John Lynch was the president and CEO of the
Broadcast Company of the Americas
The Broadcast Company of the Americas, traded as BCA Radio was a broadcasting company based in the San Diego, California area.
BCA Radio no longer operates any radio stations after losing its operational leases.
The Viejas Band of Kumeyaay In ...
.
Early life
John Lynch grew up in suburban
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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in an
Irish-Catholic
Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the British ...
family. His grandparents were Irish immigrants. His grandparents named their son (Lynch's father) John Pershing Lynch, after the
World War I general of the same name.
[ Lynch graduated from ]Benet Academy
Benet Academy ( ) is a co-educational, college-preparatory, Benedictine high school in Lisle, Illinois, United States, overseen by the Diocese of Joliet. Founded in 1886, the school was initially established in Chicago as the all-boys St. Procopi ...
in 1960, and went on to major in broadcasting at Drake University
Drake University is a private university in Des Moines, Iowa. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs, including professional programs in business, law, and pharmacy. Drake's law school is among the 25 oldest in the United States.
Hi ...
, where he also played football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
as linebacker
Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, p ...
and tight end
The tight end (TE) is a position in American football, arena football, and Canadian football, on the offense. The tight end is often a hybrid position with the characteristics and roles of both an offensive lineman and a wide receiver. Like ...
. He was drafted right out of college to play linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. Founded in , the Steel ...
in 1969. A knee injury in the first few weeks of the season immediately ended his football career after one season, however.[ ]
Broadcasting career
Following the end of his football career with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Lynch sold advertising for the ''Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'' and later WIND (AM)
WIND (560 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Chicago, Illinois,
and broadcasting a conservative talk radio format. It is owned by the Salem Media Group with studios on NW Point Boulevard in Elk Grove Village.
WIND is powered at ...
, then owned by Westinghouse Radio.[ In 1972, he convinced his boss at Westinghouse to relocate him to ]San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...
and make him sales manager at KFMB AM/ FM, owned by Midwest Radio and Television
Midwest Communications was a broadcasting company based in the Upper Midwest United States.
The company's history dates back to August 1952, when it was formed as Midwest Radio and Television as a merger of WCCO (AM) and WTCN-TV. The company was ...
.[ He moved with his wife Cathy, whom he met in high school, and their two toddlers.][ The KFMB stations were struggling when Lynch began his work there, but within five years they achieved the highest ratings in the market.][
In 1978, Ed Noble offered Lynch a five-percent ownership of the Noble Broadcast Group, based in San Diego. The company bought XTRA AM/ FM, and the AM station became the first all-sports talk show in the US. The FM station did not do too well with its album-oriented ]rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
programming, so Lynch switched to alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
instead and created 91X
XETRA-FM (91.1 MHz), branded as 91X, and sometimes identified as XTRA-FM, is an English-language radio station licensed to Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. It airs an alternative rock radio format. The studios and offices are on Cornerstone Cour ...
. Upon Noble's death in 1985, Lynch took over the company and over the following decade expanded into 20 stations throughout the nation.[ In 1996 he sold the company to ]Jacor Communications
Jacor Communications was a media corporation, existing between 1987 and 1999, which owned many radio stations in the United States. In 1998, Jacor was purchased by Clear Channel Communications, now iHeartMedia, for $2.8 billion.
Jacor Communicat ...
for $152 million, which was bought by Clear Channel Communications
iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...
soon after.[ Over the next five years, a noncompete agreement barred Lynch from the radio industry, so during that time he presided over the San Diego International Sports Council and helped bring the 2008 U.S. Open Golf Championship to San Diego.][
In 2003, Lynch learned from his daughter Kara Guthrie, who headed sports sales for Clear Channel, that her company decided to move XTRA Sports to ]Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
. As XTRA Sports was the only local sports talk show in San Diego, the void and laid-off staff essentially gave Lynch a "ready-made radio station" to pick up.[ He and a partner from Noble established the ]Broadcast Company of the Americas
The Broadcast Company of the Americas, traded as BCA Radio was a broadcasting company based in the San Diego, California area.
BCA Radio no longer operates any radio stations after losing its operational leases.
The Viejas Band of Kumeyaay In ...
and started Mighty 1090.[
]
Personal life
Lynch's son is the NFL's John Lynch Jr.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lynch, John
Radio personalities from Chicago
Living people
Radio personalities from San Diego
Year of birth missing (living people)