Why isn't Mike Malloy on the radio?

[Room101]

I love this guy I once called in also. He just said we should get out the pitchforks. LOL

There has to be an audience for Mike, what’s the deal?

[arcane1]

1. he's a liberal with a microphone

and that makes him dangerous

[tridim]

2. I've always said he'd be #1

on the radio if the powers that be only gave him a chance. Maybe when Franken's network happens he'll finally get the exposure he deserves.

[whirlygigspin]

4. A brief history of radio

and why Malloy is not on air

"Modern talk radio as a major force in America started in 1926, when Catholic priest Father Charles E. Coughlin took to the airwaves. By the mid-1930s, as many as a full third of the entire nation - an estimated 45 million people - listened to his weekly broadcasts. His downfall, and the end of the 15-year era of talk radio he'd both created and dominated, came in the early 1940s when the nation was at war and Hitler was shipping millions of Jews to the death camps. For reasons still unknown (Alzheimer's is suspected), Coughlin launched into hard-right anti-Semitic tirades in his broadcasts, blaming an international Jewish conspiracy for communism, the Great Depression, World War II, and most of the world's other ills. His sudden shift to the radical right disgusted his listeners, and led his superiors in the Catholic Church to demand he retire from radio and return to his parish duties where he died in relative obscurity. Many say the Fairness Doctrine came about in part because of Coughlin."

read the full article here
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1203-08.htm

Thom Hartmann is the author of "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights" - www.unequalprotection.com and www.thomhartmann.com .

[newyawker99]

11. Congrats whirlygigspin!! 600 posts

[ronzo]

3. Hey, here's a question... why was he fired in Chicago?

He often refers to his job on ??? WLS?
What did he say to get shitcanned? Anyone?

[chascarrillo]

5. Was on WLS and on WSB twice

There was some manufactured reason that he got canned from WLS. He was the evening host on WSB in the late 80s and again in the mid 90s.

[Syrinx]

6. I was reading some old usenet posts about him recently

And some of the people said that in Chicago he was too low-key and boring. It seems he has certainly "reinvented" himself since those days!

[Jim Sagle]

8. Whoever said that was lying.

MIke was low key for his very first week of a three-year stint at WLS. Then the lid blew off, and stayed off.

When you are in the presence of anyone who would say he was boring, know that you are in the company of a psychopathic liar - someone whose relationship to the truth is that of Ted Bundy to a college coed.

[Syrinx]

9. here's a thread...

Probably mostly wingnuts.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe...

[linazelle]

10. I'm from Chicago--Mike Malloy rocked

I used to look forward to his Friday shows especially when he'd put aside a free-for-all hour called Bughouse Square. All kinds of nuts would call in and they'd get their 15 seconds no matter what they had to say.

Then he just disappeared suddenly. I had no idea how to find out what happened to him several years ago and was delighted to see him on the web.

But the station he worked for, WLS, has deteriorated in the past five years to nothing more than a CON megaphone. I listened to WLS starting with the OJ trial and that's when I found Malloy and Ski and Skinner. Then they booted Malloy several years later and Ski and Skinner were put on weekends from 11 to 3. Then they cut their weekends to Sunday only from 12 to 3. Then they fired Nancy and two weeks ago they fired Skinner ten minutes before the end of his Sunday show.

So when you ask why the fired Malloy, you can see that it takes very little for them when a host is liberal. These were the best shows in their lineup and they dumped them so they could CON all the people all the time.

[Jim Sagle]

7. Basically they just didn't like his approach.

They said he was "too dark" and they were going in a different direction.

And he WAS dark, but only as dark as the times.

During the impeachment mania, he was a rare voice of militant resistance, referring to Ken Starr, Paula Jones, Henry Hyde et al as "roaches" and "treasonous" and "traitorous." Occasionally his composure came close to cracking as his voice veered off almost into Vincent Price-like hysteria - quite justifiably, IMO.

For his time slot (8-11 Central time) his ratings were second best in the entire Chicago area. It wasn't enough to save him.