Bob Grant, a Combative Personality on New York Talk Radio, Dies at 84

Source: NY Times

Bob Grant, the right-wing talk radio host whose testy, confrontational manner made him a dominant voice during the drive-time hours in New York for decades, died on Tuesday in Hillsborough, N.J. He was 84.

His death was announced by the New York radio station WABC, where he attracted his biggest audiences.

Mr. Grant thrived on the radio despite being boycotted for racist remarks, and despite a trademark habit of hanging up on his own callers.

But his sharp tongue also proved his undoing. In 1996, WABC fired him over a remark he made after news reports said a plane carrying Ronald H. Brown, the commerce secretary in the Clinton administration, had crashed in Croatia. In a comment on the air following the news bulletin, Mr. Grant seemed to express the hope that Mr. Brown, an African-American and a perennial target of his scorn, had not survived. All 35 people aboard the plane were killed.

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