Howard Miller was WIND's program director from 1945 to 1949. In 1950, Miller started a longtime run as Chicago's top rated morning DJ. Miller would remain Chicago's top rated radio personality until leaving the station in 1968.
HOWARD MILLER, RADIO DISC JOCKEY AND CONTROVERSIAL COMMENTATOR Our RADIO Then broadcasts are from Miller's 15 minute daily radio interview over CBS Radio in the 1950's
Excerpts from Tribune obit.
Howard Miller, 81, 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.
"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."
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."
