I was a college student in 1974 when I took a part-time job at WSMJ, a local FM radio station in Greenfield, Indiana.  Even though the station had 50,000 watts of power that beamed its signal to most of central Indiana, the broadcast outlet stayed mostly local to Greenfield in its programming.

The management was very nervous about a competing license being filed, so they wanted many hours of public service content.  In the 1070s, a late-night talk show, Night Action, was launched to bring those public service hours.  Hosts included the late Gary Lee and Art Murphy.  The station manager, a former Green Berets with service in Vietnam, was unhappy with the way the talk show was being handled after Murphy left.

The general manager met with me and laid out the options clearly…..he wanted me to take over Night Action.  If I turned the job down, he would simply cancel the program because he knew of no one else he would trust with that franchise.

I knew going to college and hosting an all-night radio talk program would be a challenge, but somehow I did that for almost four years.  Hosting an hours-long overnight talk show 5 nights a week was hard work, especially when I was trying to keep up with my classes at the same time.

Why do I bring this up?  Because these talk shows were always local, until 1978.  That was the year the Mutual Broadcasting system, a national radio network, began beaming the Larry King Show across the nation.  It was late night and was the first talk show of that ilk to go national and continue for a number of years.  It was a success because Larry King was a seasoned professional.  He knew what he was doing.

He began a 15-year television run on CNN in 1985 with a one-hour prime-time talk show.  King always told people he just used his radio show style and did it before TV cameras at CNN.

There are a handful of people that have hosted talk shows.  Preparing for these talkathons is very hard work.  It can wear you down.  You are constantly under attack from all sides and points of view.  Yet King did this regularly locally before his national career.  It had to wear on him.  Perhaps that is why he was married 8 times to seven different women (he married one wife twice).

Doing talk shows on radio has changed dramatically since the days I hosted such programs and when Mr. King was doing the same work.  Today, there are some talk shows done well, but many just aren’t that good.

That’s why I have appreciated the work done over the long career of Larry King.  His death was announced January 23rd.  Larry King was 87.  He left his mark on radio and television.  He will be remembered well for the work he accomplished and his ability to remain in a business that recycles humans on a regular basis.