BOB GRANT (RADIO)

'Bob Grant' (born 'Robert Ciro Gigante' on March 14, 1929 is an American radio personality, who has broadcast mostly from New York City stations and who has been widely credited as a pioneer of the "angry" or "controversial" talk radio show format. [1] [2]

Contents

Career

Characteristics of Grant's radio shows

Influence and legacy

References

External links

Career

Bob Grant graduated from the University of Illinois. He began working in radio in the 1940s at the news department at WBBM in Chicago, as a radio personality and television talk show host at KNX in Los Angeles, and as an actor. He later became sports director at KABC in Los Angeles, where after some substitute appearances he inherited the talk show of early controversialist Joe Pyne in 1964 and began to build a following.
Grant came to New York in 1970, where he hosted a talk show on WMCA as the "house conservative", distinctively out of fashion with both the times and with some countercultural WMCA personalities, including Alex Bennett. His offbeat but (to some endearingly) combative style (along with Fairness Doctrine requirements of the era) won him seven years on WMCA, with a growing and loyal audience.
After leaving WMCA, Grant went up the dial to New York's WOR for a time, after which he worked at WWDB in Philadelphia.
After returning to New York in 1984 to join talk radio powerhouse WABC, ''The Bob Grant Show'' consistently dominated the ratings in the highly competitive afternoon drive time slot in New York City. Reminding listeners during the daily introduction that the "program was unscripted and unrehearsed", the gravelly-voiced Grant offered a mix of insight, opinion and controversy and historical fact.
Grant was known for on-air attacks on public officials including New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman and New York Governor Mario Cuomo. Critics charged that Grant was an inflammatory racist, pointing out Grant's statements (in disputed contexts) describing African Americans "savages" and former New York Mayor David Dinkins as "the men's room attendant at the 21 Club." (This appellation was made while Grant was reading the ''New York Post'' on-air and saw a picture of a white dinner jacket clad Dinkins at a summer soiree on the gossip-oriented Page Six; Grant was famous for sharing his immediate first impressions over the airwaves). Grant was occasionally admonished or suspended for short periods by station management, typically with a bluster of controversial, but possibly welcome, publicity.
Grant's political philosophy generally followed American conservatism, but with some lurches into populism, libertarianism, conspiracy theory, and unorthodoxy (such as being pro-choice and anti-Flag Desecration Amendment). As a resident of Manalapan, New Jersey in the mid-1990s, he considered running for statewide office, but eventually decided against it.
Grant's long stay at WABC ended when he was fired for a remark about the April 3, 1996 airplane crash involving Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. Grant remarked to caller Carl Limbacher, "My hunch is [Brown] is the one survivor. I just have that hunch. Maybe it's because at heart I'm a pessimist." When Brown was found dead, many regarded Grant's comments as insensitive and his contract was terminated.[3]
After being fired, Grant moved down the dial to WOR to host the same type of show in the same time slot, where he would occasionally criticize his WABC replacement Sean Hannity. In the late 1990s his show went into national syndication, in the manner of Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh and other successful talkers, but few stations picked it up and it reverted to a local show. Grant's age began to show as he found it harder to gear up his rants, sometimes seeming disinterested in engaging callers. After being number one in the ratings in his former time slot at WABC, he was now regularly bested by Hannity.
Grant's WOR run ended on January 13, 2006. Grant's ratings were not to blame for his departure, according to the ''New York Post'', which mentioned that the decision was reached because the station's other shows had niche audiences to garner more advertising dollars [4].
Having left his options open for "an offer he cannot refuse," Bob Grant returned to WOR in February 2006 doing one minute "Straight Ahead" commentaries, airing twice daily after news broadcasts until September 2006. Grant then made various isolated radio appearances. He appeared as a guest host on WFNY (now WXRK) in December, 2006. Grant appeared a couple of times on Sean Hannity's show on WABC.[5][6]
His guest appearances became more frequent beginning in July 2007. On July 7, 2007 he guest hosted for John R. Gambling, and appeared on Mark Levin's show (which is flagshipped from WABC) on July 10. Grant, guest hosted for Jerry Agar on July 9, 10, 11 and re-appeared as a fill-in host again for John Gambling on August 20 and 21. Then, on August 22, while appearing on Hannity's show, he unexpectedly announced that he was returning as a regular host to WABC, in the 8-10 PM slot that at the time was filled by Agar. It would later be revealed, on what was Agar's final show a few hours later, that he would be starting effective immediately, as Grant took over the final segments of the show. His first full show on ABC since 1996 was on Thursday, August 23. The story of Grant's return, as reported by the New York Daily News, had been discovered only a couple of hours before Grant's official announcement.

