WISN program director Jerry Bott along with Gregory Jon host an hour long look back at spectacular radio career and a look to the future as he transitions to podcasting
Click here for the segment > Jay Weber: A Career in Review
After 38 years in radio, I've decided to step away from my daily morning show and move into the world of podcasting~~
Jay Weber Show transcript 12-9-25
I have been teasing a big announcement this morning regarding the future of the show- it’s Now time for the pay-off.
This news is going to sadden many of you and probably gladden a few of you…and i will not Stretch out the suspense: I have made a significant ‘life’ decision and after 35 years at WISN and 38 years in radio, overall, starting the first of the year, I am retiring from my daily radio show and moving to a two-a-week podcast. We will no longer be waking up together every morning.
I know. I know. It’s a bittersweet day for me, too, given that I still love and appreciate this job, and love and appreciate you people, my listeners. But…it’s time. I’m only 59 years old and I considered agreeing to At least one more three year or five-year contract, but in my heart, I know it’s time.
I still love the ‘performance’ part of the show: being on-air and spending three hours with you every day. But I have lost any interest in the Hours and the daily grind of the prep work.
In fact, I intended to retire ‘flat out’ but Jerry Bott and our managers here at iHeart media made me the generous offer of doing a two-day-a-week podcast starting next April or so…after we put all the pieces together. And I believe I will be doing the two business days of the week that mark belling ‘isn’t’ doing.
Tuesday and Friday? I think? And so. Starting soon, you will be able to find the ‘WISN’ podcasts on iHeart Radio, I guess but as it have something like the 64th or 68th most popular podcast in the country already and that was done without really focusing in it.
The daily podcast of the show has simply been a handy addition to it. But Greg puts it together every day and has managed to turn it into one of the most popular podcasts in the country without any effort from me. I know many of you listen to the show that way, already, and so, we have a good starting point.
And by the way- Greg will continue to be my producer. Jerry and I both want him to be a key part of the podcast next year…and so he’s Agreed to do that for us. But…it feels like a good time to end the daily Radio show: I’d rather go out ‘on top’ with great ratings and having accomplished all the Career goals that I’d laid out for myself…than linger too long and become sort of a joke who’s still doing it for the paycheck.
I respect this radio station, this time slot, you listeners, and WISN managers too much to do that.
If I lost the fire- I know that there are a dozen people younger than myself who would love to have the opportunity to do a show such as this- in a market as large as Milwaukee’s- and so, I’ll wish that person well and will step aside.
Again-if you are just tuning in: I’m announcing that my daily radio show will be ending at the end of the year- and I will be moving to a ‘two-day-a-week’ podcast for iHeart Radio next spring.
My final daily broadcast will be December 23rd, given that I always take that week between Christmas and New Year’s Day off….and so…my full-time career has me running out the clock as
We enjoy the holidays. And - it’s an old cliche for a reason: it is amazing How the time flies.
I started working at such a young age and had so many jobs as a teen and working my way through college- then doing a 60 hour a week job for decades that I have ‘long’ had this plan to retire at 60. And this was the year that a three-year contract was coming to an end and I had to decide if I wanted to take a ‘one year’ option that the company could offer me…or ask that an entirely
New contract be re-negotiated for several more years…or simply retire early.
Around may I started to mull my options….and by Labor Day I knew what my decision was going to be. It just ‘felt like it was time’.
No disrespect to the new generation of talkers: But i feel like ‘my generation’ of talkradio is Over. I was ‘there’ at its invention, and its growth, and the excitement of building an entirely new type of radio format around Rush Limbaugh’s burgeoning show….and daily…. We were inventing an entirely new aggressive, important, and game-changing genre. And it really has been a game change in this country: some will argue ‘for the better’...others will argue ‘for the worse’. I’ll leave that to the historians. All I know is, it was a blast to do.
And I have no idea where the time went. I look in the mirror, and I see my dad now, but in my mind, I’m still that lean, angular 20-year-old who Mark Belling hired out of college to start a career in radio news.
Mark was the program director at WTDY in Madison at the time…and had started to do a three-hour afternoon show- after Rush Limbaugh’s show concluded- because WTDY (and
Mark) were some of the first people smart enough to see how ‘huge’ Rush Limbaugh’s show was going to be.
WTDY was one of the earliest affiliates, and if Mark had three hours of Rush to count on…well…. What happened for the other 21 hours of the day?
