Neil Rogers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neil Rogers (born Nelson Roger Behelfer, November 5, 1942) is a 'legendary' American talk radio personality in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale media market. Currently, Rogers' "The Neil Rogers Show," airs weekdays from 10am-2pm on 560 WQAM. It is consistently the top rated show in the market and has been since his Miami debut thirty years ago. Although he is not currently syndicated nationally or even regionally, Rogers is regarded as one of the best and most important radio talk-show hosts in the United States. Talkers magazine, the trade publication of talk radio, ranked Rogers at Number 15 on its 2006 list of the 100 most important personalities in the business. [1] Several successful radio personalities could be said to be proteges of Rogers, including Bob Lassiter and Randi Rhodes.
[edit] Career
Rogers grew up in Rochester, New York, where he amused himself by announcing his own play-by-play while watching baseball on television. His first job in radio was as a music disc jockey at a small station in Canandaigua, New York. He studied broadcasting at Michigan State University for two years, but left school to pursue his dreams of a radio career.
Over the next decade, Rogers worked at several stations in several states, including New York, Michigan, and Florida, where he ended up at WJNO AM in West Palm Beach -- a station audible from Miami. As it happened, Rogers had lost his job in West Palm Beach and was headed to Yuma, Arizona when he called his mother from the road and learned that Miami-Ft. Lauderdale's WKAT (AM 1350) had offered him a job without application or audition. Rogers turned his car around and headed for Miami, debuting on WKAT on March 1, 1976. By the end of 1976, he was one of the top-rated radio personalities in the market.
Nine months later, when singer Anita Bryant began a crusade to repeal Dade County's ordinance banning discrimination against homosexuals, Rogers responded by announcing on the air that he was gay. Although Bryant's campaign to repeal the ordinance was successful, Rogers' admission did nothing to hurt his radio career; indeed, his ratings steadily increased with every Arbitron period.
When his contract with WKAT expired in 1979, Rogers remained in Miami but moved down the AM dial to 790, WNWS. By that time Rogers was unrivaled as the highest-rated talk-show host in Miami, dominating both the 18-24 and 25-54 demographics (the most coveted age ranges in the business). His style--an unabashed liberal, a steadfast conspiracy theorist, scatalogical, and funny but acutely mean when dealing with callers, a schtick that may best be described as caustically comic--was firmly established, making Rogers something of an icon in the market.
Rogers moved again in 1982, to Miami's WINZ, then to WIOD in 1991, from which he was briefly (and unsuccessfully) simulcast in the Tampa Bay market on WSUN. His last relocation was to 560 WQAM in 1998. Regardless of his station, he was consistently the top rated personality in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale market, prompting one Miami radio executive to call him "the most consistent performer among men 25-54 that this market has ever seen." [2]
Rogers maintains a home in Florida, although he does broadcast remotely from Toronto for a large part of the year.
Rogers is contracted to WQAM through December 2008. He has stated that upon that contract's expiration, he will permanently retire from radio.
[edit] The Show
A typical Neil Rogers show consists of commentary by Rogers mixed with listener call-ins, interspersed with pre-recorded comedy "bits." Rogers has been described as a shock jock, although he is not so in the classic sense of radio personalities such as Howard Stern.
Rogers was long a "topical" radio host, crafting monologues on whatever issues had gotten his attention at any given time. His monologues were phased out around the time he joined WIOD; however, Rogers has never shied away from ranting about political, local, or industry topics, sometimes reading lengthy articles that he believes should have his audience's attention.
Always a controversial figure, Rogers is notoriously outspoken. He talks without reservation about sex, both homosexual and heterosexual; liberal politics, including a number of conspiracy theories; other radio personalities, local and national; bodily functions; his employers, station, and coworkers; and his hatred of south Florida. Although he was raised in a Jewish household, Rogers is a self-proclaimed atheist and frequently rips into Judaism, Catholicism, and religion in general. His language is crude, vulgar, and often labeled obscene; Rogers, for his part, has made a running gag of replacing profanities with very similar words ("Holy Schmidt" among the most popular) and of frequently beeping himself.
He has been targeted from time to time by local activists who find him offensive; one, Jack Thompson, a Miami attorney, unsuccessfully sued Rogers and his employers to remove him from the air. In 1989, the Hallandale City Commission voted to censure Neil Rogers for "offensive comments" that he had made about the elderly. Rogers has survived all such attacks, and indeed, many of them have increased his popularity.
In some senses, Rogers could be called a radio activist. He has waged a number of campaigns, both political and personal, from behind the microphone: these have included confrontations with religious figures, a 1987 petition drive to repeal a broad FCC ruling about obscenity on the airwaves, and pushes to have his employers hire colleagues whom Rogers admired or felt had great potential. (Twice, Rogers campaigned to have Bob Lassiter hired, both by WINZ and Cox Broadcasting--who owned both WIOD and Tampa's WSUN--and wrote a recommendation letter that resulted in Lassiter's 1989 hiring by WLS in Chicago.) Rogers' campaigns are taken very seriously, owing to his phenomenal ratings success, and are frequently extremely successful.
Rogers has also never been shy about criticizing or feuding on air with radio colleagues. He had a longstanding feud with Bob Lassiter beginning at WIOD in 1994 and not resolved until 2005. Since about 2003, Rogers has had a vitriolic feud with former WQAM morning host Howard David — whom Rogers once called "Moe Howard" but now only references by playing a clip of David rapidly saying "Doy-doy-doy-doy-doy."
