The Passing Parade of Radio

Once upon a time, there were AM and FM radio, record/tape/CD players, and that was about it for your listening choices.

Now, thanks to satellite radio and smart phones (and tablets and laptops that can stream), there are endless choices for you: live streams, podcasts, audiobooks, etc. abound in addition to satellite radio and AM and FM radio.

It’s not just listeners who have more choices. So do advertisers.

This has unavoidably meant terrestrial radio (AM and FM) in general, talk radio included, have suffered.

Gone are the days “everyone” listened to one of a handful of morning shows and afternoon drive-time shows.

This is why there are fewer talk shows that have live callers on-air. This is why there’s more syndicated programming instead of local. This is why some stations have gone away entirely - not a format flip, but the frequency itself going silent. This is one reason why so many of your favorite radio personalities have been dismissed or have left. It doesn’t help that rock music is dying. You can find terrestrial radio stations playing the same 25 rock songs from the 1970s onward, but for how much longer? There are no new superstar iconic rock bands and the existing bands are literally dying out, retiring, or only touring to play their old hits, since touring can pay, new recordings not as much.

When Howard Stern left for satellite radio, I didn’t care enough to pay up. I had plenty of other choices to listen to in the morning for free. From what I understand, Stern now only does his show a few days per week, the weeks he actually does it, and (as his former employee John Melendez put it), has turned into the kind of host he used to goof on. If I wanted the present-day Stern’s take on things, I only have to read the New York Times.

Dr. Laura, who loathes any comparison to Stern, also left terrestrial radio for satellite radio. Now her, I followed, but it’s clear many people didn’t. To this day, she gets callers who rediscovered her because of getting a new vehicle with a temporary subscription to SiriusXM. How many never rediscovered her? I didn’t get satellite radio. I’ve been paying for the podcast version of her program. I’ve been contemplating dropping it, though.

In what has to be humiliating, Dr. Laura is currently having trouble selling out a theater for two performances of… a lecture? I don’t know. It’s supposedly what she’s learned. Maybe more people would go if she was going to be candid about her journey from her first marriage, to the days she was with Bill Balance, to shacking up with an older married father and having a child with him, to embracing Orthodox Judaism and then dropping it, to getting to the point of what she now preaches. 

That she’s obviously had trouble getting enough people to buy tickets for her live appearance in the market that’s always been her home market is revealing, considering she used to have bestselling books and the number 2 or 3 national radio program. Combine that with her dropping from five days per week to four and still filling some of the time with unannounced recordings of previously aired calls, and I have to wonder if she really is going to refuse to retire and be allowed to continue.

Dennis Prager has also reduced his show. In addition to being away for listener trips and Jewish holidays, he’s often traveling or in meetings during his show’s hours. But he dropped from 3 to 2 hours. He claimed it was so he could finish writing projects, but I have to wonder if his employer (Salem) asked him to take a pay cut and that was part of the reason. I also pay for the podcast version of his show and I almost never listen to the guest hosts.

Saddest of all to witness is Michael Medved. His employer, Salem, stood by him when he needed time away to battle throat cancer. I’m so glad they did and so glad he beat that. But his rejection of Trump during the 2016 election appears to be when things started to unravel for him. He had been one of their national hosts, but he was dumped and replaced with Sebastian Gorka, who worked for Trump.

Finally, about the start of 2024, he was dumped by his home station. As of now, I don’t think there’s a radio station he’s on. I haven’t found one listed on his website. Instead, he has a podcast. I used to subscribe to the podcast version of his radio show, but I wasn’t getting enough out of it relative to the time needed to listen, so I couldn’t justify the expense.

At least Larry Elder is back on Salem programming after taking time off to “run for” Governor of California and then for the Republican nomination for President. I write that as “run for” because, while I like the Sage, he had to have known he wasn’t actually going to win, so his candidacies had to have been about something other than his winning those elections. That’s fine; many people run for various reasons. But I’m glad he’s back on free radio.

All of the above are in their 70s. How much longer will they be doing radio? Who will replace them? Yes, there are newer, younger hosts, but will those hosts ever have the same influence these others once had? Will they actually broadcast on free radio?

Almost as old as the hosts listed above is Tom Leykis. Except for the occasional interview or filling in for a day, he hasn’t been on radio since early 2009, so that’s one reason he’s last in this post. He ended his live, self-owned Internet stream in late 2018, doing a podcast since. Then, this year, he retired himself. Not only did he announce the end to his podcast, but he shut down his entire operation, removing his archive. He cites insurance concerns, meaning a fear of getting sued over something he said, but I think he doesn’t want the hassle or expense of maintaining an archive and handling customers.

This, too, shall pass.