Thomas Joseph Leykis
(pronounced: /LYE-kiss/;
The show's most well-known feature was "Leykis 101," in which he purports to teach men "how to get laid" while expending less time, money, and effort. Leykis also hosted The Tasting Room with Tom Leykis
, a weekly lifestyle program dealing with fine food and drink. It aired on Saturday in many markets and, like Leykis's primary show, was syndicated by CBS Radio. [1] Leykis has been described as a shock jock by many.
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Early life
Tom Leykis was born August 1, 1956 at a time when his parents, Harry and Laura (nee O'Mara),
[3] lived in the
Bronx.
[4] Leykis spent his early childhood at 1504 Sheridan Avenue, Apartment 3H in
Bronx,
,
[5] New York. His father was a prominent union leader at the
The New York Post; he has two sisters, Laura and Sarah, and a brother, Harry.
[6] [7] [8] The family eventually moved to Selden,
Long Island, where Leykis completed his high school education, graduating at age 16.
He moved away from home to study broadcasting at
Fordham University but ended up being forced to drop out due to financial pressures.
[9]
Career
Leykis spent sometime in the state of
New York. At 14-years-old, he was once a fill-in host for
WBAB.
Leykis for a time worked for
Mark Simone's talk show comedy titled
The Simone Phone
being featured as a
sidekick for station
WPIX airing around 1979.
[10] Leykis eventually left
WPIX, later went to
WBAI leaving in the fall of 1981 to go to
Albany working at
WQBK-AM.
[11] [12] Leykis also contributed to a show called
The Phonebooth
in
WABC that ended in 1981.
[13]
The ambitious Leykis decided to turn up his aspirations when he was offered a radio hosting job in
Staunton, Virginia making it
full-time.
[14]
On Monday, February 27, 1984, the Tom Leykis Show aired on
WNWS in
Miami to replace the WNWS night show by talk radio personality
Neil Rogers.
[15] Rogers, who had previous signed conflicting employment contracts with both WNWS (790 AM) and
WINZ (940 AM), had just won permission from a Miami court to take his act to WINZ and hoped his leaving WNWS would be devastating to Leykis' new station.
Rogers and Leykis became rivals and in June 1984, just after
Denver radio talk show host
Alan Berg was assassinated, Leykis told listeners
Neil Rogers' real name and urged callers to harass his on-air rival.
[16] By January 1985, Leykis had the top-ranking evening talk show in the market.
[17] In September 1985, Leykis abruptly left his WNWS job over concern about the pending WNWS-WGBS merger and began broadcasting at
Phoenix's
KFYI-AM.
[18]
Whilst being
program director for
KFYI, he constructed a politically well-rounded host lineup inserting himself as a "left leaning
libertarian" in the afternoon.
[19] Leykis was known for his method of gathering new callers for the station by provoking rival station
KTAR.
He left in 1987 due to differences with station management.
Leykis also spent some time with his own
cable television show called
Backstage Pass
around the same year.
[21]
Leykis then went to
Los Angeles working for
KFI where he hosted from 1988 to 1992,
[22] as a liberal counterpart to
Rush Limbaugh.
During this time, KFI was hit with a $6,000
FCC indecency fine over Leykis' on-air comments, but the fine was paid in full from contributions sent in by Leykis' listeners, according to Leykis and the KFI station general manager.
[23] [24] Also during his time at KFI,
Geoff Edwards (another KFI host) was suspended and then resigned over an incident related to steamrolling a massive collection of
Cat Stevens' work sent in by listeners, which was motivated by Leykis' denouncement of
Cat Stevens' comments about Salman Rushdie. A local Nazi historian likened the stunt as being reminiscent of a Nazi book burning.
[25] [26]
On September 29, 1992 KFI management dismissed Leykis with an hour's notice, based on what he says they called "a business decision", and were obligated to pay him his salary - estimated at $400,000 per year - for the remaining six months of his contract.
[27]
Leykis then worked for
WRKO in
Boston.
[28] He left the city for a new job in Los Angeles after a publicized fight at home with then wife Susan at the end of 1993. In March 1994 pretrial probation was granted and the charges stemming from that assault were dropped in exchange for his attendance in a program for batterers in California.
[29]
In 1994 he began his eponymous
The Tom Leykis Show
on national
syndication with
Westwood One from Culver City, CA, with the final years of the show being created from
Paramount Pictures studios.
