The David Lee Roth Show

The David Lee Roth Show was a short-lived, morning radio program in 2006, starring the loquacious rock musician David Lee Roth, (of classic-period Van Halen fame.) It was syndicated nationally, replacing America's longtime most popular radio show, the Howard Stern Show Notably different than Howard Stern's program, or corporate "morning zoo" and "shock jock" formats which dominated morning radio at the time, Roth's radio program sounded like pirate radio by comparison. Blocks of obscure ethnic music - or largely non-commercial rock music - alternated with personal stories, occasionally uncomfortable debates on intellectual matters, and interviews with people Roth admired, (e.g. guitarist Brian May, baseball player Johnny Damon, and his uncle Manny Roth, etc.)

Following its January 2006 debut, a plurality of critics savaged the show, chiding its "amateurishness," while a minority praised Roth's willingness to bring something so obviously "non-corporate" (and ultimately "anti-corporate") to American, mainstream radio. Arbitron numbers showed that Roth's radio program initially lost a sizable portion of the Howard Stern's audience; however, by the end of his tenure, his show began to find advocates in people disenchanted by ClearChannel-formatted radio. Roth's firing from CBS Radio ended in a lawsuit, which was eventually settled.