Very true, but I don't see any successors to Henry Boggan on the horizon. I guess the closest we come to that on WBT these days is Hancock.
An observation: The personalities we view as having the most "integrity" on the WBT of the past were not doing talk shows. They usually followed the rule..."If it's important, say it, then shut up and play some music." I've never done a talk show (unless you want to consider a "trading post" in this genre), but it seems to me that to fill the time that a disc jockey spends playing records, a talk show host has to spout a LOT of things that are less than of prime importance.
Therefore, to maintain listener interest in the absence of music, most talk show hosts steer their discussions toward the sensual, the political or the scandalous. Going in any of these directions does not bode well for one's integrity. Boggan was a master at keeping an audience without drifting toward any of those areas, and because of that, most long-time WBT listeners hold him in the highest esteem.
When one analyzes the others on WBT who are most viewed with the same esteem, NONE of them did their entire show as a talk show.
Ty Boyd refuses to do a talk show. These days, it doesn't pay well enough for him, and he is a self-confessed "monologist". In his terms, a successful talk show host is a "dialogist", and can conduct a meaningful two-way conversation on the air.
H. A. Thompson attempted to do a full talk show, but aside from his occasional fill-ins for Henry Boggan, he was unsuccessful, mostly because he tried to do talk in the same way he used to mix phone conversations into his music shows. In those days, he largely allowed his callers to determine the direction in which things went, and he lacked the skills to direct a program where it was necessary to control its direction without offending people. What I remember about his shows on the old WCNT and when he returned for weekends on WBT was, in a word, boring.
Mike Collins was somewhat similar in his approach to talk shows, and for that reason the combination of him and Henry Boggan in the afternoons worked well. However, his current incarnation, Charlotte Talks on WFAE, Mike seems not to be able to carry on a meaningful conversation without a guest interview, and the personality approach which he was known for on WBT seems to be severely limited.
Talk is an EXTREMELY hard thing to do correctly, and we are not likely to see it at its best for some time to come.
Later...
Matt Smith
WGSR-TV
