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South Florida radio legend Neil Rogers dies
By Tom Jicha, Sun Sentinel
Neil
Rogers, the best known radio personality in South Florida for more than
three decades, died at 9:45 a.m. Friday. Born Nelson Roger Behelfer in
Rochester, N.Y., he was 68.
Rogers, who had been living in
Toronto, suffered two heart attacks and a stroke, at least his second,
since July. On Nov. 7 he returned to South Florida, where he maintained a
home in Plantation Acres, to continue treatments and to be near
friends.View a photo gallery.
From
his first days on the air in the mid 1970s, Rogers courted controversy.
Born Jewish, he said he was an atheist in a heavily Jewish region. He
mocked all organized religion and infuriated Catholics with his attacks
on the pope. He derided senior citizens as people who steal Sweet 'N Low
packages from restaurants and called South Florida "an outdoor funeral
home." During the Mariel immigration, Rogers was outspokenly against the
waves of refugees sent to South Florida.
Rogers, who studied
broadcasting at Michigan State University but dropped out before earning
a degree, got his first radio job in Canandaigua, N.Y. He came to South
Florida for a short-lived gig at WJNO. When he was let go there, he was
en route to Yuma, Ariz., for a new job when his mother called to tell
him WKAT in Miami Beach was interested in him. He turned his car around
and came back.
In 1977, barely a year after being hired at WKAT,
he tempted fate by coming out as gay during the charged era when singer
Anita Bryant was championing an anti-homosexual ordinance in Dade
County.
Craig Worthing, a colleague at the time, said he
remembered warning Rogers just before he came out, "Don't do it. It will
kill your career." Rogers was adamant about wanting to make a strong
personal statement against bigotry, Worthing said.
Bryant's ordinance passed but Rogers' career took off.
Worthing
remembers kidding Rogers that when the two of them were at WKAT, "I was
making $400 and he was making $250. It was the only time I was ever
making more than him." At his peak, Rogers made as much as $1.5 million
annually. He was the first South Florida radio personality known to make
more than a million dollars a year.
Although Rogers turned down
opportunities to go national, he had a national profile, said Tom
Taylor, a veteran radio analyst for Radio-Info.com, an industry
marketplace. "Everybody in talk knew about Neil. What was amazing was
the place he held in the life of the local media. If you were in media,
you had to listen to Neil. I'm not aware of anyone in radio who had that
kind of hold on local media."
Some of this imperative was to see
what Neil was saying about you. He was brutal to many icons, such as
the late Ann Bishop, Rick Sanchez and Larry King. He reminded listeners
of Larry King's problematic financial history at every opportunity,
repeatedly playing a tape of King saying, "Loan me $50."
He also had on a loop, "Tom Jicha, he's bald and stupid."
Hank
Goldberg, who worked with Rogers at WIOD and WQAM, was often the brunt
of Rogers' put-downs. Rogers called him "Fat Hank" and "The Humper."
Goldberg said he never took it personally, and they had a cordial
relationship to the end. When Goldberg was in Toronto to cover a horse
race for ESPN, he and Rogers would go out to dinner.
"I talked to
him a couple of weeks ago," Goldberg said. It was right after Rogers
had suffered a stroke but he still had his wicked sense of humor,
Goldberg said. "He told me he wasn't going to die until Joe Bell died."
Bell was Rogers' final boss, the WQAM general manager who orchestrated
the June 2009 buyout that sent Rogers into retirement.
"Neil was a
giant," Goldberg said. "[There was talk about] the University of Miami
looking for a football coach … with a 'wow!' factor. Neil was a wow."
Rogers
openly warred with Steve Kane when they were colleagues at WIOD, then
after they went their separate ways to different stations. Kane never
took it personally and remains an unabashed admirer. "He was the king of
the whole area during the salad days of radio. We used to go back and
forth but I thought it was great."
Kane visited Rogers in the hospital. They had a pleasant visit, reminiscing about old times, Kane said.
This was typical. Away from the microphone, the caustic on-air personality would avoid confrontation at almost any cost.
He
was also the consummate professional. His barbs at station management
over technical issues were part of his show but these were serious. He
wanted and demanded that those around him put forth the same total
commitment to the program that he did.
As a mentor, he helped to
launch the careers of Al Rantel and Randi Rhodes. And he made an on-air
personality of his longtime producer, Jorge Rodriguez.
Rodriguez,
who now runs the website sofloradio.com, was a board operator at WIOD
when he was assigned to Rogers' program. "I was scared to death of him,"
Rodriguez said. "I was so nervous I didn't do anything right. I
invented new mistakes, but Neil just made a joke of it and went on with
the show."
Instead of typing messages on a computer during a show, Rogers told him to open the microphone and talk to him on the air.
When
Rogers moved to WQAM in 1999, Rodriguez was part of the deal. Almost
immediately, Rogers insisted that Rodriguez be his permanent substitute
host. "I wound up doing about a third of the shows when Neil began to
take summers off in addition to his vacation and other absences. He gave
me an identity in the community."
Rogers' halo effect boosted
the ratings of anyone who followed him, from Phil Hendrie to Stan Major
to Rick & Suds to Kane, whose audiences were never bigger than when
they followed Rogers.
The low point of his career came in 1992,
when he was arrested at a Miami Beach adult theater. The police alleged
he was seen masturbating, but the charges were dropped.
Rogers'
wrangling with his bosses led him to move from station to station
despite being the most popular personality at each of them. As soon as
his star rose, he left WKAT for WNWS and helped make it the leading talk
station in the market. From there he jumped to WINZ, which eventually
moved him to its sister FM Zeta. WIOD was next, then WQAM, where he
spent the final 12 years of his career.
Whether it was in morning
drive on Zeta, in midday at WIOD and WQAM, or in evenings at WINZ,
whether he was talking serious political and cultural issues or doing
absurd stream-of-consciousness riffs and playing comedy bits, he was
always No. 1.
"His audience has never been duplicated," Goldberg said, "and it never will be."
Tom Jicha can be reached at tjicha@sunsentinel.com