First The Cubs, Now Jeff Santos; Hasn't Chicago Suffered Enough?

[Laurence Glavin]

I've been monitoring some progressive talk stations online: WMMX-FM in Madison, WI and the WHMP group
of stations in the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts.  Then I logged on to WCPT AM & FM in Chicago.
Voila:  who should appear on that outlet?  Jeff Santos of WWZN-AM Boston "fame".   WCPT apparently
just made the adjustment to the retirement of Ed Schultz from terrestrial radio and the move of  Thom Hartmann
to Ed's former time slot, noon-till 3:00 pm Eastern.  The other outlets picked up Sam Seder in afternoon drive,
but somehow WCPT decided to insert Jeff Santos into the afternoon drive central time slot.  And it appears 
that Jeff was not only doing his show live, but actually taking calls from the Chicago area because WCPT
does have listeners, unlike the former WWZN, and Jeff seemed to be so startled by this turn of events that
he delayed having a guest on because callers had been waiting for a time.  One of the tricks many  hosts
of shows with no listeners do is load up with guests.  When Santos was on WWZN, he had a whole cast of
regular guests including Michael Dukakis who was included because Jeff had a thing about rail transportation
and Dukakis was very simpatico with this subject.  Santos also mentioned that he was broadcasting from a 
studio at Marina Bay near Boston.  That tells me that he is renting space at the WUFC studios and relaying his
show via satellite.  Anthony Pepe may very well be doing the same thing as long as he has a daily
show on Yahoo! Sports radio.   I wonder if this is a stopgap move by WCPT because I don't think Santos has the 
chops to attract listeners in a market like Chicago;  he really didn't in Boston either.