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Glenn Beck
Glenn began his career at the age of 13 by winning a local radio contest to be a deejay for an hour. Soon afterwards came the good news. The Washington state native had landed jobs at a rock station, a country station, and a Christian station. The bad news was he was fired from all three on the same day!
After graduating from high school, he pursued his career in top 40 as a deejay at stations all over the country. He eventually landed in Corpus Christi, Texas, at the age of 18 as the youngest morning guy in the country. Flying high at this point, he went on to morning shows in Baltimore (WBSB), Houston (KKBE), Phoenix (KOY-FM, Washington (WPGC), and New Haven, Connecticut.
When he was 30, Glenn lost his drive for radio, and alcoholism and drug addiction took over. In trying to find answers to his problem, he pursued higher education and, although accepted by Yale as a Theology major, lasted only a semester and was faced with a divorce and separation from his two daughters. His image as a radio star had taken its toll and emotionally and financially he was relegated to a station in one of the smallest markets.
Finally, he turned to a program of recovery and came to terms with his past and, while staying sober, shifted the direction of his life. He found a new wife, religion, and a new direction for his career – talk radio.
Glenn accepted an offer to host his own talk radio show on Tampa’s Newsradio 970 WFLA in 1999. In his first year, he took his inherited 18th placed position at the station to #1 which gave WFLA its highest ratings ever. Within a year and a half, Premiere Radio Networks, a leading radio syndication company, made him an offer to go national.
In January 2002, “The Glenn Beck Program,” launched with 47 stations. It is now carried on over 300 outlets (and XM Satellite Radio), and is ranked the 3rd most listened to talk show among adults 25-54 (2009). The politically conservative commentator has been a contributor to ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America,” does one-man stand-up comedy tours twice a year, has authored two New York Times best-sellers, publishes Fusion Magazine, and in 2006, began hosting a nightly show on CNN Headline News.
On October 16, 2008 Glenn signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract to move over to cable’s top-rated Fox News Channel.
Station History
1999 - 2002 Other Tampa Bay Area Stations (On Air Personality)
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