“On the radio all over the country and on MSNBC” no more

I don’t want to go to sleep. Because if I do, sometime around 8am my clock radio will come on and 850 the Buzz will be playing something other than Imus In the Morning. With all the news overage given to the reaction to Don Imus’ on air racist comment, the termination of the MSNBC simulcast, and now the cancellation of his radio show, there has been no mention of how this affects the approximately 2.5 million listeners on the radio and the more than 300,000 viewers on MSNBC.

With the exception of when I didn’t have a television set at UVA, I cannot think of a time since I began listening to the radio regularly more than 15 years ago when Imus was not on the radio in the morning somewhere. When I worked at AOL, he was one of the people I would channel surf to during my morning commute. It wasn’t until I moved down to Chapel Hill that I began to listen regularly. During my first year I was embarrassed to listen with my carpool partners in the car with me and would secretly look forward to the few days when I could drive in by myself. There have been times during this school year when I scheduled my jog in the morning to coincide with when he was on.

I have spent the past week wondering just how Imus In the Morning became the one radio show I listen to more than anything else. And why I continued to listen even though I routinely hear my religious faith mocked, the vice president called a war criminal, and comments made about the American president that I believe should never be uttered by any American. I have come to the conclusion that I listen because the show is the perfect balance of intellectual and colloquial conversations. Unlike Rush Limbaugh, Imus does not pretend to be any smarter than he actually is. He is unpretentious. He talked to his sidekicks on the air the same way you talk to close family members. And just when you think you have had enough of mindless banter, he surprises you with a serious interview with a top newsmaker like Tom Friedman or Tim Russert.

When I learned that MSNBC would stop the simulcast of his radio show on Wednesday, I went to the NBC Universal Store web site to try to buy an Imus souvenir. Unfortunately the links for the items had been disabled even though the items were still on the site. But tonight I did manage to go onto the show’s iTunes page and successfully download the past month’s worth of podcasts. Hopefully this will tie me over until I find my next Imus. The sad thing is – I will probably not find another Don Imus, just as I never found another Bob Grant. Sometimes it’s bittersweet to be reminded that the things we value in life we should cherish because we know deep down that they won’t forever.