Buffalo, NY (WBEN) The news came just as "The Rush Limbaugh Program" was starting, as his widow Kathryn announced the talk radio icon died of lung cancer at age 70. Rush is being remembered by those who spent time in Buffalo radio programming circles.
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Former WBEN program director Kevin Keenan says Limbaugh set the standard of excellence in talk radio. "Rush really took talk radio to a different level, a much higher level and he really knew how to engage the listener and knew how to provoke," says Keenan. "It made for compelling radio whether you agreed with him or not."
Keenan says Limbaugh set a standard the likes of which we may never see again. "It was a bar so high nobody could get over it, but a lot of talk show hosts aspire to it, and his style was unique. He was able to articulate his points very well, and he has inspired generations of broadcasters and changed the landscape of talk radio," notes Keenan.
As a man, Keenan says Limbaugh was a gentleman, reflecting on the Rush to Excellence tour stop in Buffalo in the early 1990s. "We spent some time as I was driving him from the airport to the hotel and did a show with him on a Saturday morning. He was very interested in the people he was talking with and it made for a memorable weekend for Buffalo radio listeners," adds Keenan.
Tom Langmyer, another WBEN alumnus now with Great Lakes Media Group, says Limbaugh's show raised interest. "You'd have him go on the radio stations, and immediately they were talked about," says Langmyer. "He had made people think about things. Early on, he was not as controversial a figure as he was as people thought of him in the last 20 years. He talked about sports, pop culture, news stories, all sorts of things."
Langmyer says Limbaugh set the standard for radio talk shows. "He defined a lot of what talk radio stations became. They became more politically driven, and he became the father of the radio town hall," explains Langmyer.
As for critics, Langmyer says the critics may not have listened to Limbaugh firsthand. "He might have said something and it might have been hyperbole, he might have had his tongue firmly in his cheek, or he might have meant it," notes Langmyer. He adds the comments were sometimes misunderstood or purposely taken out of context.
Limbaugh died Wednesday after battling stage four lung cancer at age 70.