People believe the three easiest things in the world to do are grow a garden, tend bar and do a radio show. From experience at least two of them are very difficult. I never tried to grow a garden.
As a country we have come through one of the most amazing three month long periods in my lifetime as a radio talk show host, disc jockey/traffic reporter, major TV star.
Our business, the one I love so much, talk radio is about to go through the same thing that happened to Top 40 Radio in the late 1950s during what was dubbed “The Scandals.” It focused on payola, also known as pay-to-play. My mentors in this business were all what we now know as “radio guys.” They made their bones as young, almost teenagers playing top 40 radio, reading the news, doing all nights, working Christmas mornings and being in love with the business.
Talk radio’s advent begins principally with the king of talk, Rush Limbaugh. What always made Rush so incredibly successful is he is a radio guy. He jocked on the air as a guy named Jeff Christie. And notice, if you would, in all these threatened and moving along lawsuits and damage that’s being done Limbaugh’s name never comes up. He knows the line. Rush Limbaugh, with my great respect, is a radio guy.
Now we begin an era of oh, you used to be…. And now you can be a talk show host. Most of these on-airs have alternative ways to make money, alternative careers and income streams. My income comes from doing radio. When we went through the payola scandals in the ’50s lives were ruined, careers were wrecked. We’re heading into it again.
The Democrats will now control the House, the Senate, the Executive Branch. There will be a new Department of Justice and the evil empire, the Federal Communications Commission.
These people have been gunning for talk radio since Limbaugh dismantled the Clinton Administration, parody music, being syndicated clearly planted the ball in deep center field with a home run for radio.
That’s about to come to an end. We have been through this before and tragically we will go through it again. And it literally breaks my heart on this end of my illustrious career. Old five-and-dimers like me always knew the line and now I hear across the country the clarion call — bring it, as though they want to be sued. I’ve been sued three times including one time where I was told when it came back to Jefferson County and the Ramsey story, to pack a bag. All of you who have never been through it across the country, who smile and say bring it, get ready because they are going to do it. Fox News is running backwards, Newsmax is running backwards. People are shutting people off of the air now. The mask has been pulled off Sydney Powell, Lin Wood and America’s Mayor Rudy.
We’ll be damaged by this. There are already many Democrats in Congress who want more control over what we do. The First Amendment and the Second Amendment are in play. To paraphrase what Lenin once said, they will sell us the rope and hang us with it. Well, a lot of talk radio sold a lot of rope. We have been through Father Coughlin. We’ve been through Alan Freed. We’ve been through Alan Berg and now we sit here.
I don’t pretend to know the future but I sure as hell can read the past. I would never silence anybody’s voice but unless you’re a total stooge, the First Amendment has its limits. You can’t pull people into the public spotlight and then tell lies about them and then destroy their companies and force them into hiding. You can’t use the public airwaves to do those things without consequences. This is a statement of my fear of what’s going to happen to a business that’s been so wonderful to me. And to my family and to so many other people, a bunch of rookies are going to wreck it. There was a Cromwellian cry in Parliament and the voice s said, “In the name of God, just go.”
P.S. I hope I’m 100% wrong about everything I wrote in this column today. Thanks for reading.
— Peter Boyles
