Long-time Chicago radio host Mancow Muller lost his last hometown gig last February when he was canned from Citadel Broadcasting‘s AM talk powerhouse WLS. But the Mancow has many lives, it seems. While he won’t be back on the air in Chicago, Vocalo’s Robert Feder reports that Mancow will be the new Sunday evening host on Citadel’s New York WABC-AM.
WABC is clearly after a show that emphasizes Mancow’s libertarian-leaning conservative politics more than the shock-jock type material that initially made him famous. That said, I stand by my hypothesis that it’s nearing sunset for the era of the shock jock. Unless, perhaps the “shock” part has more to do with over-the-top ideology than with strippers and bodily functions. Instead there are lots of Ron Paul interviews.
In fact, it looks like conservative talk radio is becoming the home to the second (and third, and fourth) acts for former shock jocks. The most famous and successful of the bunch is Glenn Beck who began his radio career as a wacky morning zoo DJ.
Apparently it’s not an enormous gulf between reactionary “shock” humor and supposed serious reactionary politics. That’s certainly what Beck biographer Alexander Zaitchik would argue. I’m not sure what that says about either shock jocks or the intellectual depth of conservative talk radio.
