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Genre | Conservative talk |
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Country of origin | United States |
Language(s) | English |
Home station | KSFO (1995 – May 30, 2003) KSTE (June 2, 2003 – June 27, 2003) KNEW (July 1, 2003 – September 11, 2009) KSTE (September 14, 2009 – January 29, 2010) KTRB (February 1, 2010 – September 10, 2010) KSTE (September 13, 2010 – September 27, 2012) KSFO (October 23, 2012 – December 31, 2020) |
Syndicates | Talk Radio Network (1999–2012) Cumulus Media and Westwood One (2012–2020) |
TV adaptations | The Savage Nation (MSNBC, 2003) |
Hosted by | Michael Savage |
Recording studio | San Francisco, California |
Original release | January 2, 1995 (local); 1999 (national) – December 31, 2020 (local and national) |
Opening theme | "Master of Puppets" "Live Wire" |
Website | michaelsavage |
The Savage Nation (also called The Michael Savage Show) was an American conservative talk radio show hosted by Michael Savage. The program was heard by approximately 11 million listeners a week, which made it the 7th most listened to radio show in the country. [1]
The show was based in San Francisco, California, and was syndicated through Cumulus Media and Westwood One. [2]
In 1994, Michael Savage (then publishing under his birth name Michael Weiner) submitted for publication a manuscript called Immigrants and Epidemics. The proposed book, which was about the influx of foreign diseases due to the wave of illegal immigrants, was promptly rejected for what Savage contends was its politically incorrect subject matter. This, along with the suggestions of friends and acquaintances, inspired Savage to record a radio demo about the very subject of his manuscript. He mailed the tape to 250 radio stations, and on March 21, 1994, The Savage Nation was born on KGO in San Francisco.
Savage's radio career began modestly enough as a fill-in host for Ray Taliaferro. On January 2, 1995, Savage began hosting The Savage Nation on KGO's new sister station KSFO, which at the time changed its lineup to be completely conservative. [3]
In 1999, Savage began hosting separate local and national parts of The Savage Nation. [4] On September 21, 2000, Savage made the entire Savage Nation show nationally syndicated through Talk Radio Network. [5] After one year, he was in 150 markets. By 2003, he was in more than 200 markets.[ citation needed ] Savage's fill-in guest hosts include former U.S. congressman "B-1" Bob Dornan, Rick Roberts, Mancow, and Peter Weisbach. Talk radio host Lars Larson is also a former guest host, although his show now directly competes with The Savage Nation.
In June 2003, he had a salary dispute with his flagship station KSFO, which refused to renegotiate his contract, and KSFO dropped his show on June 2. [6] In July 2003, he began his show on rival station KNEW. [7]
As of 2009, Savage had 8-10 million listeners per week, making his show the third most widely heard broadcast in the United States. [8]
The Savage Nation was removed from KNEW's schedule on September 10, 2009, as the station had "decided to go in a different philosophical and ideological direction[ sic ]." It was later picked up by sports station KTRB, but that agreement ended when Comerica Bank foreclosed on the station. Savage advised listeners that the show can be heard in the Bay Area via Sacramento-area KSTE. [9]
Savage filed a lawsuit in an attempt to break from his contract, which, though it expired at the end of 2010, contained clauses that granted Talk Radio Network the right to match any offer in perpetuity. [10] Savage won the lawsuit the morning of September 27, 2012, leading to the immediate cancellation of the show and forcing Talk Radio Network to hire a replacement in short order. Savage also won the rights to his entire archive but also was required to agree to a four-week non-compete clause, which prevented The Savage Nation from being picked up by another network in that time frame. [11]
The Savage Nation was revived on Cumulus Media on October 23, 2012, the day the non-compete clause expired. It aired in a new time slot, 9:00 PM to 12:00 midnight ET, replacing the weeknight edition of John Batchelor's news magazine.[ citation needed ]
On September 25, 2013, Savage announced during his show that effective January 2014, he would air during the afternoon drive hours of 3 p.m to 6 p.m, ET, replacing Sean Hannity for Cumulus Media Networks.[ citation needed ]
Savage has been involved in a personal dispute with talk show host Sean Hannity, whose slot on Cumulus he replaced at the beginning of 2014. Savage said about Hannity: "My competitor doesn’t have the capacity to go beyond the Democrat–Republican talking points. That's all he's ever done. That's all he can do. He has no education. I'm just going to lay it on the line, I'm not going to mince words." [12]
Savage was widely credited with helping Donald Trump become President of the United States and is known as the "Godfather of Trumpamania". [13] [14]
In January 2019, The Savage Nation was cut to two hours, only one of which is carried on terrestrial radio; the second hour is carried exclusively as a podcast. On September 30, 2020, Savage announced that Cumulus Media and Westwood One withdrew the terrestrial radio show from syndication after December 31, 2020, leaving only the podcast; he also stated he was under a gag order as to why the change was being made. [15]
Each hour of the daily three-hour broadcast usually begins with a monologue by Savage. Being a political commentator by trade, he often discusses issues in American politics and society in general. Many times, this leads to a passionate diatribe by Savage, a staple of The Savage Nation. Savage often takes calls in the second segment to comment on what was discussed in the previous segment.