[30]The Tom Leykis Show
History
The Tom Leykis Show
began in 1994 broadcasting from
Los Angeles. Originally the show was often political in nature, a fact Leykis highlighted at the start of every episode by proclaiming his show the only radio talk show that is "not hosted by a right-wing wacko or a convicted felon", (in reference to
Rush Limbaugh and
G. Gordon Liddy, respectively). In addition to politics, the host commonly discussed relationships, religion (Leykis is an
atheist), and other issues. On Fridays, listeners were allowed to call in and talk about anything they wanted, in contrast to other days when Leykis established a single topic for each hour of the show.
Friday was also the usual day for live appearances in cities around the U.S., when Leykis would broadcast from a bar or other public place with an audience present. The free-for-all subject matter and large crowds led to a rowdy atmosphere on Friday shows, and it was in this context that "Flash Fridays" began.
In 1997, Leykis's show was picked up by
KLSX, an FM talk station in Los Angeles that also carried
The Howard Stern Show. The station became the
flagship for the show and Leykis began to tone down the political aspect of the show around this time, and started the "Leykis 101" segment soon after.
In addition to his weekday show, Leykis began hosting a new syndicated weekend show called The Tasting Room in February 2005, covering lifestyle topics such as wine and
spirits, luxury cars, and high-end technology.
With the departure of Howard Stern to satellite radio in January 2006 KLSX became known on-air as "97.1
Free FM"--so-called to highlight that its stations broadcast free-to-air, funded by commercials, whereas satellite radio requires a subscription fee. The station was produced by
CBS Radio as part of its
Free FM format and the Tom Leykis Show was broadcast in a number of affiliate markets nationwide including but not limited to
Portland,
Dallas,
Seattle,
Phoenix,
Las Vegas as well as multiple California markets in addition to its Los Angeles flagship such as
San Diego and
San Francisco.
On February 20, 2009, KLSX changed its format to
Top 40 (CHR) under economic pressures, and the Tom Leykis Show aired its final broadcast. The show was broadcast Monday through Friday, 3:00 PM to 8:00 PM
PT from Paramount Studios
[32] and 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM Saturdays in
Hollywood, California and was heard in a number of major metropolitan markets on the
West Coast of the United States.
It was produced by Gary Zabransky along with associate producer Dean "Dino" DeMilio, and engineered by Art Webb.
[33]
Format
The cornerstone of the program was the Thursday broadcast of "Leykis 101", in which the program is set up as an ad hoc lecture and question and answer session, over which Leykis presides as a self-styled "professor". The subject of the "101" segments were how men can spend less money on women, while achieving greater sexual success.
Along with general information on life for young men, advice mostly consisted of his principles of looking out for yourself and that the institution of marriage is flawed and biased against men. He constantly recommended that young men attend some form of higher education and not be distracted by relationships or marry at a young age as he did. The intent of his advice was to replace the father figure which many men lack, earning him the moniker of "Dad". He also denounces what in his words is a corrupt and broken child support system that does not require DNA tests and has forced men to pay money to women who lied before a judge for children these men did not father.
[35]
Features
A popular and long-running feature of the show was "Flash Friday" in which men are encouraged to drive with their headlights on and women are encouraged to expose their breasts to such vehicles.
The feature began as a one-time bit; while on the air, Leykis recalled a radio host he listened to as a child, who asked his listeners in New York apartments to flash their lights on and off and then to look outside to see how many neighbors were doing the same, as a way to gauge the audience size. Leykis asked his listeners to do the same with their car headlights, and a few minutes later, jokingly suggested that women flash their breasts. A listener called in to report that he saw a woman flashing fellow drivers, and it became a regular feature of the show.
[37] Both women and men commonly call during the Friday broadcast to alert other listeners as to their location, and to recount stories of flashing or being flashed, respectively.
[38]
The show also used
sound clips which callers generally requested after long conversations. Callers made requests to be "taken out" in some style, such as, "could you take me out with a
bong hit?" or "take me out
Kobe style," meaning for a specific desired sound effect or audio to be played to end the call.
[39] The practice of "taking people out" with use of a sound clip dates back to the early days of the show, when Leykis was working at a small radio station in
Albany,
New York. Leykis would dispose of undesirable or tiresome callers by playing a
cart [i.e., a Fidelipac audio tape cartridge] with the sound of a toilet flushing while hanging up on them (i.e. "flushing the caller"). The station manager found this offensive, and when Leykis refused to stop, removed the cart from the studio. Leykis retaliated by re-recording the sound on another cart that he purposely mis-labeled as "dog barking", and continued to play it. The station manager became frustrated and began harassing the host about it, so Leykis began "blowing callers up" instead (i.e. playing an
explosion sound effect).
