Howard Miller

Howard Miller, a Chicago radio personality from the 1940s through the 1970s, was extraordinarily popular as a pre-rock 'n' roll disc jockey and later as a controversial conservative radio commentator and TV talk-show host. Over the last decade, his Miller Broadcasting has owned radio stations in Rockford, Geneva and Kewanee in Illinois and in Gainesville and Melbourne, FL. "He had a showmanship and a charisma that blurted out through the radio," said political commentator Bruce DuMont, a friend and a former producer for Mr. Miller's radio show. "He did not have that mean-spirited atmosphere of some today. He grew up with his audience. He started as a major player in the pre-rock 'n' roll days of radio and records and got involved in people's growing interests in taxes, welfare cheats and crime. He created techniques such the `The People's Lobby.' It urged listener participation in the political process and has since been imitated by others such as Rush Limbaugh." Mr. Miller was the son of Judge Harry B. Miller, a prominent Republican in the era of Mayor William Hale Thompson. A graduate of Knox College in Galesburg, Mr. Miller served in the Navy in World War II and attended the Kent College of Law before finding a career in radio. He joined CBS as a staff producer in 1945 and then became program director at WIND for four years. In the mid-1940s, he bought his first radio station, WGIL in Galesburg, and became the youngest radio station licensee in the country. By 1949, Mr. Miller had a morning show on WIND and quickly dominated a new phenomenon that became known as "drive-time" radio. His patter and record spinning promoted singers and performers such as Patti Page, Pat Boone, Roger Williams and the Four Lads. By the mid-1950s, he was unquestionably the country's foremost disc jockey, and Time Magazine in 1957 called him "probably the nation's single biggest influence on record sales." Mr. Miller had hoped to run for mayor of Chicago in 1959 and eventually made unsuccessful c