Editing Talk radio (section)

===History===
Expressing and debating political opinions has been a staple of radio since the medium's infancy. [[Aimee Semple McPherson]] began her radio broadcasts in the early 1920s and even purchased her station, [[KFSG]] which went on the air in February 1924; by the mid-1930s, controversial radio priest Father [[Charles Coughlin]]'s radio broadcasts were reaching millions per week. There was also a national current events forum called [[America's Town Meeting of the Air]] which broadcast once a week starting in 1935. It featured panel discussions from some of the biggest newsmakers and was among the first shows to allow audience participation: members of the studio audience could question the guests or even heckle them.<ref>Tona J. Hangen, ''Redeeming the dial: radio, religion, & popular culture in America'' (2002).</ref>

Talk radio as a listener-participation format has existed since the 1930s. John J. Anthony (1902–1970) was an announcer and DJ on New York's WMRJ. It was located in the Merrick Radio Store at 12 New York Boulevard in Jamaica, Long Island. After some marital troubles, refusing to pay alimony and child support, he sought professional help and began his  radio series where listeners would call in with their problems in 1930. Radio historians consider this the first instance of talk radio.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://knowotr.blogspot.com/2008/09/john-j-anthony-1902-70.html|title=Know Old Time Radio: John J. Anthony (1902–70)|last=Loyaltubist|date=1 September 2008|access-date=13 February 2017}}</ref>

While working for New York's [[WMCA (AM)|WMCA]] in 1945, [[Barry Gray (radio)|Barry Gray]] was bored with playing music and put a telephone receiver up to his microphone to talk with bandleader [[Woody Herman]]. This was soon followed by listener call-ins and Gray is often billed as "the hot mama of talk radio". [[Herb Jepko]] was another pioneer.<ref>Miles Romney, "The Voice in the Night Unheard by Scholars: Herb Jepko and the Genesis of National Talk Radio." ''Journal of Radio & Audio Media'' 21.2 (2014): 272–289.</ref>

Author Bill Cherry proposed George Roy Clough as the first to invite listeners to argue politics on a call-in radio show at KLUF, his station in Galveston, Texas, as a way to bring his  political views into listeners' homes. (He later became [[Free State of Galveston|Mayor of Galveston]]). Cherry gives no specific date, but the context of events and history of the station would seem to place it also in the 1940s, perhaps earlier. The format was the classic mode in which the announcer gave the topic for that day, and listeners called in to debate the issue.<ref>{{cite web|first=Bill|last=Cherry|url=http://www.texasescapes.com/BillCherry/George-Roy-Clough-Invents-Call-in-Radio.htm|title=George Roy Clough Invents Call-in Radio|publisher=TexasEscapes.com|access-date=2008-11-24}}</ref>

In 1948, Alan Courtney – New York disk jockey and co-composer of the popular song "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio" – began a call-in program for the Storer station in Miami, Florida (WGBS) and then on Miami's WQAM, WINZ and WCKR. The "Alan Courtney Open Phone Forum" flourished as an avowedly conservative and anti-communist political forum with a coverage area over the Southeastern U.S. and Cuba.

[[Joe Pyne]], [[John Nebel]], [[Jean Shepherd]], and [[Jerry Williams (radio)|Jerry Williams]] ([[WMEX (AM)|WMEX]]-Boston) were among the first to explore the medium in the 1950s.

A breakthrough in talk radio occurred in 1960 at KLAC in Los Angeles. Alan Henry, a broadcaster in his early thirties, had been hired by John Kluge, president of Metromedia in 1963. Henry had previously worked in such diverse markets as Miami, Florida; Waterloo, Iowa; Hartford, Connecticut; and St. Louis, Missouri. KLAC was dead last in the ratings but Kluge wanted a big Metromedia presence in Los Angeles. He sent Henry from New York to Los Angeles to turn KLAC into a success. The first thing that Henry did was hire the legendary morning team of Lohman and Barkley. Henry had built a strong relationship with programmer Jim Lightfoot, who had joined Henry in Miami.  A unique opportunity presented itself when Joe Pyne, who had begun his career as a radio talk personality in Pennsylvania, was fired by KABC in Los Angeles. The speculation was that Pyne was too controversial and confrontational for the ABC corporate culture.  Henry hired Pyne on the spot and paid him $25,000 a year, which was then a huge salary for a radio personality. Pyne was given the night show on KLAC. Part of the agreement with Pyne was that Henry and Lightfoot would give him broad control of his program content.

The show was an immediate success. Henry encouraged the confrontation with listeners and guests for which Pyne became famous. Pyne coined the line "Go gargle with razor blades," for guests with whom he disagreed. The Pyne show was the beginning of the confrontational talk format that later spread across the radio spectrum. At one point in the 1960s, the Joe Pyne show was syndicated on over 250 radio stations in the United States.

In an odd turn of events, Pyne's radio show led him to television. Henry suggested to John Kluge that Joe Pyne should be put on Metromedia's newly acquired TV station in Los Angeles, KTTV-TV. Kluge told Henry to speak to KTTV-TV general manager Al Kriven, but Henry had already done that, and Kriven had adamantly refused. Kluge telephoned Kriven, and Pyne soon became the nation's first controversial late-night talk television host. ''The Joe Pyne Show'' on KTTV-TV quickly shot to the top of the ratings. The format later proliferated on cable television with a variety of new hosts, many of them taking on a similar persona to Joe Pyne. Joe Pyne and Alan Henry were major factors in establishing a new trend in radio and television programming. Alan Henry elaborates on the launching of Joe Pyne on KLAC radio and KTTV-TV in his memoir ''A Man and His Medium''.

Two [[radio station]]s – [[KMOX]], 1120 [[AM radio|AM]] in [[St. Louis, Missouri]], and [[KABC radio|KABC]], 790 AM in [[Los Angeles]] – adopted an all-[[talk show]] format in 1960, and both claim to be the first to have done so. KABC station manager Ben Hoberman and KMOX station manager [[Robert Hyland]] independently developed the all-talk format. [[KTKK]], 630 AM in Salt Lake City, then known as KSXX, adopted a full-time talk schedule in 1965 and is the third station in the country to have done so. KSXX started with all local talent, and KTKK, which now airs on 1640 AM, has a larger portion of its schedule featuring local talent than most other stations that run a full schedule of talk.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, as many listeners abandoned AM music formats for the [[high fidelity]] sound of [[FM radio]], the talk radio format began to catch on in more large cities. Former music stations such as [[KLIF (AM)|KLIF]] ([[Dallas]], [[Texas]]), [[WLW]] ([[Cincinnati, Ohio]]), [[WHAS (AM)|WHAS]] ([[Louisville, Kentucky]]), [[WHAM (AM)|WHAM]] ([[Rochester, New York]]), [[WLS (AM)|WLS]] ([[Chicago|Chicago, Illinois]]), [[KFI (AM)|KFI]] ([[Los Angeles]], [[California]]), [[WRKO]] ([[Boston]], [[Massachusetts]]), [[WWKB|WKBW]] ([[Buffalo, New York]]), and [[WABC (AM)|WABC]] ([[New York City|New York, New York]]) made the switch to all-talk as their ratings slumped due to listener migration to the FM band. Since the turn of the 21st century, with many music listeners now migrating to digital platforms such as [[Pandora Radio]], [[Sirius XM Radio]], and the numerous variations of the [[iPod]], talk radio has been expanding on the FM side of the dial as well.