| . |
. Current Issue
|
. | . | . |
Baton Rouge Business Profiles interview Ed Buggsby the publisher
BP: Ed, you were telling me about your beginnings as a broadcaster.
I finished high school, did one semester at LSU, then jumped in my car with my guitar and my girlfriend and drove to Los Angeles. I got a job, but after a few weeks my girlfriend said, "I saw a commercial for some broadcasting school I thought you'd be interested in." The commercial came on again and I said, "This is it." It was the Columbia School of Broadcasting.
So I called them. I was accepted. I'd had a motorcycle accident a couple years prior, so my parents had some settlement money. My parents sent the money and I enrolled in school. It was a dream come true. I came back to Baton Rouge at the age of 19, went to work at Channel 2 while attending LSU at night, and three years later got hired away by the NBC affiliate KXAS in Fort Worth, Texas. There I met an incredible woman, a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader and a senior account executive at the station. We were married for 22 years. BP: Are you still friends? EB: Very much so. We have no children and the dog died. So it was a clean break. BP: Tell us about your work with Citadel. EB: I host the Ed Buggs show from 2-6 weekday afternoons on 1300 WIBR, The Capitol City Big Talker. We program those four hours for one word: Passion. It's about radio you have to listen to. Roll down the windows, hush the kids and listen. If they are talking about it at the water cooler the night before, we better be talking about it on the radio. The passion comes from the question, "What's really going on?" For instance, Colin Powell is leaving the cabinet. Is this something you're worried about, with all his decades of military experience? Or is it second-term politics as usual? Typically people felt strongly one way or the other, which makes it a perfect topic for talk radio.
People listen to talk radio for one of two reasons. They either love the guy or they hate the guy. So on every subject we have I have to make it clear where I stand. Because, once you do that, some will gravitate towards you while others will gravitate away from you — but people will call. And they'll talk. And they'll listen. BP: Ed, your voice is a God-given gift. To what do you attribute your gift of gab? EB: Richard, it's just like you in your job when you're interviewing people. It's all I've ever done. The guys at Columbia taught me, John Spain and Bob Courtney and Phil Oakley and Robert Collins and all the superstars of Eyewitness News, back in the day, taught me so much. The long and short of it is, radio has been fabulous for me. Because it's taught me to interact with people. TV is just one-way; you're talking. But radio is two-way, and you're also listening.
There was another. One day I'm walking into the studio at WJBO, where I worked from 1997 to 2001. A consultant was waiting in the threshold. He asked me what I was holding. I said, "My script." He asked to see it, then started walking away with it. I said, "Hey, that's my show." And he pointed at my gut and said, "No, that's your show. Son, from now on you can bring one sheet of paper and bullet points, that's it." Until that day, if I had two minutes left on my show and no callers, I was panicking. From that day forward, and to this day, if I have seven minutes left and no callers it's wonderful. Because now we're going to have fun. Now we're going to pick up our pole, step out on our tightrope and not look down. That's when everything just flows. BP: Tell us about your new television show. EB: The Ed Buggs TV show debuts Monday, January 3rd on Cox Channel Four. It will air from 9:00 to 10:00 and be repeated from 4:30 to 5:30 with live traffic inserts in both. Syndication is the goal. Universal appeal is what we're going for. We don't talk about Southern or LSU. We don't talk about eating crawfish. We talk about topics that, if you're in Maine, it should make sense to you. That's the goal. We have a unique blend here, a black male who is conservative, who is Republican, whose perspective is family values, who is animated, who is somewhat humorous, and hopefully is someone America can feel at home with — that's what we're shooting for. That's our niche.
Back to the previous issues listing Back to the Current Issue
Contact Us!
|
. | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . |
Everyone knows Ed Buggs, the satin-voiced radio host whose provocative talk show airs Monday through Friday on AM 1300BR. His motto, "With a Mic and a Mission," is better known than even Ed may imagine. Fans who remember his early television days will be pleased to learn that he returns to television with his own show on January 3, 2005, on Cox 4.
EB: When I was six years old, I told my grandmother I wanted to be Walter Cronkite. This was 1960 in Eunice, Louisiana. My father was in Korea. Grandma laughed at me and said in her Creole accent, "Who ever heard of a colored boy doing the news?" And Richard, the broadcasting dream crystallized in me — because she told me I couldn't.
For me, the most important part of what I do is listening. I used to ask myself while interviewing people, "What am I going to ask this person next?" And one day I related this to someone I worked for at NBC in Dallas, and he said, "Wrong, wrong. You should be listening. Their answers will give you the next question." There's a word for that — epiphany. That was an epiphany for me.
