Terry Meiners
Encyclopedia
Terry Allen Meiners, born January 22, 1957, is an American radio and television personality on WHAS (AM)
and WHAS-TV
in Louisville, Kentucky
. On radio, The Terry Meiners Show has aired weekday afternoons from 3-7 since 1985. Meiners is known for broadcasting impersonations of prominent local citizens, and his satirical interviews of eclectic news figures, comedians, film and television stars, and politicians. In a region that thrives on college sports, Meiners lampoons the flightiness of University of Louisville
Cardinals fans and the zealotry of University of Kentucky
Wildcats fans. Many of Meiners’ fabricated callers are dimwitted sports fans delivering a tirade on the air, who then close with the contradictory statement “I’ll hang up and listen to your answer.”
Additional Meiners radio sketches include conversations with imaginary characters like a street-tough problem solver named Trubba Man, an arrogant Hollywood has-been, a delusional Elvis impersonator, and a pair of foulmouthed morning deejays who speak in unison.
Several part-time voice impersonators have worked with Meiners over the years, including actor Jeff Ketterman, singer Laura Cox, writer Laura Johnston, singer Randy Davidson, and comedian Chuck Knipp
(Shirley Q Liquor).
Meiners is also known for his offbeat television interviews with sometimes tipsy fans at sporting events such as the Kentucky Derby
and Kentucky Oaks. Meiners is a co-host of Great Day Live (news, knowledge, and nonsense) with WHAS-TV
news anchor Rachel Platt, weekday mornings on WHAS-TV. "Great Day Live" debuted with #1 ratings in its time slot. Meiners' Friday television interviews on the early show Good Morning Kentuckiana often take a comic twist.
-FM. The two provided edgy humor to Louisville’s airwaves, leading the Courier-Journal to declare that “they’re raucous and rowdy, outrageous and bawdy, occasionally offensive and faintly foul-mouthed.” WQMF hired Clay and Meiners away from rival station WLRS
-FM, where the duo hosted the risque “Morning Sickness” show from 1981-1983.
’s “Best Radio Personality” award 18 times, every time the category was offered in the annual readers’ survey. He also collected “Best Radio Personality” awards from other reader surveys, such as Kentucky Monthly
magazine and the free pulp newspaper LEO Weekly.
In both 2010 and 2011, LEO Weekly published its Readers’ Poll which listed Meiners as both the “Best Radio Personality” and “Best Local Media Celebrity You Love to Hate.” In the 2010 poll, the second most-hated media celebrity was Karen Sypher, the convicted extortionist of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino
, a friend of Meiners.
Accompanied by the tune Dueling Banjos
, Meiners regularly caricatured Wallace G. Wilkinson
, Kentucky’s governor from 1987–92, as a scheming huckster with a warbling hick accent. At a 1989 NCAA basketball game in Minneapolis, Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson introduced Wilkinson and Meiners, with the governor snapping, “What did I do to piss you off?” When Wilkinson died in 2002, he was mired in bankruptcy proceedings that illustrated his orchestration of a $400 million Ponzi scheme
that depleted the fortunes of many prominent Kentuckians and forced changes in auditing standards.
Louisville civil rights activist Rev. Louis Coleman, whom Meiners regularly parodied as a race-baiting extortionist on Meiners’ radio show, refused to be interviewed on the air. Coleman eventually wrote a letter to the founder of Clear Channel Communications in Texas, demanding that Meiners be fired. Coleman called Meiners a “trained imitator (certified nut case)” who should stick to comedy and not “serious issues.” In the letter, Coleman also misspelled both the first and last names of Clear Channel’s owner, and sent it to “San Antonia.”
After 10 years of parodying U.S. Senator Wendell Ford, whose character continually coughed as he defended the tobacco industry, the senator paid a visit to Meiners’ studio. Without saying hello, Sen. Ford motioned toward the WHAS broadcast panel and asked “Is this your desk?” Meiners nodded. The Senate Minority Whip took his lit cigarette and flicked its ashes right onto the electronics panel, then turned and walked out the door.
