• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, March 16, 2011

Well into refashioning its morning show, the CBS station in the Windy City still needed a traffic reporter. The market may not be Los Angeles, but Chicagoland has plenty of clogged thoroughfares and commuters want the latest before either surrendering to the slowdowns or trying to outfox them.

WBBM-TV had mounted a search through the usual channels for the reporter. But while candidates were satisfactory, there was nothing too exciting. And the news director grew frustrated. Was there another route?

Hello, John Q. Public. Fulfill your long-held dreams about announcing that the path to O’Hare is hellish.

Station chief Bruno Cohen had gone grassroots with a talent search before. As a news director at a San Francisco station in the 1980s, somehow the lead weatherman and back-up were out for the same two-week period. The forecast was grim.

“Kind of out of desperation, I had to do something,” Cohen said.

A news guy with some marketing flourish, he turned to an open casting call. Send a photo and 25 words or less why you’re the next Willard Scott and you have a shot. Thousands wrote in, 100 got an audition and 10 winners each delivered the weather for a night each. The station gained a promotional lift.

“It’s always been in the back of my mind to do something again like (that),” Cohen said.

WBBM’s open search, running through May 18, is far more ambitious. The victor gets more than a one-night stand, but a three-month contract and $25,000. That could lead to three extensions and a one-year traffic-reporter gig with a $100,000 salary. (That’s about the market rate for the job, Cohen said.)

Besides hopefully landing a hometown home run – only people living in the WBBM viewing area are eligible -- Cohen cites marketing benefits and revenue opportunities for the contest. The station has signed local furniture business Walter E. Smithe – which has a well-known outlandish advertising approach -- as the backer.

“From the beginning, we thought that this is something that a local sponsor might want to participate in,” he said.

Walter E. Smithe, with 13 stores, did in fact something similar to WBBM’s initiative last year, launching a contest for someone to appear in one of its commercials -- in partnership with a local radio morning program. The retailer’s ads have featured ski jumps off coffee tables and a Geico Caveman parody.

For the “CBS 2 Traffic Tryouts,” candidates are required to upload a 30-second video making a case for themselves. From there, a pool of 75 contestants will get auditions simulating a traffic report -- and make like a taxi driver trying to get a license, taking a written test to prove knowledge of the Chicagoland roadways.

Over a two-week period – can you say promotion? -- 10 finalists will then make an actual appearance on the news delivering the traffic. A winner will be selected by a combination of CBS talent and executives, and a public vote online.

A WBBM banner ad for the contest has photos of the two “Morning News” anchors plus the meteorologist -- next to an it-could-be-you question mark.  

Cohen has started reviewing the video submissions and been impressed by the diversity of applicants. He said the station is looking for an “upbeat personality,” but someone who can deliver information “in a credible way.”

Many star radio personalities have been chosen via open casting calls. WBBM has not exactly been tearing it up in the AM ratings, so maybe it will have similar luck. In the meantime, it has drawn interest.

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