Chuck Schaden
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Chuck Schaden, born June 29, 1934, is a Chicago-area broadcaster and historian who has hosted the program "Those Were the Days" on local radio since 1970. Schaden plays recordings of classic old-time radio shows and reminisces with radio personalities about the early days of broadcasting. The show is heard on WDCB 90.9 FM, a public radio station in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
Born in Chicago, Schaden is a former newspaper editor and marketing executive who turned his hobby of collecting radio shows into a vocation. For his efforts in preserving and documenting radio history he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1993, the only radio fan to receive this honor. He has often served as a consultant on topics related to broadcasting history, and he is a founding member of the Board of Directors of Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications.
He was the editor and publisher of the magazine Nostalgia Digest from its inception in the mid-1970s until his retirement in 2005. The magazine is now edited and published by Funny Valentine Press. He documented the history of Chicago's WBBM in WBBM Radio: Yesterday and Today (2003), and he also wrote The Cinnamon Bear Book (1987) and Speaking of Radio: Chuck Schaden’s Conversations with the Stars of the Golden Age of Radio (1998).
On October 9, 2006, he became the new host of the nationally syndicated When Radio Was! series, replacing Stan Freberg (who had hosted the show since 1995). His first show for When Radio Was! is "A Salute to Stan Freberg."