Characteristics of Grant's radio shows

Grant was known for using a number of catchphrases on his show, such as "You're a fake, a phony, and a fraud!", "Straight ahead", "Get off my phone!", and his closing line, "Your influence counts ... ''use it!''" His opening line was used as the title of his 1996 book, ''Let's Be Heard'', a title representing an abbreviated version of his original opener, "And let's be heard! Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen, and welcome to another hour of the free and open exchange of ideas and opinions in the belief that as American citizens you have the right to hear, and to be heard." Before his daily monologue, Grant would ask the rhetorical question, "And what's on your mind today, hmmm?", and would sometimes call women "chickie-poos". During his WMCA years, Grant often ended his show with a blustery "Get Khadafi." On the WOR show, Grant often closed his show with the phrase, "Someone's got to say these things, it ''has'' to be me!"
Grant was known for assigning derogatory names to public officials he disliked, such as Jim "Flim-Flam" Florio, Frank "Lousenberg," Liz "Hatchet-Face, the Face-That-Could-Stop-a-Runaway-Train" Holzmann, Jimmy "I'll-Never-Lie-To-You" Carter, Dave "The men's room attendant-at-the-21-Club" Dinkins, Ted "The Swimmer" Kennedy, Al "Sharpie" Sharpton, and "Jessie Jerkson (or "Jessie Jackal")". During the infamous Tawana Brawley case, Grant referred to Brawley's advisors Alton Maddux, C. Vernon Mason, and Al Sharpton as "Moe, Larry, and Fatso." As an Italian American, Grant also used several Italian quasi-obscene phrases for those he disliked, such as calling Mario Cuomo "the Sfachim" or "il Supremo". It is quite a credit to his powerful influence that both Florio and Cuomo cited Grant's merciless attacks as being instrumental in costing them gubernatorial reelections. During the 1988 presidential campaign, he referred to Democractic candidate Michael Dukakis as "Du-cagasotto" (an Italian obscenity meaning a fearful or timid person).
About society, he would remark "It's sick out there, and getting sicker," he would intone, or "We are sliding down a slippery slope, and there's no climbing back up." Callers he disliked were not spared either, as Grant would sometimes invite them to his studio, remarking, "...so I could punch your dumb nose right down your dumb throat!" He would dryly suggest to others, "Why don't you go gargle with a cup of razor blades?"
A typical exchange with a caller:
Grant: "Where are you from, Pal?"
Caller:"Brooklyn, Bob," in a heavy accent.
Grant: "No, I mean before you came to my country. Where were you born?"
Caller:"I was born here in Brooklyn, Bob," accent just as pronounced.
Grant: "Yeah, right, get off my phone, you creep!"
Also:
Grant: "Say, do you know what time it is?"
Caller: "It's about 3:30."
Grant: "I just wanted to make sure you were going to have enough time to go downtown to pick up your welfare check. Get off my phone!"
Listeners tuned into the show not only to hear Grant, but to hear unique callers that Grant would attract: Carl from Oyster Bay (who emerged from the radio audience to become Carl Limbacher of NewsMax), John of Staten Island, George the Atheist, Cheryl of Spotswood, Jimmy of Brooklyn, Alex of White Plains, Sal from Queens, Dorothy of Montclair, David of Irvington (and later of Newark), Eugene of Albany, Steve of Manhattan, Bernie of the Bronx, Michael of Manhattan, Hilly of Jamaica, and Tom in the Bronx. Most renowned of all was "Vintage" Frank of Queens], whom some have labelled the "greatest caller ever in talk radio" - his quick, splenetic screeds were typified by remarks such as, "Did you see the picture of those two quasi-humanoid mutants they arrested down there, Bob Grant? That's 450 pounds of food stamps for ya!" [7]
Grant occasionally made on-air reference to an ethereal Beatrice-like presence à la Dante's Paradiso section in ''The Divine Comedy'', "The Lady Josephine", to whom he constantly paid fawning obeisance. Never did he refer to her as his "wife" or "girlfriend". Listeners were mystified as to his relationship with her. Were (are) the two married? Cohabiting? Grant was never specific. His son, Jeff Grant, a traffic reporter with a different station, would call in occasionally. Grant made frequent references to the REO Diner in Woodbridge, New Jersey, his regular haunt.
When once asked by the caller George the Atheist whether he believed in God, Grant replied, "What if I tell you, George, that sometimes I do and sometimes I don't?" The issue was never pursued. On his July 21, 2005 broadcast, Grant, a baptized and raised Roman Catholic, unequivocally stated to the same caller his opinion on the Second Coming of Jesus: "He's not coming back. Look, I don't believe he's coming back. I think that's a myth and I say it. I don't trumpet it but if a person asks - and you know one thing for sure, I've been deadly honest, dead-on honest all the time I've been on the air talking to people and they ask me questions or they make a comment that elicits a response, they are going to get an honest response. It may always not be 'correct' but it's honest". For longtime listeners, this candid theological exchange was among the more memorable of Grant's entire career — a career known mostly for candor, frankness and heated passion over issues political and social, not theological.
Grant was known for decades for taking-on all callers without reference to previous on-air topics: "Anything and everything is grist for our ever-turning mill," he would intone. In his current tenure at WABC radio, due to his advanced age of 78, his callers are heavily screened for "a propos" topics.