Guests have traditionally been a rare occurrence, but they have become more frequent since 2007. From 2009 until the end of the TRN run, the entire third hour of most shows was devoted to pre-taped interviews with guests.
![]() | This article possibly contains original research .(August 2011) |
Music is an integral part of The Savage Nation. Savage often extends the role of music beyond bumper music to be as much the content of the show as what he's talking about. (For instance, there was a period of several days in 2006 when Savage played "Living on a Thin Line" by The Kinks concurrent with his discussions of America's internal vulnerabilities.)
He also played "God Save the Queen" by the Sex Pistols and "Living on a Thin Line", and agreed that "there's no England now" after being banned from the U.K. by British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.
The signature musical introduction to The Savage Nation is the beginning of Metallica's "Master of Puppets", followed by an announcer saying, "Warning: The Michael Savage Show contains adult language, adult content, psychological nudity. Listener discretion is advised." For years, this was followed by Mötley Crüe's "Looks That Kill" and Metallica's "The Shortest Straw" to conclude the introduction; following the move from TRN to Cumulus in 2012, the opening was revamped, and Mötley Crüe's "Live Wire" replaced the latter two songs.
For bumper music, Savage has used "Motorbreath", "Eye of the Beholder", "Frayed Ends of Sanity", "Holier Than Thou", "Jump in the Fire", "To Live Is to Die", "Battery", "Blackened", "Sad but True", "Ain't My Bitch", "Fuel", "The Shortest Straw", and "Don't Tread on Me" by Metallica, as well as "Du Hast" and "Tier" by Rammstein, Nirvana, "Big Gun" by AC/DC, and "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine. As of 2015, Judas Priest's "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" has generally played at the 30-minute break.
While Savage has previously criticized pop culture on his program, he is a self-proclaimed rock music fan. On his July 19, 2006 show, Savage said he is a huge fan of the German group Rammstein, and that he often drives around at night blasting their music. When challenged by a caller to explain why he likes Rammstein, Savage said they are "the only true form of poetry and music that reflect the real world nowadays." Savage played their music at length during that specific broadcast.
He is also a fan of 1950s rock 'n' roll and doo-wop music such as The Cadillacs, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and The Flamingos, which is played on his "Rock and Roll Friday". On January 25, 2007, he started playing "I'm Broken" by Pantera on his show, stating that this is the type of music that U.S. troops should be listening to in Iraq.
On Mondays, he frequently opens the program by playing "Blue Monday" by Fats Domino.
Savage often closes the show by saying, "With God's will and your listenership, I shall return", or some variation thereof.
