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 , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

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 Briti ...

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. Proco ...

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. Hist ...

, 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 ...

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, ...

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. Lik ...

. 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 ...

, 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 eighth most populous city in the United States ...

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 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 mainstream or commercial ...

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 C ...

. 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 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

and started

Mighty 1090 XEPRS-AM (1090 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Playas de Rosarito, a suburb of Tijuana in Baja California, Mexico. It broadcasts a Sports/ Talk radio format, branded as "The Mightier 1090". The station is heard across the ...

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)