NEW YORK (AP) — Pioneering radio host Barry Farber, who hosted a conservative talk show for decades in New York City and ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 1977, has died.
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Farber died of natural causes Wednesday at home in New York, a day after his 90th birthday, his daughter, Celia Farber, said.
Raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, Farber worked in New York City for his entire career and was still doing a regular digital talk show for CRN up until last week. Injuries from a fall hastened his demise, his daughter said.
He began on the air at WINS-AM, the only talk host on a rock ’n’ roll station. Farber moved to WOR-AM in 1962 and worked in the evening and through the night. He left the station for his mayoral run and, after losing as a Conservative Party candidate to Democrat Ed Koch with 4% of the vote, went to work for WMCA-AM for 11 years.
He was a member of the National Radio Hall of Fame.
Farber was a traditional conservative working in one of the nation’s most liberal cities. He was a wordsmith and extraordinary orator, said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine.
“He spoke as if he was writing an essay,” Harrison said.
He spoke more than 20 languages, including Albanian, Swedish, Finnish and Yiddish, along with the more standard French, German, Spanish and Chinese, according to an obituary.
Farber was past his peak of influence by the time conservative talk radio became an industry that made national stars of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. He would joke about “being big in the old days and old in the big days,” Harrison said.
“I just wish we had started it in my generation,” Farber told Talkers in a 2012 interview. “It never occurred to us.”
Farber was known for ending his show with the phrase, “To be continued.”
Ay Yay Yay, he was great, and of course the all time king of radio the great Bob Grant,
One time, I had sent Barry Farber a letter, which disagreed with some comments he made about a former politician. He didn’t like my viewpoints, and actually told his listeners (he gave them my name, but fortunately the wrong city) to contact me. He stated “I don’t think his letter was marked confidential”. It was not a nice thing to do, and I never listened to him on the radio after that.
Yes I remember when Bob Grant came to 18th Ave and 52 to the top of the world Cleaners and was signing autographS
BD”H. Despite the loshon harah made in a previous comment, Barry Farber was so much greater in some ways than any other talk-show host in history.
I can’t believe he was on the air somewhere all this time and I missed out.
Thanks, God, for having blessed the world with such an incredible thinker, orator, and humorist who shared these things with his listeners for so many decades.
Moishiach NOW.
Twenty languages! I speak three. What would be #20 on your priority list when learning languages? Maybe Tagalog or something.
He was a nice guy. I met him at the Reagan nyc victory party.
He was still alive? Where was he hiding?
Farber was great but I enjoyed Joe Franklin too.
His show was a mix of talk, music, nostalgia and highly entertaining.