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Thomas Joseph Leykis (born August 1 , 1956 in New York , New York ) is the Host of a Radio Talk Show Syndicated in the United States Of America (and also, formerly, in Canada ) by CBS Radio . BACKGROUND / EARLY CAREER As a teenager in 1970, Leykis won a contest for a one-time radio appearance on a WBAB Radio in Babylon, New York and he was asked back several times to serve as a fill-in host. During the late 1970s he had his own Public Access program on Manhattan Cable TV. He got a regular job hosting Wednesday early mornings at radio station WBAI in 1979. During this period, he also took odd jobs as a Stand Up Comedian , researcher for a CBS late night show, columnist for the ''SoHo News'', and telephone solicitor selling vacation properties, cable TV, and newspaper display advertising. He moved to Albany, NY in 1981 to do an evening show five times a week. The station wanted someone controversial, and Leykis was just that. Some listeners sent in angry letters, but his Ratings soon earned him the morning drive slot and a position as Program Director . He then took a job in Miami at WNWS , where he became number one in the ratings in 1984, over a competing host who had been number one for the previous six years. In 1985, Leykis moved to KFYI in Phoenix, Arizona . Almost three years later, in the spring of 1988, Leykis ran into conflict with the station ownership, and was placed on leave. A listener fan campaign brought him back, but Leykis resigned on air soon thereafter in order to move on to KFI in Los Angeles , which was then beginning its talk radio format. During this time, the program was fairly politically oriented, and advertised as a "combat radio" program. However, even then, Leykis did not shy away from talking about his personal life. One notable instance was when he discussed a hypothetical man with marital troubles. After a few weeks, he revealed that the man was actually him, and had served divorce papers on his wife, news anchor , and moved to WRKO in Boston for the midday shift in 1993 . THE TOM LEYKIS SHOW The current incarnation of ''The Tom Leykis Show'' began on the Westwood One Radio Network on May 2 , 1994. The program establishes a single topic for each hour of the show. Friday is also the usual day for occasional live appearances in cities around the U.S., when Leykis broadcasts from a bar or other public place with an audience present. During "Flash Fridays", men are told to turn on the headlights of their cars to indicate that they are Leykis listeners, and women are encouraged to Flash their Breast s to male listeners. Leykis will autograph women's breasts using a Sharpie permanent marker. He is rarely seen without his sunglasses on, allegedly even when he is broadcasting. His occasional on-air explanation is because of his pale blue eyes being unusually sensitive to light, due to a mild form of Albinism , sunglasses offset the problem. Tom Leykis Show Staff
Regular Segments Regular segments include: "Flash Fridays" (during Daylight Saving Time ); "Leykis 101" on Thursdays, in which "the Professor" (Tom Leykis) teaches his "students" his rules for dating. Fridays are regularly open phones. Tom once held a weekly segment on Wednesday afternoons in which the only callers screened through were molested as children by priests. This segment was only broadcasted for about six weeks during a time when the Catholic Church was dealing with controversy about their priests molesting children. Some of Tom's most interesting regular segments are not weekly but are scheduled either annually or randomly. Two randomly scheduled segments which usually air several times a year are: "Ask the Atheist" in which Tom confronts callers with the futility of belief in God; "Callers Who Hate Tom" in which Tom only accepts calls from listeners who genuinely hate him and his show. "Unscreened Callers" and "Unscreened Jokes" are a rare, but repeated segment in which Tom will answer the phone himself without any screening. Annual segments include: "The Dump that Bitch Show" in which Tom encourages male callers to break up with their girlfriends, airing as close to St. Valentine's Day as possible; "The 4-20 Show" airs as close to April 20th as possible in which only callers screened through are smoking marijuana; "The Drunk Show" in which Tom interviews callers who are driving while drunk during the holiday season, airing between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas ; "The Dead Pool" in which Tom and his air crew compare their lists of predictions of who died the previous year and compile new Lists Of Who Will Die during the coming year. This show sometimes airs on two dates, one at the end of every year, the other at the beginning of every year. The goal of the rules of "Leykis 101" is to help single men, especially men in their 20s, get the most sex for the least amount of effort and money possible. Leykis believes men in their 20s are particularly susceptible to the " if she already has children. Indeed, Leykis has stated on air that he has made agreements with all of his spouses that they will have an abortion if they become pregnant. In addition to his weekday show, Leykis began hosting a syndicated weekend show called "The Tasting Room" in February 2005, covering lifestyle topics such as fine wine, spirits, beer, and cigars. On Air Events On November 3, 2006, during a live broadcast from a venue in Portland, Oregon , a woman named Sue from Arizona claimed, on air, to have murdered a man that owed her child support. Tom announced that he would put up $5,000 of his own money for anyone with information leading to the arrest of the woman. On March 21, 2007, it was announced that Tom Leykis would no longer be an employee of Westwood One and as of April 1, 2007 has began a new contract and become an employee of CBS radio. {Link without Title} Although he has changed employers, the format and syndication of the show has remained the same; Westwood One still continues to be a distributor of the show. This current contract is scheduled to give listeners more of Tom Leykis until 2012. Identifying notorious individuals Leykis has caused considerable controversy over the years by revealing on-air the names of such individuals as the following:
