Jim Leach admitted last week that he felt "incredibly fortunate to have been given the platform and latitude" to express his views on his talk show on WMAY for nearly three decades.
Leach is leaving radio later this week to become the Public Information Officer for the Illinois Department of Public Health in early July.
With his departure, though, Leach senses what he delivered - a smart, local progressive - leaning talk show on a commercial radio station - is going the way of the dinosaur.
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"It was certainly my hope," Leach told The State Journal-Register, "to make sure that we had a wide array of viewpoints and to make sure a lot of people's views and opinions were heard, and I feel like we accomplished that. I find that a really gratifying part of the job. We opened up that platform and that ability to be heard to a wider audience."
Leach joked that when his talk show replaced Oliver North's syndicated show on the station in February 1996, it was "a pretty rude awakening" for an army of listeners.
Now, in an ironic twist, Leach's show, which runs from 4 to 6 p.m. on 92.7 FM, will be supplanted by Erick Erickson, once described as “the most powerful conservative in America.” Erickson can already be heard on WMAY from 7 to 10 p.m.
The new lineup does not include "The Frank McNeil Show," which follows Leach's show currently.
McNeil, the longtime Ward 2 alderman and one of three original plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit that led to Springfield’s mayor-aldermanic form of government, said management "suggested" another time slot for his show, which "wasn't acceptable at this point in time."
That leaves Greg Bishop as the station's only local weekday host. His show airs from 6 to 9 a.m.
Mark Van Allen, Vice President/Market Manager for Mid-West Family Illinois, did not return messages from The State Journal-Register.
Ray Lytle, who had two stints at WMAY in talk radio but is best known as the host of the “Morning Disaster,” which ran from on WYMG and was syndicated from 1996 to 2005 before re-booting with new internet shows in 2014, said he wasn't shocked at all by the "no cost (syndicated) lineup. It’s how talk radio is everywhere."
The station's conservative-leaning lineup includes other shows by Fox News political commentator Brian Kilmeade and former NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch.
The 58-year-old Leach, who is also the station's news director and DJs on a sister station called "The Lake" on 102.5 FM, dropped the news to his listeners last Wednesday. He wraps up his show this coming Wednesday.
"I think anyone who does something for 28 years probably says, 'Are there other hills to climb out there?'" Leach admitted. "(The position at IDPH) seems like important, valuable work and really just a great opportunity and I was really thrilled to have been offered it. It wasn't an easy decision, but I'm looking for some new challenges, and I think this is a very good fit."
In recent broadcasts, Leach has been doing a free form wrap-up of events by decade. He didn't necessarily want the time before his departure to turn into "a protracted wake or anything," he cautioned, "but I want to be able to use some time to express my gratitude to (Mid-West Family Broadcasting, the owners of the station), to the community, to the listeners. I've been afforded remarkable opportunities here. I do want to be able to try to express that in some way."
The Springfield native who now lives in Decatur said one of his career highlights was interviewing Barack Obama before he became president.
"I've interviewed 'Weird Al' Yankovic," said Leach, a musician himself. "I've talked to several governors and every mayor of Springfield and the occasional candidate coming through town. Musicians. I start getting a little overwhelmed just thinking about the really fascinating conversations I've had over the years."
Leach got to fly with the Blue Angels. He was Tased live on the air. He recorded getting a colonoscopy on the air as an educational piece.
"I wouldn't necessarily recommend that to anybody else," he said.
Leach's first brush with WMAY was as a board operator, the summer following his freshman year at Illinois State University, in 1983. He joined the station again on a part-time basis in 1990.
Leach also had stints with WICS-TV as a reporter and with the Illinois Attorney General's office under Neil Hartigan and Roland Burris.
The election of Republican Jim Ryan ushered Leach out the door at the AG's office, but by then, WMAY was switching from an oldies format with a news emphasis to "all talk," as well as adding staff. Leach was initially hired as the program director in January 1995 not long before Chris Murphy came aboard. Leach soon became the news director with Murphy sliding in as a program director.
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Leach added the talk show the next year.
Lytle, who considers Leach a friend, said he was always amazed how armed and ready Leach was during his show.
"When conservative people would call and they would want to argue, he would battle them with facts," Lytle said. "They just couldn't keep up. I thought that was the highlight of the show," said Lyte. "Don't get me wrong. Some intelligent conservative guys would call in and there would be some facts batted around from both sides and that was always good, but when he talked to people who had no facts as part of their argument...he made them look (not so good)."
Lytle said Leach had "a David Letterman-like wit that people really didn't hear in his radio show. He is that quick and he is that funny."
Lytle enlisted Leach to deliver a spot-on Bill Clinton impersonation for a "Morning Disaster" sketch written by the show's producer, Rocky, about the Monica Lewinski affair. The ribald line became a popular outtake during the "Morning Disaster" run. Lytle said he was still playing it on his internet show as of last year.
"I don't even know if (people) knew it was Jim," Lytle said. "It was a legendary line."
Management may not have agreed with Leach's politics, Lytle pointed out, but "they couldn't change him. If they would have fired him, listeners would have just had a fit."
Lytle said Leach would be perfect to do a podcast, but as far as staying behind the mic for now, Leach said it isn't in the cards.
"You never know what the future holds, and I am trying to never, ever close any door permanently," he said. "Down the road, who knows? I love radio, I love the ability to connect with listeners. I love the ability to communicate about things happening in the community to an audience. If that opportunity were to come up at some point down the road, I would always take a look at it to see if it's the right fit with my work situation and my family situation.
"I'm very big on radio, very big on its power, its influence, its importance to a community."
Contact StevenSpearie: 217-622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.
WMAY-FM lineup (beginning Thursday)
- 6-9 a.m. - "Bishop on Air" w/ Greg Bishop
- 9-11a.m. - Brian Kilmeade
- 11 a.m.-2 p.m. - Clay Travis & Buck Sexton
- 2-4 p.m. - Dana Loesch
- 4-7 p.m. - Erick Erickson
- 7-10 p.m. - Dave Ramsey
- 10 p.m.-Midnight - Our American Stories