Super Bowl Update

The Chicago Bears and CBS Radio Chicago announced Wednesday morning that they have reached a new multi-year deal that will keep the NFL team on WBBM Newsradio 780 AM - 105.9 FM and its sister stations in the Windy City.

WBBM has been the radio home of the Bears since 2000. In Southwestern Indiana, the Bears' games can also be heard on WFML-96.7 FM in Vincennes, which is the only Bears radio affiliate located in the Tri-State.

“We are happy to continue our outstanding partnership with WBBM ... and excited to create new opportunities with the other stations in the CBS Radio Chicago family,” Bears president and CEO Ted Phillips said.  “We want to continue to add unique content offerings for our diverse fan base, and CBS Radio Chicago provides an excellent fit to help us achieve this goal.”

“WBBM ... has been the ‘Voice of the Bears’ for the last 13 seasons and we look forward with great excitement to the years ahead,” said Rod Zimmerman, senior VP and market manager for CBS Radio Chicago.  “The Chicago Bears have long had one of the largest fan bases anywhere in sports, and this partnership offers not only the fans many benefits, but our advertisers who support the broadcasts as well.”

In addition to WBBM's Bears coverage, WSCR-670 The Score will have extended team coverage on "Bears Mondays," and the station will also continue the Bears Noon Hour Update and a Saturday evening vignette feature (which will be replayed on Sundays on WBBM).

Finally, Bears All-Access, 670's one-hour Bears program, will be expanded to run year-round.

If Dish Network doesn't do away with its commercial-skipping Auto Hop feature, CBS won't renew its carriage agreements with the satellite company, CBS chairman Les Moonves has told investors.

“If they want to eliminate our commercials, we will not be in business with them -- it’s pure and simple,” he said Wednesday. “We cannot produce an episode of a show for $3.5 million and have the people at Dish say: ‘We can pull out the commercials.’ That’s not how the ecosystem works. If they want to continue down that line, then we will just not be on Dish. That’s what will happen. We will go elsewhere, and people will take our content.”

Simple as that.

CBS and the other broadcast networks have sued Dish to put a stop to Auto Hop; those lawsuits are still pending.

In other CBS news, Moonves says the company isn't getting out of radio, despite investors' recommendation that the company do so. When asked if that was a possibility, he said, "[T]here's no real desire to do that ... our balance sheet is in great shape right now ... we're not looking to spin it off."

Indeed, the company has doubled down on radio lately.  Moonves says the new CBS Sports Radio Network, which is coming soon, should grab 10% of the market and generate millions of dollars in "found money" right off the bat.

Brad Booker, a former WSTO-96.1 FM morning co-host, has a new job. He's leaving CBS Radio's KWNR in Las Vegas to take over mornings at the company's KMLE in Phoenix beginning next week.

"We are excited to have Brad Booker on the KMLE team," said KMLE program director Jeff Garrison. "Having worked with Booker at Hot 95-7 in Houston, I witnessed first-hand his upbeat, and entertaining style. Listeners embraced his program and I expect nothing different here in Phoenix."

Booker was co-host of WSTO's morning show, first with Diane Douglas (now at WSTO sister station WIKY) and later with Sarah Pepper (now at CBS Radio in Houston), from 2003 to 2008.  He may be best remembered for coming up with an April Fool's joke in 2004 involving now-Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly that made national headlines - because it wasn't at all funny.