Major media outlets voluntarily withhold names like these due to their adherence to Journalism Ethics And Standards while having no problem releasing names of alleged offenders, a policy Leykis disagrees with since he says he is "not a journalist". Leykis argues that this is an unfair double standard and either both the accuser and accused should be protected or both should be public. Audience demographics The show's target demographic is males from late teens to early forties, although women are encouraged to listen to the Thursday afternoon segment (Leykis 101) so that they might "learn how guys think". Leykis regularly receives extensive criticism from various callers and writers, which he will air on the show. One favorite response to objectors who call is that "it is called broadcasting" and that he is merely describing "what is generally true" while they are merely pointing out exceptions to rules he has denoted. What he does is called " Broadcasting ," he appeals to a broad audience, thus generalization is a necessary part of his Rhetoric . He has admitted that there are always exceptions to his generalizations, just as it is possible for a man to bite a dog, obviously it is the dog that most often bites the man. Opinions and Regular Topics An important issue Tom has tackled on the air for years is Paternity Fraud . One of the earliest examples of this is when Tom devoted several segments to the news item that concerned the Los Angeles Lakers and how one player became a father from a woman who took the contents of a used condom to impregnate herself, then sued the player for paternity. She was exposed and caught. Since then, Tom devotes many hours on the air to this issue with guests, related news items, and related topics such as how to deal with or avoid becoming a victim of this bizarre form of fraud. Leykis repeatedly warns the audience how many ways men may become financially liable for children that are not their own. Introduction Tom Leykis has been using the same introduction for many years, repeated at the top of every hour. But on Fridays, specially selected soundbites from that week's calls are also played. This short segment is carefully constructed by Art Webb specifically for each Friday's show, with snippets chosen for times when Tom got in an especially great quip, or a caller made an especially outrageous outing. The content of these clips vary from agreement, gratitude, admiration, argument, and hatred towards Tom. As of July 23, 2007, Leykis is prohibited from including the name of the film studio where he broadcasts from as a part of his pre-taped intro sequence. According to Leykis, Paramount Pictures contacted CBS Radio and objected to having the studio linked to the show. His new introduction announces his location as "the back of the backlot at a movie studio" or as "soidutS tnuomaraP" (Paramount Studios, spoken in reverse). Leykis has also resorted to saying "from a secret location" during his live intros. Take me out in style During the early years of Tom Leykis's talk radio career, Tom would occasionally end a caller's turn on the air by the sound of a toilet flushing. This evolved into ending calls with a particular annoying, frustrating or ignorant caller by "blowing him or her up." That is, while hanging up on the person Tom would play the sound effect of an explosion, thus implying that Tom was "blowing up" the caller to express his dissatisfaction. "Blowing up" callers soon became a trademark of the Tom Leykis show, and eventually callers would actually request to be blown up or flushed down the toilet at the end of their calls. This led to Tom creating other ways to "take out" a caller (i.e. to end the call). Callers often request to be "taken out" a certain style at the end of their on-air conversations with Leykis. Leykis says, "Here yah go!" and then plays one of the following Sound Bites : Most popular styles
help cleaning this up: Kingdome style = "fire! + explosion sound from demolition explosives " JFK Sr style = gunshots? JFK Jr style = "plane crash + water bubble sounds (going underwater)." Banned styles
Affiliates The show is broadcast live from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. available on the show's site or the websites of Los Angeles' KLSX and Pittsburgh affiliate WURP , and as a podcast feed (delayed about a day) . As of April 2, 2007, he is no longer on in Chicago. Below is a list of terrestrial radio stations which broadcast ''The Tom Leykis Show'' As of June 2007:
OTHER PROJECTS AND MEDIA APPEARANCES Leykis was the host of "Boys Night Out," a live comedy stage show that took place at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles and the Paramount Theater in Seattle. The line-up of male comedians included . Leykis appeared on Bill Maher's older show, Politically Incorrect in a fairly infamous episode with Daisy Fuentes , Sheryl Lee Ralph , and Emme . He inflamed the women (especially Fuentes) when the subject moved to familiar turf for Tom – dating and "getting tail". The audience loved his "three strikes" rule, which states that if the female doesn't have sex with the male by the third date, he should dump her. Tom also got a loud response from them with, "Many of us were created because our parents didn't have time to go to the drugstore before they went to the drive-in". Fuentes and Leykis had a fairly heated exchange of words before the next commercial break. He has been asked about writing a book on "Leykis 101" and said that it's being considered but no formal announcement has been made. He's also said he's had numerous meetings with Hollywood executives about creating a TV series only to have those talks lead to nothing. PERSONAL LIFE He is the oldest of four children. His father, Harry Leykis, was in charge of the publication department and was a union leader at The New York Post newspaper in New York City . He has two sisters and one brother. The family lived first in The Bronx , and then moved to Long Island . Leykis attended Fordham University for two years. During that time he tried and failed to get on the air as a student He had to drop out of school after two years because he couldn't afford to continue[http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3656/is_199412/ai_n8713652 . His fourth wife, Susan Drew Leykis, filed a police report against him while they were married and living in in Los Angeles . Tom Leykis was also married to award-winning KTTV news reporter Christina Gonzalez. {Link without Title} An avid Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Kings fan, he is also a wine Aficionado who spends his free time reading '' Barron's Magazine '', watching CNBC , "traveling abroad and doing anything ''else'' you can do with a broad!". {Link without Title} Tom has been married and divorced a total of four times, and he has no known children. TRIVIA
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