Las Vegas may have its King of Rock and Roll, but radio now has its own Hall of Fame Elvis to brag about. At Monday night’s Achievement in Broadcasting Dinner, iHeartMedia syndicated morning personality Elvis Duran became the latest inductee into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame.
Duran, whose Elvis Duran and the Morning Show is based at iHeartMedia’s WHTZ-FM Z100 in New York, and is nationally distributed by Premiere Networks, has been associated with the Top 40 station since the early 1990s. Before that, he was an air personality and PD at WIOQ-FM Q102 in Philadelphia and an air talent at KRBE-FM 104.1 in Houston in the mid-1980s.
In a five-minute acceptance speech following Duran’s procession to the stage as Judy Garland’s “The Trolley Song” from Meet Me in St. Louis played, Duran remarked:
“This is kind of creepy. I’m not accustomed to this. I just do what I love and I am doing the only thing I know how to do. I know a lot of people in this room would agree … You just do what you love.”
Duran had just returned from the RadioDays Europe convention in Vienna, Austria. Working through his nervousness in accepting the Hall of Fame induction, he recalled his experience at last week’s event — the continental equivalent of the Radio Show held each year by the NAB and RAB. “Radio is so alive. It’s so relevant. It is still what it used to be, what it’s always been — that one-on-one connection that we can do, and you can’t really do anywhere else … other than hosting Jeopardy! or Wheel of Fortune.“
The other Broadcasting Hall of Fame inductees for 2018, also in attendance, were Vanna White, Pat Sajak, and Alex Trebek.
Duran called it “totally crazy” to be inducted into a Hall of Fame on the same night as the famed TV personalities. “I am so, so in awe,” he said.
Duran then turned his attention to the managers in the room, saying, “…how you elevate talent and you appreciate how talent really is. It is a very, very important part of what we do and what you do to succeed.”
From there, Duran recalled how, as a young boy in Dallas, he became enamored with legendary air personality Ron Chapman. “He’s the reason I am in radio,” Duran said, noting how he remembers Chapman on KVIL-FM 103.7 in Dallas playing Lobo’s “Me and You and a Dog Named Boo” in 1971 while he was sitting on his grandmother’s couch.
That struck such a strong chord in Chapman that Duran wrote a letter to him saying, “Hey, I want to be in radio. I think that’s kind of cool … all the buttons you push, and you get to play records.” How did Chapman respond? “‘It’s not about the buttons. It’s about the words you use and how you paint pictures with words.’ And, I’ve never forgotten that.”
Flash forward to the 1990s, when Duran was in afternoon drive at Z100 and he ran into Chapman at a NAB Radio Show in Boston. He recalled the Lobo story, to which Chapman replied, “Well, I guess you owe me a ‘Thank You,’ don’t you?” before walking away.
Duran concluded, “I was seduced by radio at a very early age and I can’t imagine doing anything else. I worked at Baskin-Robbins for a moment and I was a failure … and maybe soon I’ll be back there.”
RBR+TVBR Editor-in-Chief Adam Jacobson contributed to this report for Radio Ink.
