After 25 years, 620 WTMJ host Jeff Wagner retired from the Milwaukee news/talk station Friday.
During his final opening monologue, Wagner read messages from listeners wishing him well, including one that he believes bucks the notion that only older people listen to talk radio.
Jeff Wagner received a message from a 23-year-old who claimed the Milwaukee host kept him connected to the area as he went to college and worked in Washington D.C., before moving to work at the Wisconsin statehouse in Madison.
“I bring this up because I know there’s this image that’s out there that nobody under the age of 40, 50, 60 listens to talk radio and that’s just flat out not true. What we find — and one of the things that’s been most rewarding to me over the years — is the multi-generational listeners. I have lots and lots of folks who maybe started listening because their parents were listening, and they were trapped in the car with mom and dad who were listening to the Wagner program and they grew up listening to the Wagner program, and now their kids are around.”
The Jeff Wagner Show host continued by noting that he’ll miss the relationship he had with his listeners and noted that’s one of the highlights of radio.
“It’s the special thing about this medium…It’s the connection that radio has. I remember as a kid, and this is before the internet was invented and things like that, I can remember sitting at home with a little transistor radio, and at night you dial up, and you’d hear these big AM stations,” said Wagner. “You’d hear voices from Cincinnati or wherever it was, and you’d hear these voices that were there and it’s this personal thing.
“I mean, you’re sitting in your bedroom and you don’t want mom and dad to hear that you’re not asleep, and you’ve got the radio up to your ear and things like that. You’d hear these voices talking about these different issues and it’s like they’re talking to you. It’s this personal relationship and I’m sorry, you don’t get that from anywhere else. TV is wonderful.
“I always say you recognize people from TV. ‘Hey, you’re that guy on Channel 4 that does the three o’clock news’. Yeah, but they know you from radio,” Wagner concluded. “To be able to make a living in my hometown, in essentially the same time slot for 25 years, has been such a blessing and it is the connection that I feel for you. And if you feel something similar, that’s just great. It’s the it’s the wonderful thing about radio.”
