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When anyone hears the name Steve Harvey the word funny easily comes to mind. After all, this Original Kings of Comedy star and popular former sitcom figure still plays to sold-out shows from coast to coast with his side-splitting stand-up routine. But in more recent years, Harvey has taken the radio industry by storm: His syndicated program, The Steve Harvey Morning Show, plays in over 60 markets reaching some seven million listeners. Yet Harvey wants to make it clear that he’s not just Mr. Jokes. Each day on his show he seeks to inspire and uplift listeners as much as he wants to ease their day with humor. This week Harvey took time out of his busy schedule to speak with BlackEnterprise.com about his career and the radio industry today.
BLACK ENTERPRISE: You’ve obviously had great success in other arenas, including stand-up comedy and television. Have you always had an interest in radio?
Steve Harvey: Not really. This is really God’s call for me because it has helped me expose some aspects of my life that are important other than telling jokes. My initial claim to fame was telling jokes. That’s my gift. But I also have a passion for our people, and I have a lot of information God has had me learn over the years, so that I could have something to share.
Your show allows you to connect with people all across the country. What have you gleaned about black people that you perhaps didn’t know before?
I don’t know that I didn’t know it before because I’m an expert on two things: manhood and being black. I’m an expert on manhood because I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to get better at it, and I had a great example in my father. I’m an expert at being black because I’ve spent my entire 51 years black. So I think all of those years of experience and having been fortunate enough to travel to all the different regions of the country and talking to our people and entertaining our people, you see that we all have a very common thread. I don’t care if I’m telling jokes in Los Angeles, Mississippi, or Miami, black people have a common thread. And if you understand that common thread that connects us as black people–experiences growing up, the church, and family–you can transfer it to radio.
One of the good things about your show and the other syndicated shows is that you reach so many people. However, some of the critics of syndication feel that good local shows have been squeezed out. What are your thoughts on that?
Radio is a world of big business and consolidation, and everybody is trying to get their fair share of the market. The more station owners can gather up, the bigger their piece of the pie. Station owners are trying to find a way to get more listeners in order to be more appealing to advertisers, so they can make more money. That’s the game out there. I don’t own a single radio station. I don’t make a single decision as to what city I play in. If I did, I’d be on every single station.
What do you see as the mission of The Steve Harvey Morning Show?
Our job is to wake up and for the first 12 minutes remind people not to forget about God. Don’t forget about the reason you wake up. Don’t spend your life feeling alone like you have no answers. Don’t spend your life never knowing your purpose. There is a God, and God is available to you. That’s my mission in the morning for the first 12 minutes, and then after that we disperse information. We try to get people off to a positive, uplifting, laughing start.
Where would you like to see black radio go in the future?
I would like to see black radio go back to what it used to be. It used to be a place where African Americans tuned in to get information, tuned in to be uplifted. We didn’t use black radio to talk about each other, to talk about this celebrity’s hardships, to make jokes constantly about a celebrity’s problems. Celebrities have problems, and guess what? You’ve got problems, too. Celebrities are human beings and they have feelings. And so what that no one could find out where Jay-Z and Beyonce got married. It’s really not our business. And if everyday people would just come to the realization that the most important life is yours and that of your children, you’d have a whole lot more going for you. Just do your life. Fix what’s wrong in yours.
What have you learned most about black people–your listeners–during this presidential campaign?
Black people are a lot more involved than people have realized over the years. What we’re finding out now is that white people feel disenfranchised. Black people have been feeling disenfranchised for a long time. So now all of a sudden we have a black man running for the presidency who has a real chance and he has a real chance because African Americans and poor people have known what was going on. But now the disenfranchised middle-class white person is saying, “You know what? This ain’t right. We need to change it.” And they’re so disenfranchised they are going to change it anyway they can. If that means putting a black man in office then cool, we’ll do that.
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