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— Steve Kane, 45, has the top-rated late-afternoon "drive time" show on Miami's WNWS and says, "I judge my success by the amount of hate mail I get." A former acting teacher, he delivers his mostly liberal views in a rhetorical fist ("Get on your broomstick and take off, you witch").
He talks freely about his personal life, including a recent separation from his third wife, a 21-year-old woman whom he met when she called his show a few years ago to console him on the loss of his girlfriend.
The Orlando station where he worked before going to Miami was picketed after he announced on the air that he often paraded nude before his three young children.
Kane claims to take pleasure from cornering guests and callers "to make them look stupid." Says he: "If people call a talk show, they are fair game."
— Wally George, 48, host of the late-night Hot Seat on KDOC-TV in Anaheim, Calif., has moved the tough-talk approach to television. Shouting, arms flapping, index finger jabbing, the white-haired former deejay pours his contempt on Communists, liberals, feminists and anyone else he considers a "wimp" or "pervert." If a guest is too exasperating, uniformed security guards hustle the offender away.
George admits to a talent for theatrical touches — like making guests from the A.C.L.U. recite the Pledge of Allegiance —but insists that his purposes are serious.
"I'm trying to get people to hear the conservative side," he says. He also insists that his on-camera manner is no act:
"What I'm doing on the air is what I do in real life." People must like what he does: the show is now syndicated nationally.
— Howard Stern, 30, uses humor to sweeten the punch on his afternoon radio show on WNBC in New York City. A communications graduate of Boston University, Stern delights in satire and free-flowing comic patter that needles New York's multitude of ethnic, religious, racial and sexual minorities ("I have nothing against giving gays rights. I just don't want them to have sex together"). Prerecorded skit segments of his show include "Gay Tarzan," in which Jane is a man, and "Dial-a-Date," a spoof of The Dating Game with lesbian contestants. When a mother wrote in to complain about his ceaseless talk about sex, he called her on the air to prod her into specifying the words she found most objectionable. "Is the word suck O.K.?" he asked. "How about stroke?" When he sensed her discomfort about the word orgasm he moved in. "Orgasm! Orgasm! Orgasm!" he whooped. "Some people find me disgusting," Stern shrugs, "while others love me. But they all listen."
Psychologist Jacob Levine, a clinical professor at the Yale School of Medicine, argues that more is involved in listeners' emotions than disgust or love.