SURVEY RESULTS: Who do you listen to in the morning?

57 Votes

1. Steve Harvey 24%

2. Tom Joyner 14%

3. Yolanda Adams 12%

4. Bill Anderson 8%

5. Rickey Smiley 3%

Blacks love morning radio.

While at a party a few weeks ago, someone put the question to a group of us: Tom Joyner or Steve Harvey? Immediately, people voiced their opinions for one or the other.

For you readers who don't have a clue what I'm talking about, both Tom Joyner and Steve Harvey host their own syndicated morning radio shows that are listened to by millions of blacks everyday of the week. Steve Harvey may be the more familiar name to many due to his work in TV and his recent best selling book and blockbuster movie 'Think like a Man'.

Yolanda Adams hosts a syndicated morning gospel radio show which has a large Philadelphia following but only a small fraction of national listeners compared to Joyner and Harvey. Rickey Smiley is a new comer to the morning scene and is trying to find his place among the younger Joyner and Harvey listeners. 

Bill Anderson hosts Philadelphia's only black owned radio station's morning talk show. His father, Cody Anderson, is an icon in Philadelphia black radio and Bill is doing an admirable job keeping the legacy alive. 

Joyner, Harvey, and Smiley's core is comedy and R&B. Adams' is gospel and Christianity. Anderson covers issues affecting the Philadelphia area black community with no music. 

I was always in awe of Tom Joyner.  In 1985, I spent time in Dallas and Tom Joyner labeled himself as the Hardest Working Man in Radio. He would do a morning program in Dallas then fly to Chicago to do a show there, every weekday. He claims he logged 7 million frequent flyer miles during that period. I'm sure he enjoyed the creation of syndication in 1995 which puts him on hundreds of stations a day from a single location.

Tell us why you like the one you like.