Neil Rogers (November 5, 1942December 24, 2010) was an American talk radio personality. Until his retirement on June 22, 2009, The Neil Rogers Show aired weekdays from 10am-2pm on 560 WQAM. It was consistently the top-rated show in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale media market and had been since his Miami debut in 1976. Although he was not syndicated nationally or even regionally, Talkers magazine, the trade publication of talk radio, ranked Rogers at Number 15 on its 2006 list of the 100 most important personalities in the business. Rogers died at the age of 68 at the Vitas Hospice at Florida Medical Center in Broward County, Florida.
Career
Rogers was born Nelson Roger Behelfer in Rochester, New York. Growing up there, he amused himself by announcing his own play-by-play while watching baseball on television. Years later he would do play-by-play for Miami Hurricanes baseball (1978-1982 on radio and 1983 on TV). In 1966 Rogers broadcast high school basketball in Marshall, Michigan at WMRR. His first radio job was at WBTA in Batavia, NY. He also worked as a music disc jockey at a small station, WCGR, in Canandaigua, New York He studied broadcasting at Michigan State University, but left shortly before he would have graduated to pursue his radio career. While in Michigan, Rogers broadcast football and basketball games for Albion College.
Over the next decade, Rogers worked at several stations in several states, including New York, Michigan, and Florida. Rogers served as Program Director at WSTR in Sturgis, Michigan from 1966-1967. In 1968, Rogers was program director for WTPS, which had a Hot 100 format serving Kalamazoo, Michigan. Later he ended up at WJNO AM in West Palm Beach starting in 1975, moving from WSPB 1450 AM in Sarasota where he started in Florida in 1973. Rogers subsequently lost his job in West Palm Beach and was headed to Yuma, Arizona when he called his mother from the road and learned that Miami-Ft. Lauderdale's WKAT (AM 1360) had offered him a job without application or audition. Rogers turned his car around and headed for Miami, debuting on WKAT on March 1, 1976. Rogers worked the 3 PM - 6 PM at WKAT for $225 a week. Prior to working for WKAT, Rogers worked two weekend shifts at WIOD, which was playing music at that time. By the end of 1976, he was one of the top-rated radio personalities in the market. Also while at WKAT, Neil owned a health food store in the San Souci area.
Nine months later, when singer Anita Bryant began a crusade to repeal Dade County's ordinance banning discrimination against homosexuals, Rogers responded by announcing on the air that he was homosexual on December 17, 1976. Although Bryant's campaign to repeal the ordinance was successful, Rogers' admission did nothing to hurt his radio career; indeed, his ratings steadily increased with every Arbitron period. Richard Casper hired Rogers away from WKAT in March 1978 to work at WNWS beginning in April 1978.
Starting on October 31, 1980, Neil Rogers did the 7-10 PM shift for WLAC in Nashville. He referred to the segment of his show with live calls as "Dialing for Neanderthals". He left WLAC after just one month. Neil accepted a job at WWDB in Philadelphia and had sent his furniture up there before Dick Casper convinced Rogers into coming back to WNWS.
Rogers returned to Miami radio on December 1, 1980, on WNWS 790 AM. By that time Rogers was unrivaled as the highest-rated talk-show host in Miami, dominating both the 18-24 and 25-54 demographics (the most coveted age ranges in the business). His style – unabashed liberal, scatological, and funny but acutely mean when dealing with callers (especially elderly callers), a schtick that may best be described as caustically comic – was firmly established, making Rogers something of an icon in the market.