WALE-990, AM RADIO

In the last issue of SR I announced excitedly that I had my own radio talk show on W.A.L.E.-AM in Providence Rhode Island. It appeared to be an unmatched opportunity to promote revisionist theory on radio. I fully expected to develop an audience quickly, to cause a scandal all over the Northeast, become a national story, win new supporters for CODOH and revisionism in the mainstream community, and help bring in some income via the sale of the ColePiper video.

I was wrong about everything. It just didn't work. WALE has a 50,000 watt signal but apparently a very weak listening audience. Its range is restricted by topography roughly to the state of Rhode Island. The ADL and the rest of the Lobby played possum. It worked for them. Can they learn from experience? Not if my experience with them means anything at all.

Before I finished hosting the first 13 weekly shows in a noontime slot, I had to face the fact that I wasn't developing an audience. The station offered me a drive time slot, 5pm to 6pm, at a reduced price. Alter 5 programs at that hour, nothing had changed. I could see the writing on the wall. I could no longer justify my sponsor's paying for the air time. We'd shot a blank.

As I reported in the last issue of SR, I did a couple programs with David Cole, one with Dr. Robert Countess, three with Fritz Berg and the next seven with Charles Provan. When we began the second 13 week contract on drive time, Provan appeared once, then Andrew Allen came aboard to talk about the David Irving controversy at Berkeley. Michael Hoffman was my guest on the following three programs.

One afternoon when Hoffman was my guest, he asked me during a commercial break what I knew about a certain story that was appearing in the press, I forget which one, and I said I didn't know. I said, I don't read the newspapers, I haven't read the papers in 30 years.

Mike said: You don't read the papers? He was laughing. And you want to be a talk show host? Oh, Bradley!

When I told David I was canceling the show, he got agitated. He didn't want to see it go down. Within fifteen minutes he had agreed to host the next program himself. To sit in for me. He did. He liked doing it. We half-hoped for a miracle—that he would be able to turn things around. He hosted three programs in all, but nothing turned around, and that was the end of it. Our last program aired on 30 November.

Nevertheless, I'd be willing to try it again. I would know next time to check out the range of the station's signal, and I understand now what the role is I can play on the air. My job as host won't be to do the talking, but to develop a format where the talking is done by others and I mediate. The format will work best on TV with two or three guests, but I know how to structure it for radio as well. My role will be to make sure that everything we do is provocative and that everybody has some fun, the participants as well as our listeners.

Musa Kallimulah, senior producer for WALE, stood behind me all the way. At one point he started to take a few hits from the Boston office of the ADL, but he stood firm against them, and they backed off. I think Kallimulah was willing to go all the way with us, but he's inherited a listening audience that is too small to sustain a significant audience for a specialized program such as I do. Plus, I was an outsider, with no knowledge of or interest in local issues, someone who not only didn't read the Rhode Island press but didn't follow the national press either. So I'm gone. As I said, win one, lose one.