Phil Valentine@wlac.com
Phil Valentine is on News/Talk 1510 WLAC every weekday from 3PM until 6PM. You can check out his personal web site for updated information on current topics.
Phil was born and raised in a small town in North Carolina. The Valentine family tradition was the law profession, but being a bit untraditional, Phil pursued a career in broadcasting. His first job at the age of 19 was working behind the scenes for a Charlotte television station whose owner was trying to sell the station to raise funds for an outlandish project. Although the conventional wisdom was that the owner was destined for failure, he pressed on with the sale and started the world's first all-news television network. That owner with the 'half-baked idea' was Ted Turner.
That early experience made the indelible impression on Phil that no matter how odd your idea may seem you have to trust your own instincts. Phil did just that in 1985 when a format change swept him out of the radio station he was programming in Greensboro, N.C. Never one to sit and wait for things to happen, Phil packed up and moved to Nashville without a job! Within two days he had a part-time job at a radio station and was selling memberships at a health club to pay the rent. Three months later the part-time radio job turned to full-time. By 1988 Phil had the second-highest rated morning radio show in Nashville and was voted the DJ of the Year by readers of the Tennessean .
During the '80s Phil's father, Tim Valentine, served as a U.S. Congressman from North Carolina so it was probably inevitable that Phil would eventually be lured into the world of talk radio. In 1991, while Phil was hosting his music show on WLAC-FM, the program director for their sister station needed someone at the last moment to fill in on a weekend talk show. Phil volunteered. When the program director heard Phil he persuaded him to take the morning talk show job on WLAC-AM.
During his first eleven years in Nashville, Phil ventured into television. He hosted a variety of TV specials, was a spokesman for commercials and hosted a political TV talk show. It was through his television work that he came to the attention of WWDB in Philadelphia. They had chosen him from an audition reel to be the spokesman for their television ad campaign. When the owner and the general manager flew to Nashville for the television filming session, they learned that Phil did a radio talk show. They listened with interest having just learned that their own morning host would be leaving. Back in Philadelphia a national search was on for the vacated position. After months of on-air auditions they made Phil the offer to come to Philadelphia which he accepted in September of 1996. Phil inherited a show in 9th place in the market. After just one rating period, he took the show to 3rd where it stayed until he left in January of 1998. During that time he won three Philadelphia AIR Awards (Achievement In Radio) for Best New Talent in the Market, Best Talk Show Host and Best Morning Show Host or Team. It was the first time in the history of the awards that one person had won three awards in a single year. He was also named a Best Talk Show Finalist in the prestigious New York Festivals International Radio Competition, the only talk show host in the United States to be honored.
Just before leaving for Philadelphia, Phil was cast in a moving starring Martin Sheen, Charlie Sheen and the lead singer for the rock group Poison, Bret Michaels. A Letter From Death Row is about a man convicted of killing his girnfriend and sentenced to die in the electric chair. Phil plays his lawyer who tries to get the conviction overturned.
Phil returned to the Nashville airwaves in April 1998 to take over the afternoon show on the legendary WLAC-AM. He lives with his wife, Susan, and their three boys just outside of Nashville.
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