Liberal advocacy groups and media watchdogs such as GLAAD and FAIR accuse Savage of racism, homophobia, bigotry, and Islamophobia because of his controversial statements about homosexuality, Islam, feminism, sex education, and immigration. [16] [17] [18]
On his September 21, 1999 broadcast, Savage said that the motivation for female students who come from a Marin County private school to feed and provide services to the homeless is so they "can go in and get raped by them, because they seem to like the excitement of it..." [19] [20]
In 2007, Supertalk Mississippi removed The Savage Nation from its programming due to negative reaction by listeners. [21] [22]
In November 2016, Savage commented on why he avoided paranormal topics: "You say ‘UFOs,’ you wind up in the Philippines with a 10-year-old hooker and you are off the radio after a number of years." The in-joke was a reference to Art Bell, who was known for his frequent disappearances from radio during his lifetime and, at age 60 and almost immediately after the death of his previous wife, married a then-22-year old Filipino woman named Airyn Ruiz in 2006; [23] Bell and Ruiz sued Savage and Westwood One shortly thereafter for defamation, with Ruiz insisting she was not a prostitute nor a child bride. The lawsuit was settled on February 27, 2017. [24]
On April 17, 2006, he commented about Muslims,
They say, 'Oh, there's a billion of them.' I said, 'So, kill 100 million of them, then there'll be 900 million of them.' I mean, would you rather die—would you rather us die than them? [25]
Savage's comments were seriously criticized worldwide and following controversy over such comments allegedly soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred (both criminal offences in the United Kingdom), on May 5, 2009, then-Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced that Savage was on a list of individuals banned from entering the United Kingdom as he is "considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence." [26] [27] [28]
Savage called on his listeners to support him by canceling travel and business in Britain, as well as by boycotting British-made goods, commenting, "If they want to play hardball, we'll play hardball." [29]
Westwood One was an American radio network that was based in New York City. At one time, it was managed by CBS Radio, and was later purchased by the private equity firm, The Gores Group. Due to purchases, mergers and other forms of consolidation in the 1980s and 1990s, at one time or another, it had ownership stakes in or syndication rights to some of the most famous brands in network radio, including CBS, NBC, Mutual, CNN, Fox, and Unistar. The company was one of the largest producers and distributors of radio programming in the United States. It broadcast entertainment, news, weather, sports, talk, and traffic programming to about 7,700 radio stations across the United States. The company was the top provider of local traffic reports in the U.S. through its subsidiaries, Metro Networks, Shadow Broadcast Services, SmartRoute Systems, and Sigalert.com. Westwood One also offers weather services; originally using Accuweather, Westwood switched to The Weather Channel in 2009.
Ronn Owens, is the host of The Ronn Owens Report, a ten-minute weekday radio program airing on KGO in San Francisco.
The Sean Hannity Show is a conservative talk radio show hosted by Sean Hannity. The program is broadcast live every weekday, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET. The show is produced in the New York City studios of radio station WOR and is transmitted via ISDN from Hannity's home in Florida, or on location if Hannity's commitments to Fox News Channel take him out of the New York area. The show is now syndicated by Premiere Networks, a subsidiary of iHeartMedia, on terrestrial radio affiliates across the United States, on Sirius XM Patriot channel 125. and on American Forces Network's AFN 360 PowerTalk and The Voice channels. The primary focus of the program is the politics of the day, with interviews of liberal and conservative commentators. After conservative radio show The Rush Limbaugh Show ended its run following Limbaugh's 2021 death, The Sean Hannity Show became the most-listened-to commercial radio talk show with an estimated 16.25 million listeners.
KGO is a commercial AM radio station in San Francisco, California. It airs a sports betting format and is owned by Cumulus Media. Its offices and studios are on Battery Street in the SoMa portion of San Francisco's Financial District.
Cumulus Media Networks was an American radio network owned and operated by Cumulus Media. From 2011 until its merger with Westwood One, it controlled many of the radio assets formerly belonging to the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), which was broken up in 2007; Cumulus owned the portion of the network that was purchased by Citadel Broadcasting that year.
KKSF is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Oakland, California and serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The station is owned by iHeartMedia and has an all-news radio format, with programming from the co-owned Black Information Network (BIN). The studios are located on Townsend Street in San Francisco's SoMa district.
WBAP is an AM news/talk radio station licensed to Fort Worth, Texas, and serving the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. WBAP is owned by Cumulus Media and broadcasts with 50,000 watts from a transmitter site in the northwest corner of Mansfield. Its programming is also simulcast on WBAP-FM (93.3) in Haltom City.
Brian Jay Sussman is an American conservative talk radio host and former meteorologist in the San Francisco Bay Area who was most recently at San Francisco radio station KSFO.
CBS News Radio, formerly known as CBS Radio News and historically known as the CBS Radio Network, is a radio network that provides news to more than 1,000 radio stations throughout the United States. The network is owned by Paramount Global. It is the last of the three original national U.S. radio networks still operating and still owned by its parent company, even though CBS sold its owned and operated radio stations in 2017. The current NBC Radio Network is actually owned by iHeartMedia but licenses use of the NBC name and NBC's TV news reports.
