![America's [second] greatest thinker, Great American Think-Off / runner-up, 2000](/images/quotes/thinker.gif "America's [second] greatest thinker, Great American Think-Off / runner-up, 2000")
By Andy Dehnart
For thirty hours a week, the airwaves in Southwest Florida are permeated with the voice of the Gulfshore area’s media king. Discussing local and national issues with callers is the person David Letterman credits along with Woody Allen as a comedic inspiration. He is Rich King, the man who has rapidly become the voice of the region.
The Chicago-born King holds the coveted drive-time talk radio spot, and now, after a merger between WNOG and WINK in Ft. Myers, people throughout the tri-county area hear the program.
In WNOG’s downtown Naples studio one balmy afternoon in mid-January, things move rapidly prior to and during the four-hour broadcast. The phone lines begin to light up immediately after the three o’clock news. Despite the semi-chaotic pace, King moves deftly from caller to caller, and to and from commercials. The day before, at WB-10’s studio, the mood is lighter. Fred Tarrant, the Naples City Councilman, is King’s guest on the one-hour long television version of his program. The first fifteen minutes of the hour-long show are filled with news and commentary by the host. Then, Tarrant joins King on the air for a humor-packed discourse of the issues of the day. Like the radio show, viewers call in to comment and ask questions, but the program is more of a one-on-one. Close your eyes and it’s the same Rich King as on the radio, but the atmosphere is decidedly different. King’s dominance of the talk genre in Southwest Florida is palpable.
Since he was a child, Rich King has wanted to be in radio. He made his first on-air appearance as a high schooler in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, on KFIZ — the “champagne station.” It was the manifestation of his childhood dream: as a young boy, he often pretended to broadcast sports events. After King’s sophomore year at Georgetown, he was offered a job in Milwaukee at WOKY. He accepted, and transferred to Marquette University to take the position. After that, King moved frequently from station to station across the country — from San Diego to Kansas City. Just before coming to Naples six years ago to work for WNOG, then a solely AM news-talk station, King spent 19 years at WKRC in Cincinnati. His last three or four years there, King adopted an all-talk format.
The radio version of the Rich King Show is more than just an arena of ideas: public policy is often shaped or influenced on the show. “The first month I was here, they turned off the lights on Goodlette Road and Airport Road at night to save money. We started a campaign to get them turned back on,” King says. He had three of the five county commissioners — a majority — on his program, and all three agreed on the air to vote to reverse the policy. “I like the ability to be instrumental in changing things that may not be the very best. Because of the situation we’re in, we have the ability to have an affect on city and county government,” he says.
King says he doesn’t “believe in just spouting forth my philosophy” — he often lets callers choose the direction the show will move in. Many of the programs take on a single-subject slant, and the movers and shakers of the community often call in to elucidate. The four lines into the studio are often clogged with callers anxious to get on the air. King’s on-air producer, Anita Robinson, answers the phones but does not screen the calls, allowing all who can get through to exercise their first amendment rights. King’s demeanor is ungrudging, even when callers disagree with him, challenge his ideas, or are unquestionably contemptuous.
All of the live advertisements on the show are ad-libbed by King. The advertisers, he says, enjoy the format and the often lighthearted approach to the spots. King visits all advertisers before accepting one as a sponsor, and will turn down a prospective advertiser “if a place turns out to be a schlock spot, because it reflects on the other advertisers,” he says. Currently, there is a waiting list to advertise on the show.
King attributes his success primarily to “…toleration of people’s opinions — realizing that, in most cases, there are two sides to every story.” King thinks the direction talk radio has moved in lately is both positive and negative: “Rush Limbaugh’s success is because of his humor — he’s popular more because of his (sense of humor), rather than his philosophical outlook.” Howard Stern’s show, on the other hand, “is just a bunch of smut — it’s his own version of entertainment. It won’t have the lasting power of Limbaugh.”
The relatively new television version of the show was born when the operations manager at WB-10 contacted King last spring with a proposal. Half a year later, on Sept. 30, the Rich King Show came to television. At the commencement of the television show, King was apprehensive: “Frankly, I was very nervous — I’d never done my own show before. Once I started, though, I felt very comfortable,” he says.
The Kings have been visiting Southwest Florida since “the time our kids were babies” — around 23 years. He loves the Gulfshore area because of “the weather and the ability to get around easily — despite the complaints.” King and his wife, Joan, have four children ages 15-24. Their fifth child, Ricky, died at age four of Rye’s Syndrome. After Ricky’s death, King and his wife “found through research the connections between aspirin and Reye’s syndrome,” and were instrumental in bringing attention to the problem. They founded the Ricky King Fund to aid in the research of children’s diseases. Currently, they are working with Naples Community Hospital and Miami Children’s Hospital to bring a version of it to Southwest Florida.
“The most rewarding thing” about doing the show, King says, “has been changing the character of the audience — in a broad sense, brining much more of the community into talk radio.” In the future, King would like to see his audience expand even more: “In many markets, talk radio is listened to a great deal by young people. I would like to see that happen (here).” Ten years from now, King hopes to still be on the air. If the people of Southwest Florida have anything to say about it, he certainly will be.