gomzob said:
I've always found it so funny how people in the radio business are jealous of people that are successful. Gerry House,Carl P Mayfield,Phil Valentine...just because they've been successful at what they do is no reason
to dis them. Anyone who is on the air should care about turning on the listener...not an out of work jock.
I hate to jump in on this almost a month late, but...I'm a little angry at the moment.
Gerry House? Carl P. Mayfield?? WHAT??? To mention Phil Valentine in the same sentence as these radio legends is an insult of the greatest magnitude. Phil Valentine is an ignorant blowhard -- and not just to the extent that any talk radio host (or maybe any radio person -- myself included) is an ignorant blowhard.
I believe that there will be a special place in hell for people whose key argument against topics like gay marriage is "I don't have anything against gay people...but if you let them get married...what's next? Three men? Two women and a man? A man and a dog?" Or these classics (from his website): "Mikhail Gorbechev wins the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. Al Gore wins in 2007. Their names both start with 'Gor.' Coincidence?" and "AIDS has a cure. It's called abstinence." WOW.
Maybe he has learned how to make a logical argument in the last five years since I've been away from Nashville...but I suspect that he's still parroting the same freshman-level conservative viewpoints (and not that there's anything wrong with that!) he was back in the late 90's - early 00's afternoons on WLAC.
I've listened to AM talk radio since I was a little kid...and I am hard pressed to think of a local host in a half-dozen states and twice as many markets (small, medium, large, and major) that likes hearing his own voice more (and yet having precious little to say) as Phil Valentine.
I'm in radio -- not talk -- and completely happy with my level of success at this point in my career. But from a purely objective standpoint, Phil's greatest (maybe only?) talent is being able to make the phones ring. And that's important. But to me, doing so at the expense of making well-thought out (and well-communicated) explanations and arguments sells talk radio as a format, short. Please understand: I am a huge fan of everyone from Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, to Mike Molloy and Jay Marvin -- but Valentine makes Sean Hannity look like a Rhodes Scholar. And at least Hannity comes off as somewhat likable!
It's a tougher decision than it might seem...but if I'm forced to pick the worst talk host in all of America, it's between him and Michael Savage. It's a tie, for the most part...even though Savage's screaming rants make me shudder in unadulterated fear, it's more entertaining in a sick way...so...you lose again, Phil.
I wish him no harm or ill will...but...I can't say it wouldn't make me smile just a little bit if one of his sons grows up to be a liberal pacifist pot-smoking environmentalist tax collector with an illegal alien boyfriend.
P.S. -- The Westwood One website lists exactly 18 affiliates.