In his younger days, McGraw Milhaven would lie in bed, listening to the dulcet tones of Larry King and Jim Bohannon in late hours. He could never have dreamed of being able to host a nationally syndicated radio show in the same timeslot as the venerable talk radio hosts.
But then, Westwood One came calling with an offer he couldn’t refuse: taking over America at Night.
Despite loving his job as morning show host and Program Director at St. Louis’ The Big 550 KTRS, McGraw Milhaven couldn’t say no to the opportunity.
On December 1st, Milhaven will take over the show that has been hosted by Rich Valdes since the death of Bohannon in 2022.
He couldn’t hide his anticipation for the move.
“I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty excited,” Milhaven said. “If somebody had told me that one day you’ll be hosting that show, I would have told you I have a better chance of going to the planet Neptune than actually hosting this show. It’s a wonderful opportunity, but it also with that comes a responsibility. You’re on 256 radio stations. Radio is a wonderful, wonderful medium, and you want to respect the medium. So you want to try and do it right out of the gate. So while there’s a lot of excitement, there’s a lot of, you know, work to be done to make sure it’s done right.”
Many news/talk radio hosts aspire to host a nationally syndicated show. Those hopes and dreams are often accompanied by the idea that it needs to happen as soon as possible in one’s career.
But McGraw Milhaven is a news/talk radio lifer, with more than 30 years in the medium. Surprisingly, he’s thankful that this opportunity didn’t pop up earlier in his career.
“I don’t think I could have done this show when I was 25,” he admitted. “It’s the difference between somebody going to an open mic night for the first time and somebody who’s been a 20-year comedian. You’ve taken the slings and the arrows, you’ve done the bad shows, you’ve been fired, you’ve come back, you’ve reinvented yourself, you’ve watched the news, you followed the news, and you’re able to take criticism better. You’re able to understand the constructive criticism better.
“So the fact that I’m a little older, I’m a lot more confident in how to do it, and I know how to do it, and I know what good radio is, and I know what good conversation is, and I can trust my instincts,” Milhaven continued. “That’s probably the biggest thing going is that when you’re younger, I don’t necessarily think you trust your instincts because you’re trying to please everybody else. But as I’ve listened to this show, I know this show, and I’m going to trust my instincts. Because my instincts are that America at Night is a place where America is going to go to have a conversation before they go to bed.”
America at Night with McGraw Milhaven won’t be just another show focused on conservative politics, the new host says.
“It’s not going to be agenda-driven one way or the other,” he said of the new program. “It’s just going to be a place where one can expect interesting conversations all night long. I want news makers to feel like they’ll be asked the questions and then I’ll shut up and let them answer it. I want them to feel like they have a place to tell their story. They don’t have 30 seconds to get a sound bite in. But a greater truth, a greater understanding, give the nuance of a story so that the audience has a better understanding of the story. They might not agree with the guest, they might disagree with the guests, they might not understand it, but at least they’ll come away understanding where the guest is coming from.”
He added that there’s a method to his madness.
“I think talk radio at night is that it’s best when you take the audience to places they’ve never been,” Milhaven said. “Whether it’s a World War I battlefield, Pearl Harbor, or New York City on 9/11, I want storytellers. I want book authors, historians, experts, to take the audience to places they’ve never been every night. There are plenty of places where the audience can go to listen to right-wing talk. That’s not to say I won’t have conservatives talking … We’re going to have all of those things, but we’re going to have the whole spectrum of it. We’re not going to throw tomatoes at each other. It’s not going to be bombastic.
“We’re going to challenge the guests, liberals and conservatives. And we’re going to have conversations with them, just like you would at a bar, just like you would at a kitchen table or dining room table with your friends. There’s going to be a wide spectrum of guests, a wide spectrum of topics and a wide spectrum of opinions.”
McGraw Milhaven is adding the Westwood One show to his plate. He isn’t leaving his role at The Big 550 KTRS, where he’ll continue to host morning drive. Obviously, it’s going to be a change, but it’s one he looks forward to tackling.
“I’ll figure it out,” he shared. “KTRS has been overwhelmingly supportive. Westwood One has been overwhelmingly supportive. And the producers who are at Westwood One are great. I’ll lean on them, and my producers at KTRS are great. We’ll figure it out. I’m not too worried about it,” he said with a laugh before adding, “famous last words.”
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
mcgraw millhaven is the worst host ever, unlistenable and we are not listening anymore, hes not that bright lots of stuff he admits hes clueless about yet he’s a host? and rude to his first guesst tonight, hes gotta go