Larry Birkhead
, the onetime photographer who fathered a child with the late model Anna Nicole Smith
, repeatedly threatened WHAS Radio and Clear Channel Communications with litigation to prevent Meiners from calling him “The Sperminator” or posting photos Birkhead claims he owns. In May 2010, a federal appeals court ruled that Anna Nicole Smith’s estate would not receive any proceeds from the estate of her late husband, billionaire J. Howard Marshall. Meiners posted the story under the headline, “Louisville’s Larry Birkhead is flying coach again.” Birkhead wrote multiple angry replies on Meiners’ Facebook page, calling the announcer a “douchebag (sic) on local AM radio.” Meiners replied, “Thanks for writing. Better go buy some work boots this weekend.” Birkhead responded “I am flying in FIRST CLASS to talk to my attorney about your defamatory comments…Do you want your legal papers served to you at work or at home?” In June 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal appeals court ruling denying Smith any part of the billionaire's estate, ending Birkhead's path to the money. The child Birkhead fathered has the billionaire's surname included within her full legal name. Birkhead is now selling Anna Nicole Smith's home in California, with proceeds reportedly going back into the estate which provides for the child.
In September 2009, Salon.com
writer Alexander Zaitchek profiled Fox News program host and former Louisville radio personality Glenn Beck
. In a segment titled “Glenn Beck becomes damaged goods,” the piece included Meiners’ recollection of Beck’s relentless cruelty toward another WHAS Radio show host in the 1980s, a period where Beck admits to erratic behavior triggered by drug and alcohol abuse. The Salon article opened up Meiners to fierce criticism from hundreds of Beck’s ardent followers, many of whom accused Meiners of being jealous of Beck’s ascent to national prominence.
In 2001, Meiners published an online parody article projecting massively acerbic behavior from Kentucky Wildcats fans toward now-hated Rick Pitino’s return to UK as the coach of arch rival Louisville. Meiners created moronic quotes and assigned hillbilly-like nicknames to each of the imaginary UK fans chronicled in the faux article. Two days later, the Lexington Herald Leader newspaper ran a front page story headlined, “Web site parody sparks outrage in Eastern Kentucky.” The next day, the Louisville Courier-Journal published a news story about the Meiners parody, followed by a Courier-Journal Sunday editorial excoriating Meiners for perpetuating hillbilly stereotypes upon eastern Kentuckians.
In 2010, the University of Louisville
switched from Freedom Hall
to a new downtown arena, tossing out familiar seating assignments for longtime season ticket holders. Meiners publicly criticized school administrators, saying that decades of fan loyalty had been ignored in the re-seating process to accommodate late line jumpers making fresh donations to the athletics department. In a live radio interview, Meiners asked a university fundraising spokesman about the number of prime seats school officials kept for its own use, whether school employees who received those free tickets were allowed to resell them “to enhance their compensation packages,” and about advance block sales of seats to ticket brokers before seats were made available to common fans. Meiners was soon removed from an upcoming charity golf tournament where University of Louisville athletics director Tom Jurich
was slated to play in Meiners' foursome. Meiners responded by offering to buy two foursomes in the charity tournament, stocking the one in front of Jurich with four slow-moving octogenarians and the foursome behind Jurich with four long-hitters having “a delightful day of methodical shot selections.”
Shortly thereafter, a university official notified WHAS-TV
of changes in the coach’s show format for the fall of 2010, resulting in Meiners no longer hosting the program. Once the story was broken by a popular UK fan site that antagonizes its rival, Pitino told the media hours later that he would take a year off from his TV show, claiming it was not punishment to WHAS-TV for its news coverage of the Karen Sypher trial. WKRD
-AM and WHAS-AM sports radio host Drew Deener was selected to replace Meiners on the weekly WHAS-TV U of L basketball show with a new format approved by the university. Deener's radio shows are consistently friendly to University of Louisville athletics.
since 1985 as a feature reporter, interviewer, live commentator, and magazine show host. For the past 15 years, Meiners has appeared at different locations every Friday morning on Good Morning Kentuckiana, the early morning news lead-in to ABC-TV’s Good Morning America
. He now co-hosts Great Day Live! weekday mornings at 9 on WHAS-TV, a show that earned a first place rating in its time slot from its debut. Meiners hosted the Rick Pitino coach’s from 2001-2004 on WDRB
-TV, then switching with the university contract to WHAS-11 from 2005 to 2010.
