Radio personalities

Radio personality

A radio personality (also known as a radio host or a radio presenter) is a person with an on-air position in radio broadcasting. A radio personality can be someone who introduces and discusses various genres of music, hosts a talk show that may take calls from listeners, or someone whose primary responsibility is to give news, weather, sports or traffic information. Professional radio personalities don't usually stay at one station for their entire career; instead, they move up and on to stations within their broadcast area or those out of town. Being a radio personality is the second occupation that frequently moves, trailing behind the military personnel. For talk radio hosts, and many other kinds of radio personality, the highest achievement in radio is national syndication.

Radio personalities usually become better known in a community than personalities of other media outlets. Dan O'Day , who coined the phrase, "Personality Radio", attributes this to the intimacy of the medium. "At its best, radio is simply one person whispering into the ear of another person." More radio personalities are sought to make personal appearances at local functions and commercial venues than those from other media, according to Ad Age Magazine.

Sometimes frequent callers to talk radio programs become radio personalities by default due to multiple exposure to a specific audience. Some of those callers known in the industry as "chronics", such as Lionel, are so good that station management offers them their own show.

In the 1990s, with the rise of talk-oriented radio personalities like Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh, successful radio stations began to focus less on the musical expertise of their hosts and more on the individual hosts' personalities. Since the term disk jockey has also become commonly used to refer to a club DJ, the term "radio personality" has become more appropriate for hosts of radio shows.

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List of ESPN Radio personalities

Here is a list of all the former and current ESPN Radio personalities.

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List of Canadian radio personalities

This is a list of Canadian radio personalities.

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John Otto (radio personality)

John Otto (1929 - 1999) was a radio talk show host in Buffalo, New York. He began his broadcasting career in the 1940s, and hosted programming at three Buffalo radio stations; WBNY 1400 AM (which has since changed call signs), WGR, and WWKB. He began his radio career at the age of 19 at WBNY. He spent most of his radio career doing an evening listener call in show branded Extension 55 at WGR. When WKBW (now WWKB), switched from music to talk he moved to that station doing the same show rebranded as Night Call. Within two years the station made another format change which did not include his show. After several months off the air; he returned to WGR. He never retired. When his health deteriorated to the point he was unable to get to the WGR studio; he did his 10pm to 1am listener call in show from his home until days before his death. He was inducted into the Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers' Hall of Fame in 1998. He died December 6, 1999 at the age of 70 in Buffalo, New York of emphysema.

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Mike Stone (radio personality)

Michael "Mike" Stone, (born 1958 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is the former host of the Stoney and Wojo radio show on WDFN in Detroit, Michigan. The show had been a consistent ratings leader for years in the Detroit afternoon drive time slot until it was canceled on January 20, 2009. Stone also appears weekly on WXYZ-TV's Sunday night sports newscast to offer his editorial opinion on the latest sports issues.

Stone began his sports journalism career as a television producer for The George Michael Sports Machine in Washington, D.C.. He attended American University and worked at WRC-TV for George Michael after graduating. He came to Detroit to work as the sports producer for WDIV-TV. He is the longest working broadcaster at WDFN, being an original on-air personality of WDFN when it changed its format to all sports on July 11, 1994. He first worked with Detroit News reporter Rob Parker. Since the late 1990s, he has partnered with Detroit News columnist Bob Wojnowski. Prior to joining WDFN, Stone worked with Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom on The Sunday Sports Albom, Albom's sports talk radio show which at that time was being broadcast on WLLZ, a now defunct Detroit FM rock station.

Stone has developed a distinctive, entertaining and knowledgeable on-air presence that has come to represent WDFN and the Detroit sports market. He often appears on national media outlets to discuss Detroit sports events, such as the Pacers–Pistons brawl. He has been a guest several times on the nationally syndicated Jim Rome Show. Additionally, on July 13, 2007 Stoney and Wojo filled in as hosts for Rome's show. Personally, Stone is Jewish and married to Cindi, an occupational therapist, and has twin daughters. They live in West Bloomfield, Michigan. He is a dedicated Bruce Springsteen fan, even taking days off to see Springsteen in nearby cities. He has a reputation for being occasionally careless. In 2006, for example, he gave out his real (eerily similar) cell phone number over the air instead of the station's call-in line, resulting in many listeners calling his phone; some of the messages he played on the air after he was forced to get a new number.