After some time the practice became such a commonplace that as callers ended their on-air conversation with Leykis they began asking for the sound clip to be played as they hung up by saying "Blow me up, Tom." This phrase in turn became so popular it was soon synonymous with The Tom Leykis Show and it's host. It has ever since been used on all sorts of Leykis merchandise, is the name of his official website and was used as the title of a 2001
documentary film about the host and his show.
Over the years, as more and more sound clips were brought into use, the explosion sound saw less air time and eventually became referred to simply by the phrase "
old school"--and the original toilet flush clip in turn became "old- old school," terms both used whenever callers wished to be "taken out" with those respective sound effects.
Notable occurrences
Law suits
In July 1998, Tom Leykis and the production company Westwood One were sued by Karen Carpenter of
Juneau, Alaska. She claimed to have suffered post-traumatic stress from disparaging and sexual comments Leykis made about her on the air.
[40] [41] [42] Leykis has stated on air he was in court due to the suit for a decent length of the winter of 2002.
On
June 25 2003,
Marty Ingels, a
voice actor, called into Leykis' show and tried to challenge him on
moral grounds. Ingels, who was much older than the typical caller to Leykis's show, was subjected to some rude remarks by the
call screener who said that he was too old and shouldn't be on the air. But the call did get put through, at which point, Leykis too began to insult Ingels, adding that "you're not just older than my demographic, you're the grandfather of my demographic".
Leykis explained that he didn't want older callers because he was selling advertising to the younger demographic, stuff that usually didn't sell to people Ingels' age. Ingels sued the show for
age discrimination.
Ingels's first lawsuit got dismissed, by an anti-
SLAPP statute () that protected against lawsuits that protects
first amendment rights and another judge claimed that the show had the right to control its content. Further, it was noted that Ingels couldn't really complain he was discriminated against because his call was in fact put on the air.
As for Ingels, the actor was ordered to pay $25,000 in attorney's fees.
[44] [45]
On-air murder confession
Another widely publicized event took place in November 2006, when a listener from the
Ahwatukee suburb of
Phoenix, Arizona, called the show and confessed to shooting the father of her child when he refused to pay child support. Leykis denied that the call was part of a hoax set up by the show, and producers turned over any information they had to local police.
[46] The caller, a nurse, who went by her middle name, Sue, said that she shot the man in the heart with a 9 mm because she "knew how to aim for it", and made the shooting look like a suicide.
[47] About a month later, former
talk show host
Geraldo Rivera asked Leykis about the incident on his
Geraldo at Large syndicated television program.
[48] Geraldo: "So what was your first reaction when you got this call?" Leykis: "I was shocked. You know, people call talk shows and say all kinds of things, but they never confess to murder."
On August 7, 2008, an officer involved in the investigation was interviewed by Tom on the air. The evidence was presented to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and charges are being sought against
Megan Suzanne Vice of El Mirage, who police name as their suspect in the case.
[49] In 2009, it was revealed that the woman will not be prosecuted due to a lack of evidence, because in the state of Arizona, evidence in suicides is destroyed after five years.
[50]
Talkers Magazine analyzing
Arbitron data show that Leykis has an estimated listening minimum weekly
cume of over 1.75 million for Spring 2007 based on a national
sample.
[51]
Cease and desist order
In the fall of 2006 the show relocated to permanently broadcast from a new studio on the
Paramount Pictures lot in Hollywood. As of July 23, 2007, Leykis has been prohibited from including the name of the film studio as a part of his pre-taped intro sequence. According to Leykis, Paramount Pictures contacted CBS Radio and objected to having the studio linked to the show.
Originally when beginning the day's broadcast or returning from a commercial break at the start of a new hour the announcer would introduce the show's studio and location (e.g. "From Paramount Studios in Hollywood, it's the Tom Leykis Show.") Since the "cease and desist" order from Paramount, the new introduction announces the broadcast location in many different ways, satirizing the situation. Some versions replace the words "Paramount Studios" with "the back of the backlot at a movie studio" or "soidutS tnuomaraP" (Paramount Studios, spoken in reverse), and even more simply "a secret location" or the common audio "bleep" normally used for removing expletives.
Naming names
In 2003, Leykis raised controversy by revealing the name of Katelyn Faber,
the accuser in the
Kobe Bryant sexual assault case.
[55] [56] Other media outlets elected to reveal details of the alleged victim such as race and masked photographs while excluding her name, as was the standard practice at that time,
[57] [58] raising
privacy questions.
