audio version of the segment here > Last show on the radio (on to the wonderful world of podcasting)
Jay Weber Show 12/23/25
So…I said something during my retirement announcement a few weeks ago- that has been interpreted a few different ways since i said it-and has even led to a few analysis pieces in the trades.
What i said is: “No disrespect to the new generation of talkers, but I feel like my generation of talk radio is over.”
And what i meant was: the golden age of talk radio is over….and we are seeing a changing of the guard. Not just here in Milwaukee, but nationally.
And I can already hear a few people: oh, because jay’s retiring, he dubs the ‘golden age of talk radio’ over. No. And yes. And you’ll understand what I mean in a moment.
What I’d consider the golden age of talk radio would be like the golden age of Hollywood…or the golden age of tv. It was when a group of young people were inventing and perfecting a new medium…and along the way…changing history by changing the nature of their culture. And like all ‘golden eras’....and along the way…some of them became cultural giants.
Rush Limbaugh is given the credit for inventing the ‘political talk radio’s genre, and rightly so. When am radio stations were dying in the 1980s and program directors across the country had no idea what to do with these old, crackly, signals because FM had taken over….Rush was building a whole new thing: and desperate ‘am’ programmers noticed.
Instead of playing Helen Reddy and Anne Murray songs and doing trade-io…let’s put Rush on our signal and then create a station that’s just news and talk shows. The talk shows would be opinionated…and center around politics and current events.
Rush led to a wave of new talented people-and some not so talented- that filled the airtime that way. And shock-of-shocks, it caught in. The genre boomed. The industry boomed. It became known as the…quote…alternative media…because the hosts offered such a different ‘spin’ on events than the traditional gatekeepers of the legacy media.
In fact, for a good stretch of time, talk radio was the ‘only’ alternative medium. But it led to blogs and conservative websites and that morphed into individual influencers on social media and you-tube…. with some trying to connect to conservative America…and others just trying to be famous and build their personal brands.
But the original purpose-and flavor- of talk radio was to be more of an electronic ‘town hall’ and a broader exchange of ideas. And that part of it has been lost to time…in most ways.
And so, when I say, no offense to the new guys, but my generation of talk radio has passed. What i mean is- the inventors and crafters of talk radio….and probably the ‘legends’ of talk radio who had an outsized influence on politics and culture…are gone. Probably for good.
And- for our purposes here in the Milwaukee market- yeah. I am the last of the Ogs to still be on the air. We had a great 40-year run…but Rush passed away. Mark retired. Charlie and jeff left the radio business.
I’m the only one left from that first wave of conservative Milwaukee talkers…and I’m ending my daily show, too.
Nationally, other than Sean Hannity, who is an ‘original talker’ who’s still doing it? I suppose you can still find a few…but even people like Laura Ingraham and mark levin were sort of the ‘next group’ of early talk radio hosts…
And as much as I love them- they have certainly lost the sort of influence that they once had over the culture and talk radio and the conservative movement, too.There are simply so many options and so many voices that comprise the so-called ‘alternative media’ now that they get drowned out.
And this doesn’t mean that…gawk. Talk radio sucks now. And it doesn’t mean ‘talk radio is dead.... or ‘radio is dead’...as some people have wanted to interpret my comments.
Folks, radio has more listeners now than it did twenty years ago. Radio still isn’t dying, even though it has been pronounced ‘dead’ a dozen times since tv was invented.
No…. what my retirement and the end of the ‘golden age’ of talk radio means is…a changing of the guard. Things will be different. And yes, it means talk radio hosts, in general, have lost the influence they once had.
Mark Belling, alone, had the power to stop lawmakers in Madison and Milwaukee from doing stupid things. He, alone, could insist the community needed to hold someone accountable.
He, alone, had city and county leaders being sure to be in their offices until five o’clock on a Friday…instead of leaking out early…with his ‘bureaucrat watch’. Mark almost single-handedly (with a little assistance from people like Charlie and myself) killed off the idiotic idea of a massive light rail system that spider all over southeastern Wisconsin that no one would have ridden…and would have cost taxpayers’ tens of billions of dollars.
Mark and I and Vicki and Charlie, etc. were so influential in Madison and Milwaukee and across the state that we- basically- ushered in the conservative walker era here in Wisconsin and kept it fed with ideas. And reforms…and pushed for concealed carry, and castle law, and right to work, and elements of act ten…and all sorts of great reforms we earned during that era.
I just don’t see another era of ‘radio talkers doing that, anymore, given the din of voices and choices out there. Now there are podcast options. YouTube options. And everything is more ‘nationalized’ rather than ‘localized’. This next wave of talk radio hosts will just be - different. Less influential. And probably less entertaining, given the left’s rather successful move to kill humor and comedy.
Which brings me to another point about the ‘golden age’ talkers: folks…we were people and performers who wanted to be in radio. We didn’t get into this to ‘be political’ or ‘influence people’. Which is why most people do now. Mark and I started out on the radio news. It was our chosen career. Rush used to call himself an entertainer.
I hesitate to speak for mark or Charlie or the others-but we were doing the job to make money and get ratings and profits for ourselves and our radio stations… and we were using a skill we had: the ability to be entertaining and engaging and talk about current events and culture…in that manner.None of us set out to be ‘conservative influencers. We set out to do entertaining shows, get good ratings, and enrich ourselves…as social commentators.
