Steve Malzberg has been in New York radio for about 30 years. He was doing well at WOR and syndicated by WOR Radio Network – shortly after Rick Buckley died (the owner of WOR), Malzberg was out the door with the bum’s rush – replaced locally by former accidental NY Governor David Patterson (did you know he is black and partially blind?) and replaced on the WOR network by Fox’s Rita Cosby.
Steve recently popped up talking to Curtis Sliwa on Salem Radio’s “Big Apple” station (WNYM-AM) in New York.
http://www.malzbergtalk.com/site/2011/10/10/listen-to-steve-and-curtis-sliwa-on-the-apple-am-970/
The interview is definitely worth listening to if you know who Malzberg is (or Curtis Sliwa)
If I was radio match maker, I would put Malzberg together with Salem Radio in national syndication. Salem’s lineup is getting really stale and drawing minimal ratings. Malzberg has national recognition already and his politics and religion are compatible with that network.
Dennis Prager has the weakest show on Salem, although I wouldn’t be unhappy to see him replace Hugh Hewitt or Michael Medved – or be in the 9pm-midnight period as a new show (that would displace a lot of Savage affiliates).
Salem also needs to be thinking about succession planning for Bill Bennett. Bennett is by far the oldest person doing national syndication (he’s 79). It’s time to think about turning things over to the next generation.
Is Bill Bennett older than Barry Farber?
I don’t know if Farber was ever syndicated, but I suspect he is a little older.
Farber is older – he is currently syndicated but only for 1 hour a week on Talk Radio Network. It’s carried on maybe half a dozen stations that stream
http://streamingradioguide.com/radio-show.php?showid=2857
Much of the time, the show is preempted by sports (surprise!)
For about the last year, he seems to have a female “minder” with him who constrains what he says. I’m not sure if that is TRN’s doing. I suspect he is in declining health and may be doing the show from some sort of medical care facility. His mind and memory is as sharp as ever, but for how much longer, it’s hard to know.
I thought about mentioning him in the post, but figured 1) almost nobody knows who he is 2) He has a negligible audience and 3) People on the internet enjoy pointing out the exceptions to a general statement and I’m herer to make people happy
Art,
I simply pointed out the man who I think of as introducing me to talk radio. No motive other than that. I wasn’t meaning to point anything out – in fact, I am impressed that you also know of Barry. I suspect most don’t.
The fact that I lived in North Carolina from 1970-1981 might explain why I know of him. He appeared on local TV there doing a daily commentary. He’s one of the few people in radio who refuses to cave to the race thought police. He has this annoying habit of actually remembering history and who it was that opposing the civil rights movement and running the Jim Crow South….
It didn’t sound right to me that Bill Bennett was 79, so I looked it up. He was born in July, 1943, which makes him 68. G. Gordon Liddy is 80 and is still working.
Thank you for the correction. I pulled the factoid from my “The Aging of Radio” post, which I gathered from Wikipedia. I was looking at the wrong Bill Bennett – there was a Canadian politician named Bill Bennett
You’re correct that G Gordon Liddy is older. He’s streamed live on 3 radio stations in tiny markets, which means he probably has less than 10 affiliates. For the past week, his show was #58 most active – he fell below the top 50, which is all I considered for the list. He’s said he intends to work until the day he dies, and I believe that – which is the point. The old men in radio are going to kill it off for the next generation by not retiring and getting out of the way. It may already be too late.