Boortz recounts details of being on in Pittsburgh

Tom Taylor on Radio has a story today about Neal Boortz who was recently inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame. Boortz was speaking at the Talk Show Boot Camp lunch where he received the first Andrew Ashwood award. In his speech, he said “It’s a great relief to just say every now and then, ‘Go screw yourself, you sick bastard'” – which of course would be dumped by the producer and the caller, in the meantime, wouldn’t have a clue that he was NOT being blasted on the air, goes off and tells his friends and there’s instant advertising for the program. He also advised that when a caller disagrees with the host, that’s when you charm them and the host would be surprised at the result.

But what is of particular interest in this blurb is the “inside story” about what happened when Clear Channel put his show on WPGB-FM (104.7) after flipping it to talk in 2004 and how he started beating Rush Limbaugh – then on KDKA-AM 1020 in the same time slot. The result, Clear Channel served CBS’ KDKA with a 90-day notice and put Rush (who is syndicated by CC’s syndication arm) on WPGB. Apparently Boortz still can’t understand why he was not picked up by KDKA at that time. In fact, we seem to recall that he was picked up and aired in tape-delay on WPTT (1360).

Hmmm…