Paul Harvey (1918-2009)

Paul Harvey, 2005 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hello Americans, this is Paul Harvey. Stand by for news! If you listened to the radio during the noon hour during the past half-century, especially in the Midwest, chances are you've heard the unmistakable and unavoidable voice of Paul Harvey. He was heard on 1,200 stations of the ABC Radio Network and on Armed Forces radio worldwide, reportedly the largest personal network in the world.

Harvey died at his winter home in Arizona Saturday, according to ABC Radio Networks. He was 90.

Page Two. Harvey's style of mixing the news of the day with conservative political comment had been running on ABC since 1951, in an era when radio networks routinely gave commentators such as Edward R. Murrow, Lowell Thomas and Gabriel Heatter their own programs. But Harvey wasn't really about reporting the news. He was more of a showman, borrowing from the storytelling techniques of sportscaster Bill Stern, whose 1940s broadcasts were filled with over-the-top tales of sports stars that may or may not have been true. You could hear that style on "The Rest of the Story", which ABC added in 1976.

Page Three. Occasionally, some of Harvey's comments caused him or his network problems. He was a supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy back when he was looking for Communists in every closet. He also supported the Vietnam War until he chastised President Richard Nixon for escalating the fighting.

Page Four. Harvey survived the end of network radio, which has devolved into programming services such as ABC and Westwood One. His programs had been heard on all sorts of radio stations, with formats ranging from rock and country, to news and talk. But stations have found it increasingly difficult to schedule Harvey's 15-minute broadcast around syndicated talkers like Rush Limbaugh (the new king of midday radio), Don Imus and others without cutting into local programming. (KSTP-AM, the ABC affiliate in the Twin Cities, played hide-and-go-seek with Harvey, scheduling his newscasts for 9 a.m. and 11;50 a.m. , and "Story" for 2 p.m weekdays. His Saturday broadcast ran at around 4 p.m.) Plus, it must be said, most of Harvey's audience reached the nursing-home demographic.

ABC Radio Networks, and its parent company Citadel Broadcasting, have yet to make an announcement on what will happen to Harvey's programs. The guessing here is that the 15-minute broadcast is history.

Page Five. Whatever you thought of Paul Harvey's on-air style or his politics, touting the wonders of America's can-do spirit while reading commercials, you couldn't turn him off. You were drawn in by his storytelling, his phrase making, and those dramatic pauses. He did his broadcasts mostly from Chicago, which in the days when he started, he might have made a good radio actor. Now 22 million listeners (Harvey's estimated audience) will have to get along without him, an era in American radio truly ended.

Paullll Harveeeeyyyy . . . good DAY!