I’ve listened to Michael Savage (born in 1942, true name: Michael Alan Weiner, now 71) on and off for a number of years. I used to listen to him broadcast on a local Sacramento station (KSTE) from his San Francisco-based studio at KSFO during PM drive.
I agreed wholeheartedly with his basic premise, which supported Borders, Language and Culture in the United States.
I believed he had a great Message. I also believed he was predominantly the wrong Messenger.
I thought that, as a Messenger, he mostly sucked. I tired quickly of his forced laughs, his abuse of callers for sometimes little reason and, mostly — because I was in radio myself — his abuse of his local radio staff to include his producer, his interns, the board operators. He had no relationship with his producers and support staff whatsoever. They were nothing to him. He denigrated them whenever they couldn’t yield whatever effect or cut or sound he demanded in seconds. He would call for music then demand it to be shut down. His producers and staff had no names. They were there to serve and serve only.
Limbaugh has a a relationship with Snerdley. Hewitt has a relationship with Generalissimo. Savage, like cats, simply had Staff. And apparently poor ones at that. Would I have worked for Savage, had I the current skills (as opposed to the remarkable skills I did possess in the analog age of the Production Room early 70s)? Hell no. I likely would have told him to go to Hell or given him a throat punch. I would have taken his shit once and then left. My guess: he went through producers like toilet paper. Which is the reason, I’m guessing, that his producers were faceless.
He was a small man — physically — in a position of power and it showed.
There was little in him that was spontaneous. His laughs were false, his umbrage was false, but his abuse of those immediately around him was true.
Some people liked him. Frankly, I tired of him quickly, and the callers who did their level best to suck up to him. In an absolutely unprecedented and naked way. Because if you didn’t defer to him, you were toast. He brooked little adversity.
That said, he didn’t acquire what he did via simpering and sniveling “consensus.” He took the radio format by its neck and thrashed it to the point where he was the Number 3 broadcaster in the nation by 2006.
Since 2009, Savage has been barred from entering the United Kingdom, for allegedly “seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred“.[11][12][13][14] Frankly, a bullshit claim by a weak nation immersed in politically correct pablum.
He left the general syndicated air in September of 2012 whilst in the throes of a lawsuit against his then-syndicator.
On May 2nd, he won his court case.
From WND.com:
In a ruling that is being compared to the case that led to free agency in baseball, a federal judge in California upheld an arbitration panel’s decision to release talk-radio host Michael Savage from a contract with his former syndicator, Talk Radio Network.
Savage’s lawyer, Dan Horowitz, called it a landmark case for talk radio.
“Michael is to talk radio what Curt Flood was to Major League Baseball,” Horowitz told WND, referring to the player who challenged baseball’s reserve clause, which kept a player bound to his team even after fulfillment of his contract.
Savage told WND the ruling “should free talent from the threats and extortionist behavior of ruthless Old-Hollywood types who can still be found in the corners of the radio industry.”
“For me, personally, it finalizes a struggle to perform for my audience in an atmosphere of freedom, not working on a ‘radio plantation,’” he said.
The federal court order is here.
WND writes:
Radio hosts, he (Dan Horowitz, attorney for Savage) explained, have been bound by restrictive clauses in their contracts that treat them like businesses instead of regular employees. The law, therefore, has allowed the networks to enforce non-compete agreements with radio hosts that would be illegal if applied to individual employees.
I say to Michael Savage: good for you. Frankly, I’m glad you won your suit. I won’t be listening to you any more, should you re-acquire terrestrial radio, because I immensely dislike you personally. But, as an adherent of the First Amendment, I will always support your ability to say what you will. And, as a cop, I will fight to the death for your ability to do so in my country, because I am an Oathkeeper.
I don’t have to like the Messenger. But, Michael Savage, I will absolutely support your Message.
BZ
P.S.
In the meantime, HD radio continues to fail:
From the Associated Press:
