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Ryan Chiaverini (born 1977) [1] is an American television personality, and Midwest Emmy Award winning co-host of Windy City Live (now Windy City Weekend) on ABC Chicago (WLS-TV). He is also the Lead Sports Anchor at ABC7 Chicago replacing Jim Rose who retired in September 2023.
Chiaverini is from Corona, California. [2] His father, Eddie Chiaverini, is a professional guitarist and singer who was a member of the surf band The Lively Ones. Their most popular song, “Surf Rider” is featured in the 1994 film “Pulp Fiction” earning the band a platinum album. Ryan has four half-brothers [3] and is the twin brother of former NFL receiver Darrin Chiaverini (Ryan is 8 minutes older). They both attended the University of Colorado Boulder. Ryan was a “walk on” for the football team eventually earning a full athletic scholarship. Ryan earned a degree in broadcast journalism and has had a successful career in sports journalism and television hosting. Darrin was drafted by the Cleveland Browns (5th round) in 1999. He holds the Browns franchise record for catches in a single game by a rookie (11). He went onto play 4 seasons in the NFL (Browns/Cowboys/Falcons) and played professionally in the AFL for several years before becoming a college football coach. [4]
Chiaverini began his career as a weekend sports anchor at KFBB in Great Falls, Montana, [1] then at KTVQ in Billings. In 2002, he became a sports reporter at KUSA in Denver, Colorado. [4] He spent four seasons covering the Denver Broncos and served as a fill-in host for the Mike Shanahan Show and John Elway's Crush Zone. In 2006, he moved to WLS-TV, where he was promoted to sports anchor for the weekend news broadcasts and hosted the station's pre-game coverage of the Chicago Bears, the Chicago Huddle. [2] [5]
In 2011, WLS-TV launched a 9:00 am weekday talk show with the working title ”Morning Rush” to replace the iconic and coveted Oprah Winfrey Show . After several rounds and months of auditions, Chiaverini was named co-host alongside Val Warner; more than 500 people had applied. [2] [6] Ryan is credited with naming the show Windy City Live. [7]
In September 2021, after a successful 10 year daily run Windy City Live became a weekly program, Windy City Weekend; starting in 2022, Chiaverini also became a fill-in weekday sports anchor on ABC 7. [8]
In November 2023, Chiaverini was promoted to ABC 7 Lead Sports Anchor. He currently anchors sports on ABC 7's top rated newscasts weekdays at 5pm, 6pm and 10 p.m. [9]
In 2021, Chiaverini played a lawyer in the Lifetime TV movie Switched Before Birth. [10] He has also had small roles on Showtime’s “Shameless” & ABC’s “General Hospital” along with other TV series and independent films.
In 2013, Chiaverini shared the Chicago/Midwest regional Emmy Award for Program Host/Moderator; [11] he won the award outright in 2017. [12] [13] Also in 2013, he shared in the regional Emmy for Interview/Discussion Programming awarded to Windy City Live for a special on violence, [11] and in 2020-2023 he was one of the recipients of the Chicago/Midwest regional Emmy for Special Event Coverage, for ABC7’s popular New Years Eve show Countdown Chicago. [14]
In 2011, New City named Chiaverini "best-looking male local TV personality", [15] and in 2012, Modern Luxury magazine named him among Chicago's most eligible bachelors. [16]
Chiaverini is a hobby singer/guitarist. Having lost his younger brother to suicide, in 2014 he wrote and recorded a song called "Chicago" to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. [3] [17] In 2019, after his mother's death from cancer, he released "This Is Country" with a link for donations to cancer research. [18] He has also performed at a media charity event known as "Newsapalooza", in 2008 with Richard Marx [19]
He has continued to work for suicide awareness and cancer research, speaking at the annual Out of the Darkness Walk [3] and emceeing cancer fundraising events.
WGN-TV is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, serving as the local outlet for The CW. It is owned and operated by the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, and is sister to the company's sole radio property, news/talk/sports station WGN. WGN-TV's studios are located on West Bradley Place in Chicago's North Center community; as such, it is the only major commercial television station in Chicago which bases its main studio outside the Loop. Its transmitter is located atop the Willis Tower in the Loop.
WLS-TV is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, serving as the market's ABC network outlet. It has been owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division since the station's inception. WLS-TV's studios are located on North State Street in the Chicago Loop, and its transmitter is located atop the Willis Tower.
WBBM-TV is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, serving as the market's CBS network outlet. Owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, the station maintains studios on West Washington Street in the Loop, and it transmits from atop the Willis Tower.
WMAQ-TV is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, serving as the market's NBC outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Telemundo station WSNS-TV. The two stations share studios at the NBC Tower on North Columbus Drive in the city's Streeterville neighborhood and broadcast from the same transmitter atop the Willis Tower in the Chicago Loop.
Roe B. Conn is a former American talk radio host based in Chicago who is now a sworn deputy and Director of the Cook County sheriff's office.
