- Mark Belling
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Mark Belling Born July 4, 1956
Kaukauna, WisconsinShow The Mark Belling Late Afternoon Show Station(s) 1130 WISN (AM) Time slot 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM CT Style conservative talk radio Website http://www.belling.com Mark Belling (born July 4, 1956, in Kaukauna, Wisconsin) is a conservative radio talk show host for 1130 WISN in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Belling hosts a three-hour weekday radio program, The Mark Belling Late Afternoon Show, which is regularly rated No. 1 for the afternoon-drive time slot. He is also a weekly columnist for many local newspapers including the Milwaukee Post, Waukesha Freeman, West Bend Daily News and Hometown Publications. Belling occasionally serves as a substitute for national conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh. Belling previously hosted a Sunday-morning television panel, Belling and Company, on WISN-TV (Channel 12) until 2000, when it moved to WDJT (Channel 58). The television program was discontinued in 2005, reportedly due to editorial conflicts between Belling and the management of WDJT owner Weigel Broadcasting. When aired, the television program received higher ratings than WDJT's nightly prime-time newscasts, despite being in the Sunday morning timeslot.[1]
A native of Wisconsin's Fox Valley, Belling is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. He has been with WISN since March 1989. Before joining WISN he was news and program director of WTDY-AM in Madison, Wisconsin, where he began his talk radio career. Belling also served as a radio news director in Springfield, Illinois; St. Joseph, Michigan; Benton Harbor, Michigan; and Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Contents
Radio
Belling discusses a wide variety of topics on his program, including Milwaukee area politics, Wisconsin politics, and national issues. Belling leans to the right politically, and he has been known to frequently criticize local and national Republicans for straying from conservative principles. Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, Belling regularly proclaimed his disdain for Republican candidate John McCain, though eventually he sided with McCain.
Belling also regularly discusses sports on his program, including football, baseball, basketball, golf, NASCAR and Formula One racing. Each year Belling makes numerous sports picks, often including the audience and show producer Paul Kronforst. Each week during the football season, Belling, Kronforst, and an audience member make NFL and college football picks. He also discusses his picks for the NCAA college basketball playoffs and horse racing's Triple Crown. In 2006 Belling correctly selected Barbaro as the winner of the Kentucky Derby.
Belling is also a music fan, often discussing it on the show. He has been known to play entire songs on the air, often taking credit for "discovering" them for his audience. His love of country music is especially prevalent, as he previously worked as a disc jockey at a country station. Some of his favorite current recording artists include Alanis Morissette, The Black Eyed Peas, The Eagles, Fountains of Wayne, and Bruce Springsteen. The theme song for the Mark Belling Late Afternoon Show is an instrumental version of Lost in the Shadows by Lou Gramm from The Lost Boys (soundtrack).
In 2004 the host was briefly removed from the air following his on-air use of the word "wetback".[2] He refused to talk further about it and continued to receive high ratings. Faced with no further response from the host or company, the controversy eventually died down.
Other journalism
In addition to his daily three-hour radio program, Belling is a guest-host for Rush Limbaugh's national radio program. When doing so, WISN usually broadcasts this program twice rather than have someone fill in for Belling.
Belling writes a weekly op-ed column for the Waukesha Freeman. It usually covers local politics or scandals but occasionally remarks on national headlines and even sports.
Although Belling claims not to be a journalist, he has broken stories, usually covering Wisconsin politics. Some headline news broken by Belling includes the announcement the 2017 PGA tour would be at Erin Hills,[3] that Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle was paid money by an attorney days before being hired as the Governor's legal counsel in a pay to play scheme,[4] Milwaukee Police Chief Edward A. Flynn was involved in an affair with a local journalist, that when Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett violated his own city's occupancy laws for years the agency he runs never fined him for the violations,[5] and then after criticizing his opponent for Governor for allowing an employee to do campaign work on government time, Barrett's own employee did the same thing.[6]
Awards
Belling is a 2001 Marconi award recipient for best medium-market radio personality, a three-time Milwaukee Press Club winner for best radio editorial, has twice won the Radio-Television News Directors Association award for best investigative reporting in the Midwest, and was a 1986 finalist for "Journalist of the Year" in Illinois as awarded by United Press International. Belling also was named one of the Top 100 Heavy Talkers—the most influential talk show hosts in America—by Talkers Magazine, an industry publication.
References
- ^ Belling, Mark, Mark Belling Late Afternoon Show, 23 June 2011; fifth segment.
- ^ Williams, Juliet (November 8, 2004). "Controversial Milwaukee radio host off the air Monday". Associated Press. Archived from the original on March 22, 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/20050322144032/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/11/08/national1938EST0697.DTL.
- ^ http://content.clearchannel.com/cc-common/mlib/3627/06/3627_1276199209.pdf
- ^ http://www.opensecrets.org/wdc/contribdetail.php?name=Fienen%2C+Chandra+Miller
- ^ http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/101122039.html
- ^ http://content.clearchannel.com/cc-common/mlib/3627/10/3627_1286565851.pdf
External links
Categories:- 1956 births
- Living people
- People from Kaukauna, Wisconsin
- American political pundits
- American political writers
- American talk radio hosts
- University of Wisconsin–La Crosse alumni
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