Nights With Lonny Tyler on WRXQ Coal City, IL

The premiere rock voice tracking talent in the country!

Lonny is most "known" for two things in the Chicago radio market.  He was the famous traffic reporter "Steven Lonny Tyler" on the Steve Dahl and Garry Meijer show.  Lonny was also the Program Director and morning man at Will Rock in suburban Joliet.  Lonny built up a very strong station during those years.

After Next Media sold the frequency 93.5 to a spanish broadcaster, they pulled the plug on Will Rock turning it into a Hot AC station Star 96.5.

A few years passed and Lonny ended up doing all the websites for the Joliet Next Media cluster.  I met him about 3 weeks after I became program director at WRXQ.

We quickly became friends and Lonny is the person who taught me almost everything I know about websites.

I had an opening for afternoons at WRXQ.  The part timer, Rachel, who I was going to promote got herself fired.  I then thought of bringing in my friend Dave North from Gallup, NM.  Then the general manager and programming consultant left the company.  I didn't want to bring Dave into that mess (I decided to bring him into a bigger mess later at WRQR).  So I interviewed a few other local folks and finally gave the job to Lonny.

Lonny had a great afternoon show.  He was so laid back on the air that it sounded like you were hanging out with one of your best friends over a beer every afternoon.

Between Lonny and myself, we really pushed the technology at the station.  Lonny only had 3 traffic reports during his show with Jill Urchack, but he managed to have her on the air about 3-4 times an hour.  He would record short bits and breaks with her and play them back.  It was amazing.

Lonny then accepted a VERY high paying gig doing IT work, so I moved Freak into afternoons and Lonny stayed on voice tracking the 7-Midnight shift.  He would occasionally do the work at the station, but he also had the ability to record at home and upload his shows.

Lonny continued voice tracking WRXQ long after I had left for WRQR.  I even added Lonny to WRQR voice tracking weekends.  He was the best thing in the market on the weekends...all from his basement.  Lonny also picked up a station in Greensboro through some mutual friends and continues there to this day.

Lonny had such great ability to visualize while voice tracking.  He never once visited Wilmington, but sounded better on the air than those who lived there for years.  His night show on WRXQ was better than what I could pull off live...see for yourself

Here is a link to Lonny's website where he does professional voice over work.  I didn't realize he was the voice for Blue Cross Rhode Island?!?

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