"Stand by for news"

Paul Harvey, who was long considered the most-listened-to radio broadcaster in the world and whose distinctive delivery and daily mix of news, commentary and human interest stories informed and entertained a national radio audience for nearly 60 years, died Saturday. He was 90.

Harvey, called "the voice of Middle America," "the apostle of Main Street" and "the voice of the Silent Majority" by the media for his flag-waving conservatism and championing of traditional values, died at a hospital near his winter home in Phoenix, the ABC network announced. The cause was not given.

The Chicago-based Harvey was syndicated on more than 1,200 radio stations nationally and 400 Armed Forces Radio stations around the world. Harvey had not been on the air on a daily basis in the last few months, but he did do some prerecorded segments. His son, Paul Harvey Jr., had been filling in as host.

Coming of professional age in the late 1930s and the 1940s, a time when broadcasters such as Lowell Thomas and Gabriel Heatter were household names, Harvey continued to flourish in the era of Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh.

For more than 50 years, beginning in 1951, ABC Radio Network listeners were greeted by Harvey's trademark telegraphic delivery punctuated by his patented pauses:

"Hello, Americans!" he'd boom into the microphone in his studio high above Michigan Avenue, "This is Paul Harvey! [pause] Stand by for news!"

He'd end each broadcast with his signature: "Paul Harvey. [long pause] Good day!"

The "Paul Harvey News and Comment" broadcasts -- five minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at midday six days a week -- were consistently ranked first and second in the nation among network radio shows.