Media:
Radio Host is `On a Roll' with Show for the Disabled
By Joshua Harris Prager
02/25/99
The Wall Street Journal
Page B1
(Copyright (c) 1999, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
"And now, occupying the best parking space in syndicated radio, the
wheelchair dude with attitude, the hip crip who gives ya tips: `On A Roll'
radio's host and founder, Greg Smith!"
YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio -- The opening rant for his weekly radio show
concluded, Greg Smith leans into the microphone, a Velcro harness securing
his 65-pound frame into his wheelchair. In a bass voice in sharp contrast to
his frail body, he introduces the show's topic: entrepreneurship and
disability.
It's a fitting subject for a man who broadcasts from his parents' home here,
and yet has sponsors that include such corporate heavyweights as Microsoft
Corp., BankAmerica Corp. and CellularOne.
Mr. Smith, 34 years old, hosts "On A Roll: Talk Radio on Life & Disability."
Part Dear Abby for the disabled, part Disability For Dummies, the weekly
show is aimed at the disabled and their families and friends. Mr. Smith
launched it in 1992, and from the very first broadcast, sponsored by Bank of
America as a kick-off to its loan program for the disabled, "On A Roll" has
benefited from an expanding line of products and services targeting the
disabled as a consumer group.
Like BankAmerica, a growing number of sponsors view the disabled as a
promising market, and Mr. Smith's radio show as a unique way to reach
them. "Who needs cellular phones more than anybody else?" he asks.
"Goodyear's tire that won't go flat -- who's a perfect market for that?"
At a time when radio-station managers are being bombarded with program
proposals, "On A Roll" is undeniably rolling. In October, the show became
syndicated and is now broadcast weekly on 39 stations to an estimated
national audience of several hundred thousand. In December, Microsoft
signed on as a national sponsor.
The decade since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990
has been an age of opportunity for the disabled, and Mr. Smith's show is
fast
emerging as its showcase. In his more than 300 broadcasts to date, Mr.
Smith has interviewed such disabled notables as Bob Dole, Christopher
Reeve and television personality John Hockenberry. He has fielded calls on
the disabled golfer Casey Martin, the wheelchair-bound Barbie doll and the
planned monument of FDR in a wheelchair. And he has moderated
discussions on disability and employment, disability and medical research,
and disability and relationships, all with a mix of sincerity and subtle
irreverence.
Marketing to the disabled has become a growth industry in recent years. For
example, 15 banks in 18 states have instituted loan-programs for the
disabled
like the BankAmerica program that helped launch Mr. Smith's show. The
default rate on such loans is lower than on others. The proposed federal
budget announced just this month, would dedicate $16 million, up from $12
million last year, to guaranteeing micro-loan programs, including those
targeting the disabled.
For the companies backing Mr. Smith's program, there's little altruism and a
lot of potential revenue involved. "For a lot of people with
disabilities, radio is
an excellent way of getting the word out. It seems like a very smart
investment," says Luanne LaLonde, an accessibility product manager at
Microsoft.
It advertises how its software can be modified for use by people with varied
disabilities, providing them with such features as enlarged icons, audio
rather than visual cues and desensitized keys that won't respond to tremors.
Mr. Smith was diagnosed with an undetermined form of muscular dystrophy
when he was only three years old. His interest in voice work began shortly
after that. In seventh grade, the first year Mr. Smith was confined to a
wheelchair, he became the public address announcer for his school's
basketball team. In college, he was sports director of the Arizona State
University radio station, and later spent five years at KTAR radio in
Phoenix,
as research director and host of the Arizona Cardinals post-game call-in
show.
But a spat soon changed his direction toward advocacy. Mr. Smith asked his
boss at KTAR to be moved into sales. "You're not a sales person," he recalls
being curtly told. "I yelled at my boss, `You don't know what I am!"'
Suddenly, being a sportscaster seemed a hollow pursuit. "There will always
be hundreds of them. But how many people can do their little part to change
the world?"
So, he sought funding to launch "On A Roll" in the Phoenix area.
BankAmerica saw a quick fit with the bank's new program to target disabled
borrowers.
Seven years of Sunday nights later, Mr. Smith prepares to take the air at 10
p.m. Eastern time. Using his right foot to operate a joystick rigged to his
wheelchair, he moves with ease about the room that doubles as his studio
and bedroom. The talk show host takes his place flanked by a scanner,
printer and mixer. He leans forward, puts his elbow on his thigh, and
rests his
chin on his fist.
Mr. Smith poses a question to his audience: "Should people who are obese,
or people who are otherwise healthy but homely, be protected by the ADA?"
Quickly, callers from Maine to Nevada begin to blink on a screen.
"Darryl is calling from Tempe," he tells his audience.
"If somebody just like, over-ate all the time and it's not really a medical
condition, then they're not disabled," insists Darryl.
Even though Mr. Smith says he feels healthy now, he needs more and more
help to care for himself. "You get to be 35" with the disease, he says,
"you're
getting up there."
And so he attends to his career with a sense of urgency. He labored over a
recent application for a Public Broadcasting grant with such resolve,
neglecting to eat and sleep for days, that he ended up in the emergency
room. "I get so focused sometimes," he says, "I forget about the basic
things." He adds, "Everything in my life is centered on the show. It's my
baby."
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