The airwaves have gotten a bit more awkward recently. This month WTMX-FM 101.9 launched Mix ‘n Match, a dating game for Chicago’s singles.
“It’s `Love Connection’ meets the radio,” explains producer Todd Ganz. “It’s voyeuristic for the audience.” And it’s clumsy pickup lines broadcast in WTMX’s 50,000 watts.
Here’s how it works: Each weeknight a bachelor or bachelorette in the studio flirts with three hopefuls on the phone, who can, along with the rest of us, see a picture of their potential paramour at wtmx.com. Their three pictures are posted as well, but the in-studio contestant isn’t allowed to peek. He or she must select a date based solely on quick conversations between songs and commercials.
And that’s where it gets interesting.
“I like TV, looking at dirty magazines and I’m funny as hell when the people around me are drunk,” explains Bachelor No. 1 when asked to describe himself during a recent show.
In the studio, bachelorette Tina Brennan’s eyes widen–the game has just started and she has already ruled out one guy. The 30-year-old Lincoln Park resident is visibly nervous as she adjusts her headphones and leans into the microphone. Her friend Kristin Archambeau secretly sent in an application to be on the show, describing Brennan as a girly girl who can hang with the guys. She’s looking for someone “normal, sweet, considerate . . . tall would be good.”
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Of course, she can’t determine height via voice, but she can rule out normal, sweet and considerate when Bachelor No. 1 mentions his favorite pickup line–something involving hoop earrings and ankles that has the deejays eyeing their dump buttons.
Mix ‘n Match host Nikki Chuminatto provides the single-girl viewpoint (though she’s married), while Jeff Corder offers what he calls the “late-night pizza perspective.” And Archambeau, in an adjacent room with access to a computer, is trying to covertly communicate descriptions of the guys through the studio window.
Brennan ends up selecting Bachelor No. 2, whose appeal skyrocketed when he mentioned his season tickets at Wrigley Field. The two receive a gift certificate for a local restaurant and are given one another’s e-mail addresses, so they can continue flirting without commercial interruptions.
Single men willing to select a date sight unseen should apply at wtmx.com; of the 150 applications Ganz had received in the weeks leading up to the launch of Mix ‘n Match, 115 were from women.