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Bob Lonsberry (born July 18, 1959) is a conservative American radio talk show host, columnist, and author.
He has been a newspaper reporter, columnist, photojournalist and editor, as well as a magazine writer and commentator on radio and television and a television reporter and manager. He is the author of The Early Years, a collection of newspaper columns, as well as a collection of essays, and four short novels.
Lonsberry is a native of Canisteo, New York.
Lonsberry almost always expresses a conservative opinion about the issues he discusses on his talk shows. Typically, he spends most of his shows discussing local and state issues—less frequently discussing national issues. He also discusses life and family issues. Lonsberry is married to his third wife. He and his first wife divorced, and his second marriage was annulled.
When Lonsberry is absent, progressive talk radio host George Kilpatrick has occasionally filled in for him, a situation that brought Kilpatrick a certain degree of hate mail.
Lonsberry was later fired from WHAM-AM for the orangutan remarks (but not from KNRS, both Clear Channel radio stations). When WHAM ratings in his time slot plunged, he was rehired after attending sensitivity training.
On June 16, 2010, Lonsberry was fired from KNRS-FM in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he had hosted show weekdays between 5 AM to 9 AM MT for a decade. In his daily web column, he stated that the station attributed his firing to his lower listener ratings following the introduction of the Portable People Meter. Lonsberry also suggested that his opposition to Mike Lee's candidacy for Utah's Senate seat may have been a factor. Lee as an attorney represented one of KNRS's advertisers, and Lonsberry wrote:
Lonsberry vocally supported Mike Lee's primary-election opponent, Tim Bridgewater, a businessman and former Chairman of the Utah County Republican Party. The Bridgewater Campaign subsequently pulled all its ads from radio station KNRS.
Over a thousand reader comments on Lonsberry's weekday blog supported restoring Lonsberry to his position (bringbobbacktoutah.com). Lonsberry returned to the Utah airwaves in February 2011 on radio station KMES 1430AM.
On December 20, 2011, Lonsberry announced that he was doing his last morning broadcast on KLO due to an upcoming schedule change at WHAM. He no longer broadcasts in the Utah radio market.
While the content of Lonsberry's Rochester and Salt Lake City shows were politically and socially conservative, his approach in two broadcast markets differed due to local content and interests. The former Salt Lake City show was more genteel and included frequent religious references whereas the Rochester show is more raucous and occasionally risqué. (On the WHAM show, Lonsberry frequently mentions his affinity for women's breasts.) He broadcasts his Rochester show from the WHAM studio, although he occasionally originates the program from his home.
In November 2019, Lonsberry said use of the word “boomer” was a slur comparable to the word "nigger", which provoked a strong response from critics. Lonsberry's comments were in response to use of the phrase "OK boomer" by Generation Z and millennials to show their disdain those of the baby boom generation. Dictionary.com chimed in on the controversy, noting that "Boomer is an informal noun referring to a person born during a baby boom, especially one born in the U.S. between 1946 and 1965" and "The n-word is one of the most offensive words in the English language."
In April 2022, he was fact-checked after starting a debunked rumor on social media that a New York school district was putting litter boxes in bathrooms for students who identify as cats, sometimes known as "furries".
In October 2023, Lonsberry revealed that he received a permanent ban from Twitter.
Lonsberry has authored five books:
As of 2019, Lonsberry's Twitter bio states that he has since reconciled with and rejoined the LDS Church.
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