Talking Radio

Guy James

It's been a good year and half for liberal talk radio. In March, 2004 there were no liberal talk stations and probably a dozen liberal talk hosts in the top 100 radio markets. Today the situation is much better.

1. AAR launched in April, 2004 and is now carried on 70 stations.
2. The Ed Schultz Show is now carried on 100 stations.
3. There are probably three or four dozen liberal local talk show hosts in the top 100 markets.

So a guess it was bittersweet when I learned that Guy James was dropped by WINK/WNOG in Naples, FL. Guy has been broadcasting on Saturday afternoons in this reddest of counties in a red state for about three years. He had been on WINK/WNOG for about a year.

I enjoyed listening to Guy who has that kind of Midwest sensibility that Ed Schultz only pretends to have. He is an excellent talk radio host who is extremely patient with callers including some real oddballs and of course frequent right wing wackos. Probably the best part of Guy’s of show is a segment called "Republican Love," where he reads letters that he receives from right wingers. Guy would read the letters with a sweet love song playing softly in background. At typical letter would go like this:

“You no good communist pinko. How dare you say bad things about President Bush. President Bush is a good Christian man and we should all support him. Liberals like you are going to Hell and I can't wait til you die because you are a traitor to this great country. I am going to call the station the demand that they take you off the air.”

Guy would always joke that he was still on the air after three years of complaints from the right wing listeners who weren't happy with the three hours a week of liberal talk programming that listeners had to endure on Saturday afternoon on a station that carried wall to wall right wing talk on the rest of its schedule. He said that station dropped his show because they could allegedly make more money running football games.

The good news is you can still listen to Guy James. His show is streamed on Saturdays from 3 pm to 6 pm. EST. You link up to the stream on Guys website http://www.theguyjamesshow.com/ I hope that Guy gets back on the air real soon. I’m going to really miss listening to Republican Love.