Because…. That’s how a job works. We all have special skills. This was ours. I can tell you that rush was not. Mark was not. I was not - doing this as the ‘voice of conservatism’...and didn’t feel as if it was our mission to ‘lead a conservative movement’ and/or be the ‘voices of the republican party. ‘And anyone who interpreted it that way was incorrect.
In fact, over the years, that was the ‘one thing’ that way too many audience members were confused about: we didn’t consider ourselves ‘operatives’ or ‘mouth pieces’ for anyone other than ourselves. Long-time listeners will validate that - we routinely criticized both sides and routinely made it clear- we aren’t in anyone’s camp’. And natural credibility came along with that- when it came to the listeners- and the lawmakers.
Lawmakers on both sides needed to be worried about being ‘called out’. We were doing what we hoped is independent and thoughtful analysis…and if that upset the republicans, fine. We weren’t -and aren’t- republicans. We are conservative-minded thinkers.
Listeners would, occasionally, over the years, insist that ‘you got to get in line with the party’...or ‘you got to get in line with trump’.... or you listen to rush on this one…. because he’s got a different opinion than you.’
And my response was always the same: I don’t get to do anything’. I’m stating my opinions on my show’ and I’m not trying to impress the powerful people or trying to impress you with my brilliance. I’m trying to do an entertaining and informative show and earn my paycheck. But if the original intent of conservative talk radio was to examine every issue…hold it up to the light…take different opinions on it and hopefully leave the audience more entertained and informed…. Now most of talk radio and most of the other forms of alternative media that it has spawned is far more rigid and ideological.
The internet and social media have made it easy for people to retreat into the ‘little bubble’ that never challenges them intellectually or forces them to defend an opinion or consider that they might be wrong.
We have-collectively as a culture- lost virtually all of that. Look at how many liberals and leftists flooded over to ‘blue sky’ after Elon Musk bought twitter. They were certain twitter was no longer going to be a ‘safe space’ for them to only see the opinions that they wanted to see…and give the opinions they wanted to give- without being challenged back-
So, millions of them literally left twitter to create a new ‘safe leftist bubble’ that they can all exist in- unchallenged. Society has simply changed in that way, and it’s too bad.
The silo-ing of our experiences and opinions is-not- a positive development. It means there will be less learning, understanding, empathy, communication between people with differences, or from different regions, and cultures…and that’s not a good thing.
As one of the industry columns put it- at Barrett media: the explosion of the Rush Limbaugh show didn’t just create stars. It created a genre. Talk radio suddenly became loud, combative, funny, and impossible to ignore.
Then he quotes me, again, from a few weeks ago: “we were inventing an entirely new aggressive, important, and game-changing genre,” Weber said. “And it really has been a game changer 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.”
I’ll stand by that: the ‘first generation’...or the ‘golden generation’ of talk radio is largely over. What comes next could be something at least as interesting and exciting and engaging as we ‘golden age’ talkers were, but I doubt it, because I’m old and crotchety and think ‘my generation’ is the best one. But…. I want to credit this columnist over at Barrett media- Garrett Searlight- who, I think, framed it properly: today’s news/talk landscape is far more overtly political. Advocacy often sits in front and center. Many shows feel less like performances and more like daily stump speeches with a microphone.
Garrett continues entertainment is still advocacy just by another name. It persuades through humor, storytelling, theater of the mind, and personality rather than constant ideological reinforcement. That balance has shifted. The industry didn’t drift there accidentally. It followed audience habits, political polarization, and corporate expectations. Yet acknowledging the end of that era doesn’t mean lamenting it.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s simply a different brand and breed of talk radio host. That isn’t good or bad. It’s just different. The mistake would be pretending nothing has changed. The bigger mistake would be assuming the past model is the only one that ever worked. It worked brilliantly for its time. That time, however, isn’t this one. With so many different avenues of content available to consumers today, talk radio had to change.
He concludes still, there’s something to learn from weber’s statements. Fun matters. Sounding engaged matters. Enjoying the work matters. Audiences can tell when a host would rather be doing something else. Yep.
And the historians will probably come to find- overtime that the ‘golden age’ of talk radio spawned all sorts of positive developments in this country, culturally and raised political awareness among the masses to an entirely new level.…as well as some negative ones.
I think it’s great that talk radio could give us access to brilliant minds like Mark Levin’s and Rush Limbaughs…and bring us closer to the newsmakers of the day…from mayors to presidents and congressmen and amplify worthy causes and citizen’s groups.
But it’s not so great that it also spawned a separate industry of hacks and charlatans who decided they could try to co-opt the conservative and alternative mediums to try to simply enrich themselves, make themselves famous, or pollute the country.
And it’s also not so great that it contributed to divisions in this country that have us being so mean to each other…in this era. There’s simply too much nastiness to endure and too little humor and intellectual honesty to be found…for me to really enjoy watching ‘culture’ and ‘politics’ and commenting on it every day, anymore.
And that’s the main reason I’m retiring early, and the main reason I say, ‘I feel like my era of talk radio is over’ The golden era is over. I loved being a part of it. Whatever comes next- I leave to younger people who still have the spark and the fire for it.
So now it's on to the wonderful world of podcasting. Gregory Jon had this sign made for my home studio. See you in a couple of months.