One of the strangest things about being on the radio (or in just about any broadcast medium) is that the audience you’re reaching is basically invisible and unknown to you. You might do an occasional call-in program where you tangibly connect with a handful of listeners out there, and of course there are occasional phone calls, letters and emails from listeners which let us know that they’re out there. But the fact of the matter is that at any given moment we can’t possibly know who’s out there listening to us. I vividly remember the first program director of the station, Bonnie Orr, reminiscing about the very first on-air fundraiser that the station did (some years before I came aboard) and how as they made that first on-air pitch to “pick up the phone and give us a call and pledge. . .” they had no idea whether or not that phone would ring at all – and how ecstatic and stunned they were the first time that phone rang! Part of me still reacts that way when someone tells me that they listen to the morning show and enjoy it. (There is no quicker way to score brownie points with me – for whatever that’s worth to you – than to be a morning show listener. You can be an arsonist embezzling money at work who spray paints grafitti on the walls of orphanages – but if you’re a Morning Show listener, you’re still okay in my book!)
Fortunately, most of WGTD’s listeners aren’t embezzling arsonists; they exceedingly good people – and some of them came to the station yesterday evening for a special open house. People had the chance to meet some of the announcers (just about all of us were there), visit our studios, and even be shown the transmitter at the base of our broadcast tower and be given a tour by our station engineer. What a joy this turned out to be, and I feel especially happy and relieved that everything said to me last night was overwhelmingly positive. (The risk you run with open houses is that someone might very well come up to you and ask “why do you have to do so much opera on your morning show? Why don’t you do more interviews about fishing?” Last night, it was devoted fans who came out and it was such a pleasure to meet some of them.
I have to relate one gigantic, pleasant surprise which occurred. As I was speaking with a guest up in the studios, I caught a glimpse of someone walking in the door who looked familiar to me. I knew it was someone I hadn’t spoken to before- but it was someone I had seen quite a lot. But where and when? It took me a few moments before it finally dawned on me – this guy was someone I see almost every time I go on the treadmill at Razor Sharp. This guy is hard to miss; he looks like he would fit right in on the front line of the Green Bay Packers. He’s big and strong and appears to lift massive amounts of weight as effortlessly as I hoist a milk shake. And here he was, walking into the studios of WGTD and taking a tour- listening attentively. It looked like he was with someone, so I figured that whoever was with him was the WGTD listener and he was just along.
You probably know where this little story is going. I ended up going over to him and said that I was pretty sure that I recognized him from Razor Sharp. He thrust out his hand and introduced himself – and when I said who I was, he immediately said “the Morning Show! I listen on my way to work!” I nearly fainted on the spot, although in retrospect I can’t really say why. . . except that for some reason I had jumped to the obviously erroneous assumption that any of the massive musclemen who lift weights at Razor Sharp would rather listen to anything – even “Porcupine Pete’s Polka Hour” – than listen to the Morning Show. But I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be proven utterly wrong about that. (How stupid of me to make an assumption like that.) And from now on, as I glance down at the weight floor at Razor Sharp from my perch on the treadmill, I will remember that at least of those guys who could probably lift a refrigerator freezer over his head if he really wanted to is a Morning Show listener. I am amazed and delighted.