He had the task of building the rest of the day ‘around’ rush, and i was part of a news team that -really-covered every part of the city, county, and state government and had three different deadlines in any given day so the news was always the latest and the freshest we fed and appeared on a three-or-four hour morning news show. I forget How long it went. But what a great training ground for a young Journalist.
And at that point? I obviously had no interest in Being a ‘talker’ who could sit around and toss Out opinions… the position didn’t exist! Rush was Inventing it!
And then, after about a year of working at WTDY, I sent out cassette tapes of my work-along with resumes- to get my next ‘big break’. I sent them out to ‘anywhere warm’...because i had
A close friend who said…we got to go where the hot babes are California, Florida, Texas…etc. And so, my 21-year-old brain had me sending out Resumes to radio stations in California, Florida,
Texas and just for the heck of it: Milwaukee. At the time it was the 28th? 30th? Largest market in the country?
And I assumed I wasn’t ready for Milwaukee yet, with just a year under my belt. I’ve grown up listening to true Milwaukee radio
Legends, like Gordon Hinkley, and Johnathan Greene and Bob Barry, and Reitman and Miller…etc.
But- my resume hit the news director’s desk at the right time: she was a very good -and dedicated- News director named Fay Spano And so…out of the dozen or so resumes I sent out to the ‘beach states’.... Milwaukee called. Ugh. Really?
I had one other offer from a news station in Palm Springs, and people who aren’t in the radio and tv don’t know this- nor did i at the time- stations in the more desirable climates want to ‘pay you in Sunshine’.
The offer was so low that I couldn’t accept the job. I couldn’t afford to live in palm springs on the salary they were offering. It was something like 9 or 10 grand a year at the time, kids and get this, I started work at WTDY in Madison for about 11-thousand-500 dollars a year. That’s all ‘entry level news reporters’ were getting in radio news in medium sized markets. And if that sounds like a low salary-even for 1990- it was.
I had a brother who was a year older, and his first job was as a sales rep for Proctor and Gamble, and his starting salary was about ‘double’ what mine was.
And so, if the average entry level sales job for a Major US company was about 23 or 25-grand in 1990…. The average entry level job for medium market radio station was 11-thousand dollars a year.
I think I started at WISN for 19-grand a year? And it was like winning the lottery.
Still- at times, I had to put food on my gas card-because an Amoco card was the only credit card I qualified for, and you can imagine how nutritious the food at convenience stores was at the time. Chips. frozen pizzas, packaged bologna. But that’s the salary I started out with young people. I had no family wealth or help from my parents. And this was after- I paid for my own college by working 2 and 3 jobs while going to school.
And younger listeners: notice that I am retiring early, today, because the larger salaries ‘come’. Financial stability comes.
Just pick a career you really enjoy, and you will naturally ‘worker harder at it’.... And the money follows. You just must make good financial decisions and save more of it than you spend. But somehow, 35 years passed, and here I am, announcing my retirement from the medium today and looking back on a wonderful career and a job that I only very, very, occasionally ‘hated doing’.
Over the years, I’ve told my friends and family: I was lucky enough to love my job enough that I only woke up…maybe? …three to five times in an Entire year…and thought to by self…. ugh! I have To get up and go to work again! Ugh!
Honestly, I only ever had those thoughts very, very occasionally, I know that’s not the Case for a lot of people. It’s another way I feel lucky…and that I’ve somehow ‘won’ in life.
Well-come on, Greg! How many people have a 38-year radio career and never get fired from a Single job or station? That almost never happens. I have never been fired from a job. Period. Regardless of what job it was.
Not as a teen doing farm and delivery work…or a college student running a cafeteria…or any job in radio…which is a career that is famous for job Layoffs, major restructurings, etc. At one point in my career, WISN was sold five times.
As the industry consolidated after Reagan deregulated radio, WISN was sold to five different owners. How did I never’ lose my job Thru all of that? I wonder, but thank you all for 35 wonderful years here in southeastern Wisconsin and at WISN you’ve always been so gracious and wonderful to me (at least most of you) And I know there are people listening now who probably heard some of my very first work here At WISN and endured my very first…and probably
Crummy…talk shows as i made the transition to Talk. Yes, we have listeners to this station who listen virtually all day and have for 40 or 50 years, believe it or not and quite religiously, so, a special thanks to all those listeners for making this career so fulfilling.
And we’ve got time yet: not much, but some. My final day on-air is December 23rd, but we’ll keep you informed about the podcast next year. Again- thank you all- and I promise: I will-no- do a half-assed show between now and Christmas just Because i can. I plan to ‘run thru the tape’ with Quality shows for the remaining time I have. We’ll get back to it after this break.