Mark Giangreco is the former sports director and lead sports anchor for WLS-TV in Chicago, Illinois. Until 2021, Giangreco had anchored the sports segment on ABC7 during the 5pm and 10pm newscasts. He remains an ESPN Radio contributor.
Ron Magers is a former American news anchor. Magers worked for WLS-TV, the ABC owned-and-operated station in Chicago, Illinois, where he co-anchored the top-rated 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. broadcasts with Cheryl Burton and Kathy Brock, respectively. Magers is the brother of Paul Magers, a former television anchor and reporter for KCBS-TV, the CBS owned-and-operated station in Los Angeles.
John Richard Drury was an American television news anchor from Chicago, Illinois. Drury is most known for serving as anchor on Chicago news broadcasts which included: WGN-TV from 1967 to 1970 and again from 1979 until 1984; WLS-TV from 1970 to 1979 and 1984 until his retirement in 2002. Upon his retirement came the news that he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Drury was a leading activist for ALS research and was a spokesperson for the Brain Research Foundation. Drury died from motor neurone disease in 2007 at age 80.
Linda Yu is a Chinese-American former news anchor and author. Yu is best known as co-anchor on the Eyewitness newscast for WLS-TV in Chicago from April 1984 until November 2016. Yu became Chicago's first Asian–American broadcast journalist when she began her news career in Chicago at WMAQ-TV in 1979. For her broadcasting work, Yu has received a total of five local Emmy Awards including one for her report examining the aftermath of 9/11 in 2001. In 1984, Yu was honored with a National Gold Medal from the National Conference of Community and Justice for her documentary, "The Scars of Belfast".
Phil Ponce is an American journalist and television presenter. Ponce is notable as the former, long-time host of "Chicago Tonight", a weekly television magazine of news and culture on WTTW, Chicago's public television station.
Sylvia E. Perez is an American news anchor. Based in Chicago, Perez currently anchors the weekday editions and special segments of Good Day Chicago on WFLD-TV since October 2016.
Chuck Goudie is an American television journalist based in Chicago. He has been the chief investigative correspondent of ABC-TV owned WLS-TV, in Chicago since 1990. He has been with ABC7 since April, 1980.
The Roe Conn Show, was a talk radio show hosted by Roe Conn and various co-hosts on WLS-AM between 1989-2014 and on WGN-AM between 2015-2020.
Joel Daly was an American news anchor, most known for serving as an anchor for WLS-TV in Chicago, Illinois, for 38 years from 1967 to 2005. Daly served as co-anchor on the 4 pm news broadcast alongside Linda Yu from January 1985 until his retirement in May 2005. Daly was inducted into the Silver Circle, a group of elite Chicago broadcasters, in 2003. Following his retirement from news broadcasting in 2005, from March 2007 until October 2013, Daly served as spokesperson for Chicago's Cook County federal courthouse.
Rafer Weigel is an American broadcast journalist who most recently was an early morning weekday news anchor and general assignment reporter at WFLD-Channel 32 in Chicago. Formerly, he was the weekend sports anchor and reporter at WLS-TV in Chicago, the sports anchor for CNN HLN’s Morning Express with Robin Meade and also an actor.
Robert S. Johnson is an American communications consultant who was previously a news anchor at WBBM-TV in Chicago.
Jenniffer Colleen Weigel, known professionally as Jenniffer Weigel, is a Chicago radio and television personality, as well as an author and performer who owns her own Chicago-area production company. She was a morning cohost on WLS-AM alongside Mancow Muller; she now hosts her own show on WLS-AM from 10:00 pm to midnight Monday through Friday. She previously hosted Taste, a program aired on NBC affiliates both in New York and in Chicago, and she also previously wrote a column for the Chicago Tribune and appeared on WGN Television and CLTV in Chicago to discuss her columns as the emcee of Trib University.
Anna Davlantes is an American journalist and television news presenter. She is the current afternoon drive host from 1p-4p Monday-Friday on WGN Radio in Chicago. Prior to working at WGN Radio, she co-hosted Good Day Chicago on Fox 32 Chicago and has worked for PBS station WTTW, NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV in Chicago, ABC affiliate WPTA in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and KRIV in Houston.
NewsNation Prime is an American television news program on NewsNation, which premiered nationally on September 1, 2020. Broadcast live from Chicago, the program utilizes the journalistic resources of the 110 television news operations throughout the United States that are operated under the network's corporate parent Nexstar Media Group. The program is designed as an alternative to the opinion-based programs on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel, the top-rated cable news networks in the country in the early 2020s.
Windy City Live (WCL) is a local daytime talk show that is broadcast on WLS-TV and based in Chicago, Illinois. It premiered on May 26, 2011 as a replacement of The Oprah Winfrey Show which retired that month and is produced by WLS-TV. The talk show is filmed in front of a live audience weekdays at the ABC7 Studios in the Chicago Loop on State Street. Current and original hosts are Val Warner and Ryan Chiaverini.