Influence and legacy

Over the years, New York radio talk personality Howard Stern has often cited Grant as an early influence, although Stern has frequently criticized him for changing his act to appease management. Grant has related being at a public appearance by Ben Stern, his teenage son Howard in tow. Ben told Grant of Howard's desire to go into radio. "I looked at this big, gawky kid and I said to him, 'Just be yourself,'" Grant recalled. Soon after Grant's firing from WABC, and before his first WOR show, Grant was a guest caller on Stern's radio show.
Glenn Beck now uses the catchphrase "Get off my phone!" as a homage to Grant, as do Tom Scharpling and Mark Levin; similarly, Sean Hannity sometimes uses Grant's phrase "Straight ahead." Levin has also picked up Grant's tradition of nasty-naming public officials. Grant's general angry-to-resigned-to-humorous tone changes and idiosyncratic political beliefs has obviously influenced New York bred commentator Michael Savage.
In 2002, industry magazine ''Talkers'' ranked Grant as the 16th greatest radio talk show host of all time. [8]
On March 28th, 2007 Bob Grant was nominated for induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame. [9]

References

★ Howard Stern: King of All Media, , Paul D., Colford, , 1997,

★ Let's Be Heard, , Bob, Grant, Pocket Books, 1996,

External links

★ WABC 770AM bio & links - WABC Personality Page

★ Grant's Return to WABC - New York Daily News article, August 22, 2007

★ Bob Grant Entry - About.com

★ WOR 710AM bio - archive entry from WebArchive.org

★ FAIR page on Bob Grant - from Fair.org

★ FAIR archive of Grant quotes - from Fair.org

★ Bob Grant Group on myspace myspace.com