But I also have to believe that another reason for the long hold times is to throw challengers off their game. Many simply won’t be so interested to wait and will simply hang up. If you actually do get on the air, the segment that prompted your call is long gone. Most of the audience won’t even remember it, if they even heard it at all (most radio audiences only listen at specific times in the car or whatever). If you say, “I’d like to challenge you on what you said earlier, ‘X,’” he can simply say, “I never said ‘X.’” Jay is very good at this; he’ll say something like, “What I said was,” and go on a 2 minute monologue that will either make his position seem much more reasonable (he can always return to more heated rhetoric when he’s not being challenged), or will get him to a scheduled break and end your call. Or both.

It’s a no-win battle, I’m afraid.