[59]
Major media outlets generally and voluntarily withhold names like these due to their adherence to
journalism ethics and standards. The policy in practice only applies to alleged victims however, allowing for the release of names of alleged offenders, a policy Leykis disagrees with, and does not follow as he regularly states he is "not a journalist". Leykis contends that either all names in a case (the alleged offender(s) and the alleged accuser) should be protected or all should be public.
The radio show host has caused considerable controversy over the years for his practice of identifying such notorious individuals by name
on-air. Other such individuals he has named include:
- Vanessa Perhach, who accused Marv Albert of forcible sodomy (biting) in 1997.
- Angela Song, a woman associated with the Christian Coalition of America who tried to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge in Seattle, Washington.
- An accused child molester in SeaTac.
- Vili Fualaau, the 13-year-old victim of statutory rape by teacher Mary Kay Letourneau.
- Kenneth Pinyan, the Boeing Co. employee dropped off at a Seattle hospital dead from a perforated colon, later found to have engaged in bestial sexual intercourse with a horse.
- Crystal Gail Mangum, a black stripper, escort [63] and student at North Carolina Central University, who falsely accused three white Duke University students - members of the lacrosse team of rape, battery, and sodomy in what became known as the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case. [64] [65] [66]
Ratings
For early 2008, Leykis had announced radio ratings at various angles. Among the 81 radio stations in
Southern California the show was #9 overall, #6 in
English stations, and #1 for
time spent listening. Among men ages 18+, adults ages 18-34, and "the money
demo" ages 25-54, the show was #1 in time spent listening with an average of over 4 hours per week, in addition to being #1 in
share for men aged 18+.
[67]
Show end
The Tom Leykis Show had its last regular broadcast on Friday, February 20, 2009 and ended at 5 pm in the middle of its usual time slot. Leykis took calls until the last five minutes of the program. At that point the host mentioned that people had asked him how he was going to end the show. Saying "Let's tell the truth" Leykis commented that he knew since the previous summer that it was possible the
flagship station (
KLSX, which originated the broadcast of the show) would switch
format. Saying he "tossed and turned" he thought about it and asked himself: "What could I say that would wrap this all up? And then I one day heard this song...and I realized--the lyrics of this song...are about
me
."
With that Leykis rolled into
Joe Jackson's "I'm the Man" (the title track of
Jackson's 1979 album). By the time the song was over the studio was filled with people--as could be seen by the live online video broadcast on the station website. The host thanked his producers, the
program director, the crowd in the studio and everyone in southern California who made it "12 great years" and finished with "Let's do this thing one more time..." The crowd yelled "Blow me up, Tom" one last time to end the show and mark the end of
KLSX as "The FM Talk Station" in what coincidentally became a strikingly appropriate catch phrase to be had: The phrase "blow up the station" is a radio term for ending a particular format or station run. After a much longer than usual explosion sound effect the crowd cheered and KLSX changed
format from
hot talk to
CHR/Top 40.
[68]
Personal life
Leykis is currently single and has no children. He was raised Catholic, but is an atheist. He has been married and divorced four times, a fact that he unabashedly proclaims on-air regularly.
[69]
One marriage was to television reporter
Christina Gonzalez, who was caught
cheating after Leykis investigated some receipts he found.
Another marriage, which lasted one year, was with a
Seattle woman in 1989,
who was a listener of his show.
His fourth wife, Susan Drew Leykis, who first met Leykis at a
Los Angeles Kings game,
filed a police report against him while they were married and living in Boston in 1993. On
December 22 of that year, she alleged that Leykis assaulted and threatened to kill her during a fight after they returned home from a radio station Christmas party. He was subsequently charged with "felony assault and battery and threatening to commit a crime"; a police officer found bruises and scratches on the woman.
In March 1994, Leykis was sentenced to a year of probation and ordered to attend a domestic violence class. He completed both, and the charges were dropped, although Leykis did not admit guilt as part of the agreement. The couple has since divorced.
[70]
In August 2004, Leykis was attacked outside a
Seattle bar, causing him to require 17 stitches over one eye, and leaving him with scratches and bruises. The assailant reportedly had an accomplice who accused Leykis of calling him a name and hanging up on him when he called the show, when the other man kicked him in the face.The attacker then later took a knife out. At that time the police came.
[71]
Notes
- "The Tasting Room with Tom Leykis", Saturday airing: ''98.3 WOW–FM'' website. Retrieved on March 5 2008.
- Heavy Hundred 2008
- Newsday (November 24, 1998) ''Obituaries: Laura G. (nee O'Mara) Leykis'' Section: News; Page A60.
- New York Daily News (October 9, 1995) ''Obituary: Harry Leykis'' Section: News; Page 28.
