WPR host Larry Meiller reflects on six decades on the air | Entertainment

As Larry Meiller prepares to retire from his job as the longtime host of Wisconsin Public Radio’s “The Larry Meiller Show,” he jokes he “has no job prospects.”

Meiller began telling this joke as part of the story of how he ended up on the radio, starting as a substitute host for a half-hour farm show in 1967. This led to his eponymous call-in show, on the air weekdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

In December, Meiller, 81, announced he will retire. His last show will be on June 30, 2026.

“The Larry Meiller Show” was one of the first call-in shows on public radio and is the longest-running call-in show in the state. Topics range from gardening to home improvement to authors, all with a Wisconsin focus. Folks can tune in and hear Meiller ask experts why back pain is hard to cure, or learn the history of sleigh rides.  

“There was no other talk show like it,” Meiller said of the show’s beginnings in 1978. “Most of the talk shows were more (about) politics or that sort of thing, where there was a lot of shouting and screaming at each other.” 

Meiller believes what kept listeners tuning in for nearly six decades was the show’s ability to speak plainly to people and hit on issues they wanted more information about.

He once worked with a grad student to poll 100 listeners and ask if they had learned anything from the show in the past two weeks. Every single person named something.

“I’m getting them the information in a format that is appealing to them and that they can understand,” he said.

Meiller was a longtime advisor and professor in the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He retired from teaching in 2022.

The show will continue with a new host — Meiller said the intent of announcing his retirement six months ahead of his last show is to give time to find his replacement and perhaps host some shows together.

First time callers, long time listeners

Meiller is gregarious and curious, traits he said he learned from his parents growing up on a farm in Cottage Grove. His comfort speaking in front of others was apparent from an early age.

“When I was in grade school, the teacher, Mrs. Dow, said, ‘Who would be willing to recite the Gettysburg Address on Memorial Day in Cottage Grove?’ I was the only one who raised my hand,” he said.

At Madison East High School, he was part of FFA (formerly the Future Farmers of America), and competed in statewide speaking contests before attending UW-Madison to study meat and animal sciences.

During his last semester in school, Meiller took a radio class. In 1967, he agreed to cover a half-hour farm show for a summer hosted by Maury White, a professor in the Department of Agricultural Journalism (now the Department of Life Sciences Communication).

He kept going with the show (he had no job prospects) and continued with his studies, eventually getting a master’s, then a PhD in Mass Communication in 1975. Part of his scholarly work was about community engagement and “how to get citizen input into planning for change in communities,” he said.

Meiller pitched the idea for “The Larry Meiller Show” in 1978 when Jack Mitchell, then-director of WPR, asked him for an idea for a new radio show.

“He said, ‘Hey, I’m thinking about doing a call-in talk show. …Tell me what you think you’d do,’” Meiller said. He came back with a program focused on subjects “that would help people with their daily lives … how to fix your car, or how to fix your ache or pain, or how to eat better — whatever.” 

By the time “The Larry Meiller Show” went to air, Meiller had been on the air for 11 years. He was confident he could host a show, but was unsure if anyone would call in.

For his first topic, he picked something he thought people would have thoughts about — pet health — and invited UW veterinary sciences professor Richard Bristol and John Skinner, a specialist in small animals at UW-Madison, as experts. Then they waited to see if anyone would call.

A listener quickly called in. “She says, ‘Well, it’s Grace Pearson from Stevens Point. And how do you know if your cat is a male or a female?’ And Dick Bristol, he leans into the microphone, he says, ‘Just pick up its tail.’ And we were off and running,” he said.

Pearson became a frequent caller, phoning in nearly once a week. And even on shows when there might not be many callers, Meiller knows he is still reaching people.

He did a show all about farm equipment safety with a doctor who was tired “of reattaching people’s hands or arms from farm accidents.” Not many people called, but Meiller left listeners with contact information to request brochures with guidance on “what to do with a finger or an arm that’s cut off on the way to the hospital.”

A few weeks later, Meiller was at the hospital when a woman came up to him and said, “You’re the one — I did nothing for days but send out those brochures.”

Connecting one listener to another

Meiller has always sought creative ways to connect with listeners. Back when he was hosting the agricultural show, he thought he could reach more people by starting a tape service.

“I’d send 10 two-minute features from the guests that I had talked to, and then I would write (up the interviews) for the press service,” he recalled.

At one point — Meiller estimates this was around the ’80s — he started a record service called Badger Home and Garden, pressing LPs with 20 one-minute tips cut from guest interviews on the show. He’d send the LPs out to about 100 different radio stations.

Now, he mostly stays connected to people through emails and social media. He’s proud of the “community of listeners” the show has built.

One listener, a canoe builder, called to say he’d made a canoe for a wife to give her husband as a surprise for Christmas. The couple was based in New York, and the canoe builder called Meiller’s show to see if another listener would ferry the canoe out east.

A few people volunteered, and a young couple driving to New York for the holidays ended up delivering the canoe on top of their car. 

“You got people who don’t know each other, who are willing to give somebody something very valuable because they listen to public radio,” Meiller said.

There’s rarely a topic on the show, Meiller says, where no one calls in. “A lot of times, my question to the producer who comes up with an idea, I say, ‘Well, what would people call about?’” he asked.

That can be challenging for a statewide show. Even though the show records in Madison, “I have to focus on 400 miles north,” Meiller said. “I’ve gotta focus on finding things that are interesting no matter where you live.”

Making shows enjoyable for listeners starts with prep. Meiller and his producers do extensive research, trying to imagine what listeners might want to know or ask. For the authors he brings on the show, Meiller reads every single book. He estimates he has about 50 authors on the show each year.

“When I finish interviewing, if the authors are in the studio with me, they’ll invariably say, ‘You read the whole book?’” He said he can’t just skim a book and usually has pieces of scrap paper with notes as he reads — he’s looking for the small details. He’s “focusing on the minutiae that I think is going to bring out a lot of interest.”

Passing the microphone

Being prepared helps him stay focused on the guest, which he said is the cornerstone of every interview. Meiller gave the students he advised and others interested in radio the same tips he utilizes on air: have an outline of notes, but don’t read from a script, and “look at the person you’re interviewing… people want to look at their question, and I said, ‘No, look right in the eyes of the person.’”

He also advises that, as the host, one has to put oneself in the shoes of the listener. This manifests in small ways, like using visual language for radio: he had a guest describe an item as being three-quarters of an inch in diameter. Meiller jumped in and clarified that it was about the size of a dime.

The show will change once Meiller hands over the reins, but the goal remains the same: “to provide Wisconsin citizens with the best damn information they can get.” And he’s sure whoever takes over hosting will build their own loyal “community of listeners.”

As beloved as Meiller is now, he remembers the letters he got when he stepped into Maury White’s show back in 1967.

“You wouldn’t believe the amount of letters that came, and they were directed to Maury. Maury said, ‘Oh, just open them yourself and read them and pass them on to me.’”

He read all the letters, which basically bemoaned the idea that anyone besides White could host this show. “How the heck am I ever going to replace him?” Meiller remembered asking himself.

Now, nearly 60 years later, it’s that tenure that makes him confident the show’s next chapter will find its own path. 

“Now I’m going to be gone,” he said, “and people are going to say the same thing.”