion, making it one of the largest radio owners in the U.S., with more than 235 stations. Other former Chicago CBS stations under the Entercom banner are Top 40 station WBBM-FM 96.3, sports talk station WSCR-AM 670, country station WUSN-FM 99.5 and classic hip hop WBMX 104.3-FM.
Chicago leadership is in transition after longtime radio veteran Jimmy de Castro retired as market manager of Entercom Chicago on Dec. 13. His named successor, Rachel Williamson, is expected to take the reins early next year.
Layoffs, pay cuts and forced retirements have been taking place in “dribs and drabs” since Entercom took over the Chicago cluster, sources said.
WXRT has been a pioneering Chicago rock station since the early 1970s, launching under local ownership with an underground melange of free-form album cuts, but only at night, after its ethnic-based programming like Korean gospel and Spanish talk radio had concluded for the day. The rock format went full time in 1976.
The station became part of CBS in the late 1990s.
WXRT is ranked ninth among Chicago stations with a 3.8 share, according to the Nielsen listenership survey for November.
Dixon joined WXRT in November 1991 as a general assignment reporter, and was paired with Brehmer on the morning show in 1993, where they established a strong on-air rapport and connection with listeners. She left radio briefly in 1995 for TV gigs with WGN-Ch. 9 and CNN, but returned to WXRT in 1997, rejoining Brehmer the following year. In 2003, she took an extended maternity leave, and has been a mainstay at the station for 25 years.
As to her future career plans, Dixon declined to offer specifics.
“I’m really looking forward to a very good 2020,” Dixon said.
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