Paul Harvey, a familiar radio voice for six decades who used long pauses to punctuate his delivery of news and observations, died today in Phoenix. He was 90.
Harvey’s death was announced in a statement by ABC Radio Networks where his “News and Comment” was a fixture aired from coast to coast since 1951. He had impressed network executives with high ratings in Chicago, where he’d been a newscaster at ABC affiliate WENR-AM since 1944.
Harvey died in a Phoenix area hospital with his family by his side, said Louis Adams, a spokesman for ABC Radio Networks. The broadcaster lived in Chicago during the summer and moved his production to Arizona in the winter months.
“My father and mother created from thin air what one day became radio and television news,” son Paul Harvey Jr. said in a statement on his father’s Web site. “So in the past year, an industry has lost its godparents and today millions have lost a friend.”
Harvey’s wife, Angel, who produced his shows, died in May.
Rising at 3:30 a.m., Harvey would arrive early at his office and studio to check overnight wire-service stories. A staff of six helped cull small-town newspapers and readers’ suggestions for more material for “News and Comment” segments that aired six days a week.
Harvey’s plain language and distinctive pauses were highly effective. He also managed to convey a sense of fresh wonder.
“Let me say I can’t wait to get up every morning and watch the passing parade and call out to anybody who might be interested in the things that interest me,” he told the Chicago Tribune.
‘Trusted Friend’
At age 82, Harvey was still so productive that ABC Radio signed him to a 10-year contract valued at $100 million in November 2000. More than 1,200 radio stations and 400 Armed Forces Network stations aired his broadcasts, according to ABC.
“As he delivered the news each day with his own unique style and commentary, his voice became a trusted friend in American households,” Jim Robinson, president of ABC Radio Networks, said in the statement. “His career in radio spanned more than seven decades, during which time countless millions of listeners were both informed and entertained by his ‘News & Comment’ and ‘Rest of the Story’ features.”
Popular With Advertisers
His conservative views and sincerity made him popular with advertisers. Highly selective, Harvey required one-year commitments from program sponsors and only promoted products he and his wife used. He wrote the ad copy and read it with conviction. Bankers Life & Casualty was a sponsor for 30 years; Bose Corp. was another favorite.
Paul Harvey Aurandt was born September 4, 1918, to Harry Harrison and Anna Dagmar (Christensen) Aurandt in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His father, a police officer, was killed when Harvey was three.
Harvey’s career was launched in 1933 when a speech teacher at Tulsa’s Central High School recognized his potential. She escorted the 14-year-old to local station KVOO-AM and told the station manager “This boy needs to be in radio,” the Tulsa World recounted in a 1997 article.
Harvey worked as an announcer, then as program director at KVOO-AM, according to the biography on his Web site.
He spent three years as a station manager in Salina, Kansas, followed by a stint as a newscaster in Oklahoma City. He then landed at WXOK-AM in St. Louis, working as a reporter and director of special events. In 1939, he met his future wife at the station.
‘Angel’s’ Advice
After marriage, Harvey worked as a reporter in Hawaii and enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps after Pearl Harbor. Discharged in 1944, he moved to Chicago at his wife’s urging.
“Since the first day of our marriage, we’ve worked side by side,” Harvey told the Chicago Tribune in 2002. Indeed, in 1997 his wife was the first producer inducted in the Hall of Fame of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.
According to the Chicago Tribune, his wife changed Harvey’s conservative views on the Equal Rights Amendment and the Vietnam War, leading up to his broadcast of May 1, 1970, when he addressed President Richard Nixon, saying, “I love you, Mr. President. But you’re wrong.”