KSFO is a commercial radio station in San Francisco, California. It is owned by Cumulus Media and airs a talk radio format. The station's studios and offices are on Battery Street in San Francisco, along with five other Bay Area Cumulus stations.
KTCT is a commercial radio station licensed to San Mateo, California, and serving the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned by Cumulus Media and airs a sports radio format as KNBR 1050, a sister station to KNBR and KNBR-FM. In contrast to KNBR-AM-FM having local sports talk and play-by-play most of the day, KTCT emphasizes nationally syndicated programming from ESPN Radio. KTCT is also the radio home for San Jose Earthquakes soccer, Stanford University football, and University of San Francisco men's basketball.
Talk Radio Network (TRN) was an independent radio producer and syndicator of news and talk radio programming headquartered in Central Point, Oregon. TRN consists of a number of associated companies, which have launched or re-built some of the United States' highest-ranked talk radio shows, including The Savage Nation, Coast to Coast AM, and The Jerry Doyle Show. TRN was founded in 1993 and managed by CEO Mark Masters and his brother, David Masters, who was senior executive producer from 1999 thru 2017.
ABC News Radio is the news radio service of ABC Audio, a division of ABC News in the United States. Formerly known as ABC Radio News, ABC News Radio feeds, through Skyview Networks, five-minute newscasts on the hour and news briefs at half-past the hour, to its network affiliates. ABC News Radio is the largest commercial radio news organization in the US.
Melanie Morgan is an American radio personality, formerly with KSFO in San Francisco, where her husband, Jack Swanson, was VP of News and Programming. She was laid off from KSFO due to budget cutbacks and declining ad revenue, returned to host the morning show, then once more left the station as of July 10, 2013. She has also previously worked as a reporter for KGO-TV in San Francisco. She is the Chairman of Move America Forward, a non-partisan, non-profit, charitable organization that supports the U.S. armed forces and their missions in the War on Terrorism. She is known for her advocacy on behalf of the American military, defense of the War on Terror and criticism of American liberals.
Don Sherwood was an American radio personality. He was a San Francisco, California, disc jockey during the 1950s and 1960s. Billed as "The World's Greatest Disc Jockey," Sherwood spent most of his career hosting a 6-9 a.m. weekday program on KSFO in San Francisco, which was then owned by the singing cowboy actor Gene Autry.
Michael Alan Weiner, known by his professional name Michael Savage, is an American right-wing author, political commentator, activist, and former radio host. Savage is best known as the host of The Savage Nation, a nationally syndicated talk show that aired on Talk Radio Network across the United States until 2021, and in 2009 was the second most listened-to radio talk show in the country with an audience of over 20 million listeners on 400 stations across the United States. From October 23, 2012, to January 1, 2021, Michael Savage had been syndicated by Cumulus Media and Westwood One. He holds master's degrees from the University of Hawaii in medical botany and medical anthropology, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in nutritional ethnomedicine. As Michael Weiner, he has written books on nutrition, herbal medicine, and homeopathy; as Michael Savage, he has written several political books that have reached The New York Times Best Seller list.
WFNC is an AM radio station in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The station has a conservative talk format and is under ownership of Cumulus Media. Its studios and transmitter are co-located in Fayetteville.
Conservative talk radio is a talk radio format in the United States and other countries devoted to expressing conservative viewpoints of issues, as opposed to progressive talk radio. The definition of conservative talk is generally broad enough that libertarian talk show hosts are also included in the definition. The format has become the dominant form of talk radio in the United States since the 1987 abolition of the fairness doctrine.
The Mark Levin Show is a conservative talk radio show hosted by Mark Levin.
Jimmy Coleman, known professionally as J. Paul Emerson, was an American talk radio personality who held time slots at several big market American radio stations over the course of his career. He is perhaps best remembered for his dismissal from the radio station KSFO in San Francisco, California in 1995, following controversial remarks he made about gays and people with AIDS. He famously appeared as a guest on the Phil Donahue Show. Previous to that he was fired from another Bay city frequency, KFRC, for uttering anti-Asian remarks. He was then hired by KSFO when it replaced its existing talk radio format with a conservative format called Hot Talk in an effort to improve ratings.