- Gregarious guru just for guys
- NewsMax's 25 Most Influential Talk Radio Hosts -
- Churning up the radio
- Harry Leykis, Union Leader, 63
- KNWZ invites Tom Leykis to Valley
- HISTORY
- Welcome To The KatHouse
- Title Unavailable
- The Howard Hoffman Collection
- Rehab III: The Profile
- Fisher, Marc. (February 29, 1984) Miami Herald ''Acerbic radio star allowed to take act to other station. Section: Local; Page 1D.
- Audiences Love to Hate Them
- Thornton, Linda R. (January 19, 1985) Miami Herald ''Every group has its own taste in radio stations.'' Section: Comics/TV; Page 4C.
- Thornton, Linda R. (September 13, 1985) Miami Herald ''Missing WNWS Host found - on the air in Arizona.'' Section; Comics/TV; Page 10C.
- Beware of the Dogma - When KFYI radio host John Dayl spews mindless hate, David Winkler listens
- Blabber Mouths and Radio Egos
- Tom Leykis & Michael Finney bsp
- Radio: Stations get in holiday mood with July 4 programming
- FCC Indecency Fines, 1970-2004
- Leykis Leads Counterattack Against FCC Fines Radio: KFI afternoon drive-time personality says he'll probably dedicate several shows to indecency issue.
- Bugle Boys Of the Airwaves
- Los Angeles Journal; Books, Then Records; Flames Climb Higher
- DARYL GATES' AIR PIRACY - EX-VALLEY RADIO HOST TOM LEYKIS LOSES HIS L.A. TALK SHOW TO THE CHIEF
- RADIO HOST ACCUSED OF THREAT ON WIFE'S LIFE
- CASE AGAINST RADIO HOST IS DROPPED
- High-Frequency, Low-Brow Chatter Starts to Take Over the FM Airwaves
- RADIO; The Decline of the Local Hero; You have to go national to make it big in talk radio. But is anyone going to talk about local issues in this age of syndication?
- On the radio: Get ready, your ears count
- Tom Leykis Show
- SHOCK RADIO: TOO HOT FOR HUMBOLDT
- TRANSCRIPTS - LIVE FROM THE HEADLINES - Interviews with Tom Leykis, Patricia Saunders
- Shock Jocks: Will they be muzzled?
- He's Just Like Us
- Title Unavailable
- Tom Leykis: Susan B. Anthony with a Penis
- Shock jock on trial for emotional damages
- Radio tirade ends in court: Juneau listener sues 'shock-jock' host
- Radio 'shock jock' sued by former Juneau listener
- Excerpts from the Ingels call: ''SV Media Law'' website. Retrieved on March 5 2008.
- Not too old to sue Tom Leykis
- Hastings, Hon. J. Gary. (May 26, 2005) Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 4, California ''Ingels v. Westwood One Broadcasting Services, Inc. 129 Cal.App.4th 1050, 28 Cal.Rptr.3d 933 Cal.App. 2 Dist. (review denied August 24, 2005 by the California Supreme Court)
- Shock jock upset over caller's slaying claim
- Valley woman confesses to murder on radio
- Rivera, Geraldo. (December 26, 2006) FOX 5 WNYW-NY Geraldo at Large 18:00
- http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/122475
- http://www.wjfk.com/topic/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=3430739
- The Top Talk Radio Audiences
- Kobe's Accuser Named — Twice
- Bryant Case Highlights Privacy Issues in Rape Cases
- Tom Leykis
- Tom Leykis hurt in late-night Belltown assault
- PLUS: PRO BASKETBALL; Bryant Accuser Is Named on Radio
- ''See also'' Rape shield law.
- TRANSCRIPTS - CNN RELIABLE SOURCES - Should Kobe Bryant's Accuser Be Named?; Has BBC Suffered Serious Credibility Blow?
- Women's groups outraged by radio host
- Men in Panties
- Shock jock Tom Leykis strikes a receptive chord in men - and brings in plenty of static, too
- 'Your Mommy Kills Animals'
- Alexandria Harper, Woman behind Duke lacrosse scandal speaks out, ''The A&T Register'', April 28, 2008. Accessed 2009-05-01. Archived 2009-05-16.
- Flash Friday
- Overview of Duke Lacrosse Scandal
- Media circus involving Duke lacrosse team worries victims groups
- The Ratings Are In…
- "Tom Leykis' Myspace Blog", Myspace. Retrieved on February 19 2009.
- Who needs a year in review when there's Leykis?
- The Smoking Gun: Archive
- Shock Jock Leykis says he was attacked in Seattle