Legendary broadcaster Larry King died on Saturday, Jan. 23, at age 87. King started in radio and grew his talk show to where it reportedly had 5,000 affiliates before transitioning to CNN.
At CNN, Larry’s guests included famous celebrities and world leaders. But in his radio days he typically interviewed people whose names were not widely known outside their niche. In 1987 (or thereabouts; I forgot to make a note of the exact date) King interviewed sports service operator Ed “The Professor” Horowitz. During the interview, King fielded a call from a woman identified only as a lady in Akron and it became a three-way conversation.
I taped it. Here is how it went:
Lady in Akron: “My husband and I have subscribed to several sports services in the past few years. Unfortunately, one of our services sold their mailing list and their phone list to the professor’s organization. We received as many as seven different phone calls in one day from people in the professor’s organization. We told them we were not interested. It was very high pressure tactics, very unprofessional.”
Ed Horowitz: “Exactly what you are talking about and calling unprofessional happens to be professional telemarketing. If you have a good product, you want to push it.
Larry King: Do you use high pressure sales tactics?”
Ed Horowitz: “If by high pressure you mean a telephone call to a known sports gambler asking him if he wants to subscribe to your service is high pressure, then yes we use high pressure.”
Lady in Akron: I got so disgusted. We had seven calls on numerous occasions on a Saturday or Sunday during football season from people in the professor’s organization telling us that we should get down on this game or that game. We told them we were not interested. We called his number, asked not to have any further calls, and yet it went on into basketball season.”
Larry King: “Wouldn’t seven be a lot in one day?”
Ed Horowitz: “Was it seven by the same person?”
Lady in Akron: “No it wasn’t, sir. One fellow would give a name, and then the next person would call a couple of hours later and tell us that there was something we should get in on and each time they identified themselves as from The Professor.”
Ed Horowitz: It was possibly because our salesmen work on what we call leads. We don’t have more than one salesman working on a lead at one time. I can’t understand how that would happen. It’s not good business.”
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Note: In his ads, Ed Horowitz claimed to be a former college professor. Rick Reilly, in his often- cited 1991 cover story for Sports Illustrated (“1-900 Ripoffs”), identified Horowitz as a former heavy cocaine user who had taught a one-time night class in taxation at Pace University. When Reilly’s story appeared, Horowitz was the president of American Sports Advisors, a publicly-traded company that owned four tout services – three in New York and the Austin Edge in Las Vegas which Horowitz purchased from Gary Austin.
At CNN, Larry’s guests included famous celebrities and world leaders. But in his radio days he typically interviewed people whose names were not widely known outside their niche. In 1987 (or thereabouts; I forgot to make a note of the exact date) King interviewed sports service operator Ed “The Professor” Horowitz. During the interview, King fielded a call from a woman identified only as a lady in Akron and it became a three-way conversation.
I taped it. Here is how it went:
Lady in Akron: “My husband and I have subscribed to several sports services in the past few years. Unfortunately, one of our services sold their mailing list and their phone list to the professor’s organization. We received as many as seven different phone calls in one day from people in the professor’s organization. We told them we were not interested. It was very high pressure tactics, very unprofessional.”
Ed Horowitz: “Exactly what you are talking about and calling unprofessional happens to be professional telemarketing. If you have a good product, you want to push it.
Larry King: Do you use high pressure sales tactics?”
Ed Horowitz: “If by high pressure you mean a telephone call to a known sports gambler asking him if he wants to subscribe to your service is high pressure, then yes we use high pressure.”
Lady in Akron: I got so disgusted. We had seven calls on numerous occasions on a Saturday or Sunday during football season from people in the professor’s organization telling us that we should get down on this game or that game. We told them we were not interested. We called his number, asked not to have any further calls, and yet it went on into basketball season.”
Larry King: “Wouldn’t seven be a lot in one day?”
Ed Horowitz: “Was it seven by the same person?”
Lady in Akron: “No it wasn’t, sir. One fellow would give a name, and then the next person would call a couple of hours later and tell us that there was something we should get in on and each time they identified themselves as from The Professor.”
Ed Horowitz: It was possibly because our salesmen work on what we call leads. We don’t have more than one salesman working on a lead at one time. I can’t understand how that would happen. It’s not good business.”
---
Note: In his ads, Ed Horowitz claimed to be a former college professor. Rick Reilly, in his often- cited 1991 cover story for Sports Illustrated (“1-900 Ripoffs”), identified Horowitz as a former heavy cocaine user who had taught a one-time night class in taxation at Pace University. When Reilly’s story appeared, Horowitz was the president of American Sports Advisors, a publicly-traded company that owned four tout services – three in New York and the Austin Edge in Las Vegas which Horowitz purchased from Gary Austin.
