Obit: ABC's Paul Harvey

A 75-year veteran of the radio business, Paul Harvey died Saturday night at a Phoenix hospital, his family at his side. He was 90 years old. For decades, "Paul Harvey News and Comment," and later "The Rest of the Story," brought listeners a mix of news, opinion and on-air advertising--all with a distinctive delivery that made his pontifications all the more memorable. His idiosyncratic broadcast style, full of pauses and abrupt changes of subject, became familiar to tens of millions during his more than half century with ABC Radio.

As a child growing up near Tulsa, Oklahoma, Harvey was fascinated by radios and at the age of 15, took a janitorial job at the local radio station, KVOO, where his broadcast career began. During the height of The Great Depression, Harvey worked his way into the radio business with jobs at stations in Salina, Kansas, Oklahoma City and St. Louis. In 1940, as a reporter for KXOK in St. Louis, he was sent to report on the U.S. naval buildup at Pearl Harbor. He was flying back to California when the surprise attack sank most of the U.S. Pacific fleet.

advertisement

advertisement

After a three-month stint in the military, he landed a job in Chicago radio as a newscaster for ABC affiliate WENR-AM, where he worked from 1944-1951. The station's landlord--Joseph P. Kennedy--helped convince ABC to give him national billing. From then on, Harvey always broadcast from Chicago. In later years, "The Rest of the Story" reached up to 24 million listeners via 1,200 radio stations around the country and Armed Forces Radio. He also had a column called "Paul Harvey News" in 300 American newspapers.

As the decades passed, Harvey continued to deliver advertising the old-fashioned way--with folksy on-air promotions for products and services, often coining his own catchy slogan for a product. While this might have struck some listeners (and executives) as a throwback, Harvey's skill in weaving ads into his monologue--and the long loyalty of advertisers like Bankers Life & Casualty and Neutrogena--suggests otherwise. In 2000, he renewed his employment at ABC Radio with a 10-year, $100 million contract; in 2006 Forbes estimated that his show had brought in a total of about $1 billion in revenue for ABC Radio.

Harvey had broad appeal, steering clear of raunchy subject matter or impassioned ranting. An ardent conservative and patriot, his opinions lacked the vitriol and animosity of political talk pundits to come. By the same token, one of the most successful newcomers, Rush Limbaugh, seemed to pick up some of Harvey's unusual but appealing mannerism--mimicking his syncopated delivery, with declarations separated by long pauses, sighs, and the sounds of paper rustling.

Harvey often attributed his success to the influence of his wife Lynne, or "Angel," whom he married in 1940. She became his business partner and producer, as well as the first producer inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. She died of leukemia in May 2008. Beginning in 1976, his son Paul Harvey Jr. did much of the writing for the show.

1 comment about "Obit: ABC's Paul Harvey ".
Check to receive email when comments are posted.
  1. Alan Schulman from SapientNitro, March 6, 2009 at 11:46 a.m.

    In addition to being one of the most listened to Radio Personalities in American History, Paul Harvey was equally a formidable advertising writer. Having worked with Paul in the late 80's on a campaign for Schwinn's Air-Dyne aerobic cycle, I can honestly say he had a brilliant way with crafting brand narratives that America trusted and bought! Paul was personally responisble for selling thousands of Schwinn Air-Dyne's through his charm, honesty and credibility. In my view, he deserves to be posthumously inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame.

Next story loading loading..