Radio Hall of Fame Honors New Members

Eight broadcasters entered the Radio Hall of Fame Thursday night at the Fairmont Hotel, a class that runs from morning-show stars and legendary disc jockeys to the executive who built MTV and now leads the country’s largest radio company.

The Class of 2026 is Boomer Esiason, Helen Little, Rickey Smiley, Bob Pittman, Charlie Van Dyke, Dennis Green, Fred Winston and Shotgun Tom Kelly. Bobby Bones, himself a 2017 inductee, hosted.

• Winston, a Chicago radio fixture since his 1971 start on WLS, drew the loudest hometown response. His career ran through WMAQ, WFYR, WCFL, WPNT, WJMK and WLUP, and the room treated his induction as a local homecoming as much as a national honor.
• Smiley turned his remarks into a celebration of the syndicated morning show that reaches more than 60 markets through Urban One/Reach Media. The comedian and host has spent the week broadcasting from Chicago ahead of the ceremony; colleagues have credited his work ethic and humor with carrying the show across generations of listeners.
  
• Esiason, the former NFL MVP quarterback and longtime WFAN voice, traced the less obvious path from the field to Sportsradio 101.9/660 The Fan. He has also called Monday Night Football and 19 Super Bowls, a sports-media career the hall treated as radio work first.
• Pittman, chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia and co-founder of MTV, spoke as the executive inductee in a class otherwise dominated by on-air names. He co-founded MTV in 1981, later held senior roles at AOL Time Warner, and took the helm of what was then Clear Channel.

The rest of the class filled in the medium’s range. Little is the longtime WLTW-FM New York morning voice known for warmth and community ties. Van Dyke was working major-market Top 40 at Dallas’s KLIF by 19, later programmed KHJ Los Angeles, and spent the 1980s as the primary fill-in for Casey Kasem on American Top 40. Kelly remains the signature voice of SiriusXM’s ’60s on 6. Green, COO of Sun & Fun Media/Key Networks and co-chair of the hall, was recognized for a career in syndication and for helping run the induction process itself.

The ceremony also recognized nine Legends, the hall’s posthumous class: Lin Brehmer, Vivian Carter, Dale Dorman, Gary Krantz, Wink Martindale, B. Mitchell Reed, Pierre Robert, Polito Vega and D.E. “Duke” Wright. The group runs from Chicago’s WXRT and Philadelphia air personalities to Vee-Jay Records co-founder Vivian Carter, New York Spanish-language pioneer Polito Vega, and Midwest Communications owner Duke Wright.

Six of the living inductees — Esiason, Kelly, Little, Smiley, Van Dyke and Winston — were chosen from 24 nominees by a panel of more than 950 industry professionals. Pittman and Green were selected by the nominating committee. The hall is housed at the Museum of Broadcast Communications, which receives a portion of ticket proceeds.