Mancow Muller, the frenetic morning disc jockey at WRCX FM, only arrived in Chicago last July. Yet according to the latest Arbitron ratings, his time slot has moved from 19th in the metropolitan market to 5th among all teenage and adult listeners. And among 18-to-34-year-olds, a coveted demographic among advertisers, he has soared to first, besting Tom Joyner at WGCI AM and sending Kevin Matthews at WLUP FM from second to third place. Nearly 20 percent of men aged 18 to 24 in the Chicago area prefer Muller to his competitors.
Muller is also a remarkable self-promoter. He’ll make a personal appearance anywhere. At car shows and bar parties he mugs shamelessly and usually lingers with his fans long past the appointed departure time, signing autographs and dispensing T-shirts. He’s happy to raise money for charity; in September he spent two nights in a bark coffin at the Hard Rock Cafe, raising $9,000 to fight spinal muscular atrophy. And he’s been moonlighting with the World Wrestling Federation and on Downey.
“Every time I went to San Francisco I would look up Mancow,” says de Castro. “We had beers together and dinner. I wanted to get to know him.” When de Castro asked Muller whether he might be interested in coming to Chicago, the nation’s third-largest radio market, Muller played it cool. “I like the weather here,” he said. “A straight white guy in this town has it pretty good.”
“I want that plastic surgery you’ve been talking about this morning–for my boobs.”
“So yesterday, Turd, you were going into the booths and cluing our listeners in on what’s happening in Kenosha,” Muller says. “Sort of a blow-by-blow.”
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Muller moves on to the first guest of the morning, Charles Pixley from Rochester, New York, who’s pushing an anticancer medicine made from camphor. “My dad’s so sick with cancer,” Muller informs Pixley. “He’s desperate.” Pixley excoriates the medical establishment and the FDA, which has refused to OK the medicine, but Muller decides to ditch him. “This is a fascinating area, but this guy’s so boring,” Muller says off mike. “I’m just trying to find anything I can to save my dad.”
