John Hultman, anchor for decades at WBBM Newsradio, dies at 89
John Hultman, a radio newsman who helped launch the all-news format at WBBM Newsradio and anchored at the station for decades, has died.
WBBM Newsradio's Rob Hart reported on X that Hultman died over the weekend. Hultman was 89 years old.
Hultman was a native of Wilmette, and attended New Trier Township High School and Purdue University.
In a 1987 interview with fellow radio veteran Chuck Schaden, Hultman said his first commercial radio job was at WNMP in Evanston, where he worked with Don Ferris — later well-known as a staff announcer at WTTW-Channel 11. Hultman told Schaden he then moved to television in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where circa 1960, he hosted a kids' show and an "American Bandstand"-style dance show at WPTA-TV, Channel 21.
Hultman then moved to WWJ-TV and radio in Detroit. While the WWJ-TV call letters now belong to CBS Detroit, these stations where Hultman worked were not CBS Detroit. Back then, the WWJ-TV call letters were used by Detroit's NBC 4, now WDIV-TV, while the associated radio station, though later purchased by CBS, was owned by Scripps and affiliated with NBC Radio.
At the Detroit stations, Hultman said he went on the air as a radio disc jockey, and then moved to the news department when WWJ Radio switched to a talk format. He anchored the news on Channel 4, and also did street reporting and radio news.
Hultman was looking to move back to Chicago by the late 60s, and said he connected with Dale McCarren of WBBM-AM, who had previously worked at WJR Radio in Detroit. News director John Callaway hired Hultman at WBBM, and Hultman started there on Feb. 26, 1968.
He worked as a jack of all trades on the air before the station went all news on May 6 of that same year.
Callaway — later a reporter for WBBM-TV Channel 2 News (now known as CBS News Chicago) and most famously the host of "Chicago Tonight" and other news and interview programming on WTTW-11 — didn't get to take his time in making the switch to all-news at WBBM-AM. After the now-defunct WCBS 880 in New York City went all-news in 1967, CBS was quick to make the switch on its other radio stations, and had Callaway had Hultman and the rest of the staff moving fast.
"New York called and told [Callaway], apparently, 'In one month, you're going all news,'" Hultman told Schaden. "It was that quick."
The station had that one month to expand the staff to what would become a 24-hour all-news station.
Hultman said early on, he anchored with John Madigan, also a longtime political editor and commentator at WBBM Newsradio, whose daughter, Amy Madigan, so happens to have won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress just on Sunday of this week.
Quoted in the 1988 book "WBBM Radio: Yesterday and Today," Hultman said newsradio found its niche upon realizing it didn't have to compare itself to other media.
"We're not a newspaper, and we're not just a headline service," Hultman was quoted. "We give listeners a little information about a lot of different things, and we give it to them as it's happening."
Callaway was succeeded as news director at WBBM-AM by Van Gordon Sauter, later news director at WBBM-TV and president of CBS News and Fox News. After a succession of a few other news directors in a short time, Hultman was appointed as news director himself late in 1972 — while still anchoring on the air.
Hultman said he was originally appointed news director on a temporary basis, but got the job permanently and held it until 1982, while also on air all the while.
"I enjoyed that. I'm glad I did it," Hultman told Schaden. "But I really liked being on the air."
Hultman was best known over many years at WBBM Newsradio as morning drive anchor — a role in which he served constantly for nearly 20 years and in which he was partnered with anchor Felicia Middlebrooks in 1984.
In the field, Hultman covered the Flight 191 crash near O'Hare International Airport, which killed 273 people in May 1979, WBBM Newsradio reported.
Quoted by the station, Hultman said he had been on the morning drive and had been working since 5 a.m., and was on his way home on the Edens Expressway when he turned around and went to O'Hare — where he stayed reporting until about 9 p.m. that night.
Hultman retired from his anchoring post in 1998, but this was far from the end of his run at WBBM Newsradio.
When Pat Cassidy, who had been anchoring in Hultman's old slot alongside Middlebrooks, left the station for a stint working with Mancow Muller at WLS-AM in 2008, Hultman returned to his old morning slot alongside Middlebrooks at WBBM Newsradio. When Cassidy returned to WBBM Newsradio in 2010 and went back to his slot with Middlebrooks on the morning drive, Hultman stayed on, filling in on the anchor desk and filing reports through 2020.
Hultman's longtime newsradio colleagues honored his memory on social media Monday.
"I was one of the many millions of Chicagoans who grew up with John and Felicia," wrote WBBM Newsradio anchor Hart.
"[Hultman] would fill in after being away from the newsroom for a time and not miss a beat," wrote retired WBBM Newsradio sports anchor Dave Kerner. "And you knew you were good with him when you got a loaf of his homemade bread every Christmas!"