Stone is a longtime active member of the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association, founded in 1948 by pioneer Tigers announcer Ty Tyson.

The Stoney and Wojo show was a three hour radio broadcast that included listener call-in segments, regular guests, and current affairs talk slanted towards the Detroit and Michigan sports fan. The tone of Stoney and Wojo was light-hearted, with Stone playing straight man to Wojo's more clownish comments. The heart of the show was sports and the breaking news of the Detroit sports market was paramount. Included were interviews, where the professional journalism strengths of both Stone and Wojnowski come to the fore. Occasionally, political news was featured: Governor Jennifer Granholm appeared several times, for example. Stoney and Wojo conducted an annual 28 hour radiothon in support of research for a cure of leukemia and lymphoma. The event was started when Sabrina Black, WDFN update reporter, was diagnosed with lymphoma, and continued after her long battle with the disease lead to her passing in 2006. It was typically held in a Metro Detroit restaurant and includes many regular guest appearances including Tony Dungy and Joe Dumars, among many others.

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Brendan Jones (radio personality)

Brendan Jones (born 3rd April 1968) is an Canadan radio presenter, and media personality.

Jones began working in radio on the community radio station 2BCR Bankstown for six months. In 1990 he scored a night job at 6KA Karratha, followed by mornings and afternoons at 2NM Muswellbrook and then afternoons at i98FM Wollongong. His biggest hosting gigs have been late nights on B105 Brisbane, afternoons with 4MMM Brisbane and 2MMM Sydney afternoons and then mornings. He also hosted a national countdown show called Planet Rock.

Jones is currently presenting morning radio on WSFM 101.7, with Amanda Keller.

Jones makes a regular appearance on the daytime television chat show Mornings with Kerri-Anne and hosts a show called "Off the record" on the World Movies channel. He has also appeared on the game show Joker Poker and the popular culture show 20 to 1. Jones had a supporting role in the comedy series Swift and Shift Couriers.

Jones writes a monthly column for Live to Ride magazine.

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Greg Williams (radio personality)

Greg Williams is a radio personality from Texas In the early 1990s Williams hosted a public access television show called Sports Perspective.

Greg, believing in The Ticket's mantra of "pulling back the curtain" (where other outlets might hide such information), disclosed on the airwaves the problems he had faced and described in detail the experience of in-patient rehabilitation.

At the end of February 2006, Williams disappeared from the airwaves a second time for unknown reasons but returned later in the month. On October 12, 2007, Williams was late for a live remote that the Hardline was doing that day, did one on-air segment before disappearing for a third time, again for unknown reasons at the time. In a July 2008 Dallas Observer article by Richie Whitt, Williams admitted that program director Jeff Catlin ordered him to take an immediate drug test which Williams admits he couldn't pass.

On December 20th KTCK was sent a "Cease and Desist" letter from Williams' attorneys preventing the station from referencing the former co-worker in any way by name or by on-air drops . On January 10, 2008 KTCK announced that Greg Williams had resigned from the The Ticket.

On May 19, 2008, Williams announced that he had been officially diagnosed with depression and is currently taking prescription drugs to fight it.

An article posted by The Dallas Observer authored by Richie Whitt and titled "The Hard Lie" exposes the behind the scenes happenings during the last days of Williams at the Ticket.

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Lars Christiansen (radio personality)

Lars Christiansen is an American radio personality. Christiansen hosts afternoons on AM1050 WLIP and evenings on 95 WIIL ROCK, both Next Media Chicago properties. Prior to his career in radio, Christiansen was a club musician in the Chicago area and still plays one-off shows from time to time.

After graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997, Christiansen worked briefly as a radio producer and on-air contributor at AM1000 in Chicago for Steve Cochran and Kevin Matthews. Christiansen then worked as a disc jockey and promotions director for 106.7 the Fox in Decatur, Illinois, leaving in 2001 to work at 95 WIIL ROCK where he has since appeared during every daypart. In August 2006, he signed on as anchor of the AM1050 WLIP afternoon news program while continuing with evenings on 95 WIIL ROCK.

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