The deaths of Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Ozzy Osbourne, and Hulk Hogan rocked Gen X last week. News/talk radio handled it well in some cases, and in other cases, not so well.
Gen X is essentially the generation following the baby boomers. The boomers were the children of World War II veterans. The youngest Generation X members were born in 1980. The deaths of Ozzy Osbourne, Hulk Hogan, and Malcolm-Jamal Warner were a shot across the “you are no longer young” bow.
At my station, we broke into programming to announce the passings of Hulk Hogan and Ozzy Osbourne.
If you were not talking about these deaths, you missed the core mission of our format. Your station’s target demographic is likely somewhere between 45 and 60. All of these deaths were of figures from your audience’s formative years. Hogan and Osbourne were seemingly always in the national consciousness. These two men were important to your audience. Ozzy and Hogan were constantly in the news.
Both men were flawed and had some really bad moments. Ozzy’s was more the stuff of lore — he urinated on the Alamo and bit the head off a bat. Hogan had an awful, public divorce, his son’s drunk driving drag race led to permanent injuries for a friend, his daughter cut him off, and more. Ozzy and Hogan also made the mistake of putting their families front and center on a reality show. Forcing your child into public discourse can be quite damaging. We’ve all read articles, posts, or books about the tragic circumstances that follow many child stars.
The Osbourne kids certainly had some rough patches, but seemed to pull it together. Hogan’s kids have either cut him off or seem directionless. In my educated opinion, children largely cannot handle the pressures of celebrity. In radio, we’ve had the opportunity to meet celebrities. I’ve found that some famous people look at others as commodities—because they themselves have been treated that way.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner played Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show. Warner seemed to be a unicorn among child stars. He adjusted to adulthood, acting, and didn’t appear to have any issues. He was never arrested and seemed to have it together. Warner was recently married and had a young daughter. His wife and child were never paraded in public. The Cosby Show was the highest-rated TV show for five years. This was back when network TV had viewers—an average of 30 million per episode. In 2025, if a TV show has 10 million viewers, it’s a huge hit. Warner was a central figure in your audience’s lives.
Did you talk about these men?
One of the attributes of a great talk show host is that they know a little something about everything. Not only does a great talk show host have a broad pool of knowledge, but they also have opinions on everything. Without calling out names, 20 years ago, I was programming a station and got some Eric Clapton tickets to give away. My afternoon guy could break down tax and education policy with the precision of a Ginsu knife cutting through a tomato.
Sadly, he had zero idea who Eric Clapton was. This host was 50 and would have been 20 when Clapton was entering his peak. I asked him what concert he last attended. He replied, “I saw Helen Reddy with my first wife.” I learned something: this guy didn’t understand the lives of the audience.
Our job is to reflect the lives of our listeners. Some hosts can break down every political happening in D.C., at the state level, or locally. But there is more to life than politics. In fact, most people are not that locked into the political wranglings of the day. These people have spouses, kids, and aging parents. They also have concerns about work and finances. If we’re not speaking about the things that impact our listeners, we come across as one-dimensional. That’s not good for our role.
News/talk radio stations must be focused on Topic A. It’s the biggest thing going on at that very moment. Sometimes people get overly concerned about being local. You are local. You’re giving the local reaction to every issue. Being local doesn’t mean you must focus on city council meetings. I can assure you there is little interest in city council meetings.
Even when your city is weighing whether to raise taxes, the number of people who attend those meetings is less than 0.01% of your community. Should people be interested? Yes. But they’re not. Do you know what your city was interested in? The deaths of Ozzy Osbourne, Hulk Hogan, and Malcolm-Jamal Warner. These were universally Topic A. Everyone had an opinion or memory. Do you know who didn’t? Probably those over the age of 75.
If you’re a host who isn’t particularly culturally aware, what do you do? Your program director probably has a detailed bio of your station’s target demographic. Let’s say you love classical music and don’t care for contemporary pop culture. Study it anyway, for your station’s audience. We lost three amazing people who had a strong impact on our existence. It’s your job to know who those people are.
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Peter Thiele is a weekly news/talk radio columnist for Barrett Media, and an experienced news/talk radio programmer. He currently serves as News/Talk Format Captain for Zimmer Communications. Prior to joining Zimmer, Peter held programming positions in New York City, San Francisco, Des Moines, Little Rock, Greenville, Hunstville, and Joplin. Peter has also worked as a host, account executive and producer in Minneapolis, and San Antonio. He can be found on Twitter at @PeterThiele.
