30-plus year radio broadcasting career comes to a halt for Plainfield man

PLAINFIELD – Video didn’t kill the radio star. The new ways people receive their music did.

Radio veteran Bob Zak of Plainfield hopes to return to the airwaves soon.

Zak recently left 95.9 The River (WERV), where he had worked for the last 13 years. On July 26, Zak said the radio station notified him that station management was reducing its workforce.

“When I started in radio, I was playing records and tapes. That’s all gone,” Zak said. “When I started, you were picking out your own music. Local bands would show up at your station and ask, ‘Can you listen to this record?’ and if you liked it, you played it. Now all the music is stored on a hard drive in the computer.”

A 30-plus career in radio is darn good for a former shy kid who didn’t do well in school, but did spend hours tuning into his idols, Larry Lujack on Chicago’s WCFL and WLS and Frank O’Leary on Joliet’s WJOL, and longing to emulate them.

“There wasn’t anyone in town who didn’t know who Frank O’Leary was,” Zak said. “Both shared an amazing ability to communicate with people and make it feel like you were the only one they were talking to.”

O’Leary was so conversational, people forgot he was interviewing them, Zak said. O’Leary steered away from the typical questions and drew out the other person’s personality and interests, he added.

Zak especially liked Lujack’s ability to weave anecdotes among the songs and make the entire broadcast fun. Zak recalled Lujack playing The Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand” several times in a row because Lujack loved the song.

“I had not heard anyone like him,” Zak said.

Inspired by these radio personalities, Zak pursued his own career. Over the years, he’s worked at 14 outlets. Zak said he was inducted in 2014 into the City of Joliet’s Hall of Fame in the Business/Philanthropy category.

Beginnings and endings

“For me, it started it at JJC, where I had some phenomenal teachers who first brought out my ability to communicate via writing,” Zak said. “From there I went to USF and thought, ‘Well, I guess I can write, but can I talk?’ And I was lucky to enough to have Art Hellyer as a professor. He taught me so much and brought me out of my shell.”

With an attitude of “I think I can do this,” Zak mastered the equipment, practiced – and then practiced some more. After graduation, Zak began his radio career as a news writer and reporter at WJRC in Joliet.

That same year – 1983 – Zak also became the host of the station’s morning drive and Saturday’s “Golden Oldies” show.

In 1984, Zak went to WCCQ in Crest Hill as morning announcer and program director, the same time the station initiated its country music format. In 1985, Zak became the afternoon show host at WJOL. In the evenings, Zak played Top 40 music on WJOL’s sister station, WLLI.

Five years later, Zak left WJOL to host the midday show on WCFL in Chicago, an oldies station. Two years later, Zak was back at the University of St. Francis – this time, as an employee.

In this role, Zak taught, managed the university radio station, and launched the popular and ongoing “Spirit of Christmas” radio program, which plays nonstop holiday music from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day.

While working at the university, Zak also was on the air at two local radio stations. One was WJTW in Joliet and the other was WCSJ radio in Morris, where Zak hosted a weekend talk show.

In the 1990s, Zak appeared on two Chicago classic rock stations before settling down at 95.9 The River in Naperville, where Zak began as a weekend host. Before long, Zak was on the air seven days a week, every week night and every weekend day.

By then, people were connecting with and acquiring music in different ways, electronically and through streaming.

In this changing industry, Zak changed, too.

“You start lying in bed at night thinking, ‘I can write. I can communicate,’” Zak said. “What we’re doing [on radio stations] is communicating information. A lot of it is based on promoting other people’s businesses. I thought, ‘I can do that. I can translate that into doing marketing. What I learned all those years in radio I applied to helping companies achieve their objectives.”

What’s missing today from radio is the “fun factor, the human factor.” There’s signs Zak isn’t the only one missing them. For instance, he said, vinyl is having a resurgence – not among the older crowd as one might expect, but among young people who enjoy interacting with the cover art and the liner notes, which online music can’t provide.

Zak wants to return to radio someday, but he’s realistic about his chances, too.

“The choices are becoming more limited,” Zak said. “There’s less out there than there was before. Lots of radio stations are corporately owned, basically broadcasting from a satellite in L.A. or New York. The localization is not there. But I’m exploring it and not ruling anything out at this point.”