Jay Marvin, Longtime Radio Talk Host, Passes Away

Marvin at WFLA, 1992 (Photo: C-SPAN video)

JAY MARVIN, the longtime talk radio host, writer, and artist best remembered for his stints at WLS-A/CHICAGO, WFLA-A and WTKN-A/TAMPA, and KHOW-A and KKZN-A/DENVER, has passed away at 70, his wife MARY posted on FACEBOOK TUESDAY (1/31).

MARVIN (real name MARVIN JAY COHEN), a fiery liberal prone to calling conservative callers "brain stems," began his career as a DJ ("JAYBYRD") at several stations, including WHBQ-A/MEMPHIS, WJEZ and WJJD-A/CHICAGO, and several others before he turned to talk radio in NOVEMBER 1988 when he moved from KKAT/SALT LAKE CITY to WTKN-A/TAMPA-ST. PETERSBURG to host 2-5p until he was dropped along with most of the station's hosts in a format change to Business News in 1990. he quickly found a new radio home at crosstown WFLA-A, hired by GABE HOBBS to replace JOE FLORES in the 8--midnight slot. Two years later, MARVIN moved to WTMJ-A/MILWAUKEE for a seven-month stint before joining WLS-A/CHICAGO for late evenings, then afternoons on sister WLS-F, then back to the AM side for late nights after the FM dropped the News-Talk format. He moved on in 1996 to KHOW-A/DENVER but returned to evenings at WLS in 1999, shifting to middays before leaving again in 2005; he later worked at KKZN-A/DENVER. He left KKZN in 2009 and retired in 2010, continuing his activities as a writer and fine artist, and had battled serious health issues in recent years.

SALEM RADIO NETWORK VP/News and Talk Programming TOM TRADUP, the GM at WLS when MARVIN first arrived there in 1993, tells ALL ACCESS, "I brought JAY to WLS in Chicago by helping negotiate his way out of a contract he had with CARL GARDNER at WTMJ/MILWAUKEE. We added him 10pm-1am and he was an instant hit, billing himself as 'CHICAGO’s lovable manic-depressive' who championed striking cab drivers and teachers unions… so unlike our other conservative hosts at the time. Fans even turned out by the thousands for his annual 'JayStock' festivals in WISCONSIN. JAY was one in a million."

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