From Old School Radio to Podcast

"SteveLehto" (stevelehto) 10/25/2014 at 08:15 • Filed to: None

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Before I went to law school I was a disk jockey. I worked at several different radio stations in different markets and played everything from country to oldies to top 40. When I became a lawyer, I went back into radio part-time and hosted a few talk shows. I did those in Detroit and Flint. The one in Flint actually ran for quite a length of time and was called Lehto's Law . On that show I talked about consumer protection and Lemon Law and answered questions from phone callers.

The radio station that broadcast Lehto's Law was sold to radio Disney in 2002. I did a little more radio after that but never specifically revived the show name Lehto's Law . I have been using the name as my !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! since something like 1994 so the words are omnipresent during my day.

I decided to revive the show using modern technology. I know a few of you have seen me plugging the podcasts of Lehto's Law here in the past few weeks. I've decided to do them once a week but I am still in the early stages here. Yesterday I did one on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . That would be Episode 3.

Prior episodes have covered !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (Ep. 1) and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (Ep. 2). Check them out if you have a few moments. They are all under 20 minutes in length.

Other than the absence of phone calls, the show sounds just like it did in the old days. If nothing else, you can close your eyes and pretend you are in Flint, Michigan, circa 2001.

Follow me on Twitter: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Steve Lehto has been practicing law for 23 years, specializing in consumer protection and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! He wrote !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . He also wrote !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! He urges you to consult with an attorney in your state should you have further legal questions.

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > SteveLehto 10/25/2014 at 08:31

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Are you sure you aren't Neal Boortz? :)

In that universe where Georgia is actually Michigan and everything is backwards?

http://www.badumtss.net/

#ThePrecedingCommentCouldBeConstruedInMultipleWays

#HereBeDragons

#GradeFComedy

SteveLehto > KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs 10/25/2014 at 08:47

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He never spun records! You have to understand how cool it was to spin records (the round things which had a song on each side) at midnight in a town with a population under 1,000. Ahhhh, good times . . . .

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > SteveLehto 10/25/2014 at 08:55

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This is true. But Limbaugh never passed the bar in Missouri (His brothers did, though).

Boortz just got his first radio gig by sitting outside the studio after the morning host committed suicide, sadly. (Guy was Herb Elfman)

Not exactly the grandest entrance to radio, but it worked.

SteveLehto > KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs 10/25/2014 at 09:08

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It's kind of funny but some of the talk guys did come up through music radio. I've heard tapes of Glen Beck as a disk jockey, playing music long before he did talk radio.

f86sabre > SteveLehto 10/25/2014 at 10:07

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I did radio while at Purdue. Huge fun. Most amazing day when I found a key to the "locked room". It was full of 45s. I found a record player and would mix on classic Buddy Holly or Elvis in between Nirvana and the Breeders. So much fun.

SteveLehto > f86sabre 10/25/2014 at 10:10

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I knew a few people who worked at the college station where I did my undergrad. They pretty much spent their time stealing all the promo records (ever notice how many of those showed up at the used record stores that paid "CASH for Records!"?) Later on, major pieces of equipment also began walking out of the station to the point where they almost shut down the station.

f86sabre > SteveLehto 10/25/2014 at 11:39

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That's no good. I was the music director and a couple of duplicates may have made it home with me and the rest of the crew, but we held onto out gear. Helped that no one knew where the station was hidden.

if yiu go to a used CD store and see a case with a little cut out of it it started at a station

SteveLehto > f86sabre 10/25/2014 at 12:57

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Most of the promo stuff I saw was stamped to indicate it remained the property of the record company. I have seen cutouts in stores without the stamp and they can be legit - especially if they are brand new. I seem to recall hearing a while back that they were often near the end of a press run and there was some concern they were not 100%.

I know a guy who worked at the college station I am talking about and they finally got their act together albeit quite a few years later.

Tohru > SteveLehto 10/25/2014 at 13:10

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I helped out a friend once on a college radio broadcast. His was the last show of the night before they shut down the antenna at night. I got to read the legal boilerplate at the end before they went off the air. I snuck in the phrase "Portions of the station staff may be mechanically reproduced." in place of "Portions of this broadcast may be mechanically reproduced." I imagine that all 12 listeners were amused.

SteveLehto > Tohru 10/25/2014 at 13:13

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You think you had 12 listeners on a college station at sign-off? If so, they were too incapacitated to turn the radio off (or on) and nothing you said would have registered.

What was worse is there were high school stations in suburban Detroit staffed by students and overseen by speech teachers with zero broadcast experience. They had educational licenses and signals that carried a few miles at night. Poking around the far left end of the FM dial could turn up some of the worst radio ever - several steps worse than dead air (And they had plenty of that too).

Tohru > SteveLehto 10/25/2014 at 13:22

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You're probably right - if you're still awake at midnight listening to punk and ska music from a college station you're most likely not sober.

Their station was at the left end of the dial too, come to think of it.

SteveLehto > Tohru 10/25/2014 at 13:32

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Most of the educational stations are (college and HS) although a FEW make it to the regular part of the dial.

I worked at a station in a small town that signed off at midnight after we played a tape of a speech about the station and its FCC license etc and then, I kid you not, a rendition of the National Anthem. I always wondered if there were any people out there who didn't turn their radios off the second they heard that FCC speech start.