During the 2008 – 09 college basketball season, Meiners and Pitino created disruptive live interviews during halftime of University of Louisville games. Pitino would either bristle at Meiners’ questions or mock his clothing instead of talking about the game at hand. The two finally struck pay dirt when their halftime farce was reported on ESPN’s Sportscenter
broadcast in December 2008.
Along with television news anchor Melissa Swan, Meiners co-hosts the WHAS Crusade for Children, the long-running annual local telethon benefiting children's charities. Meiners has been a part of the Crusade for Children broadcast for over 25 years. Meiners also provides emcee duties and/or promotional work for Metro United Way, the Homeless Coalition, Dare to Care Food Bank, Louisville Metro Police Foundation, and the Yum! Brands fundraisers for World Food Program.
Meiners has two sons from his first marriage, Maxwell and Simon. He is an avid golfer, marathon runner, and private pilot.
WHAS (AM)
WHAS, known by the on air branding as "84 WHAS", is an AM radio station broadcasting in Louisville, Kentucky. It is a 50,000 Watt clear channel radio station assigned to frequency 840 kHz. With clear channel status, its nighttime signal can be heard in most of the continental U.S...
and WHAS-TV
WHAS-TV
WHAS-TV channel 11 is the ABC affiliated television station in Louisville, Kentucky. Owned by Belo Corporation, the station's transmitter is located in Floyd County, Indiana, near the community of Floyds Knobs...
in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
. On radio, The Terry Meiners Show has aired weekday afternoons from 3-7 since 1985. Meiners is known for broadcasting impersonations of prominent local citizens, and his satirical interviews of eclectic news figures, comedians, film and television stars, and politicians. In a region that thrives on college sports, Meiners lampoons the flightiness of University of Louisville
University of Louisville
The University of Louisville is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General...
Cardinals fans and the zealotry of University of Kentucky
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...
Wildcats fans. Many of Meiners’ fabricated callers are dimwitted sports fans delivering a tirade on the air, who then close with the contradictory statement “I’ll hang up and listen to your answer.”
Additional Meiners radio sketches include conversations with imaginary characters like a street-tough problem solver named Trubba Man, an arrogant Hollywood has-been, a delusional Elvis impersonator, and a pair of foulmouthed morning deejays who speak in unison.
Several part-time voice impersonators have worked with Meiners over the years, including actor Jeff Ketterman, singer Laura Cox, writer Laura Johnston, singer Randy Davidson, and comedian Chuck Knipp
Chuck Knipp
Chuck Knipp is an American and Canadian drag queen and comedian best known for his alter egos, the characters 'Shirley Q. Liquor' and 'Betty Butterfield.' A number of videos of Knipp's Butterfield were featured on several different Youtube accounts until 2007 when most disappeared. In mid-2009 a...
(Shirley Q Liquor).
Meiners is also known for his offbeat television interviews with sometimes tipsy fans at sporting events such as the Kentucky Derby
Kentucky Derby
The Kentucky Derby is a Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbred horses, held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, United States on the first Saturday in May, capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The race is one and a quarter mile at Churchill Downs. Colts and geldings carry...
and Kentucky Oaks. Meiners is a co-host of Great Day Live (news, knowledge, and nonsense) with WHAS-TV
WHAS-TV
WHAS-TV channel 11 is the ABC affiliated television station in Louisville, Kentucky. Owned by Belo Corporation, the station's transmitter is located in Floyd County, Indiana, near the community of Floyds Knobs...
news anchor Rachel Platt, weekday mornings on WHAS-TV. "Great Day Live" debuted with #1 ratings in its time slot. Meiners' Friday television interviews on the early show Good Morning Kentuckiana often take a comic twist.
Early career
Before his move to WHAS in 1985, Meiners worked with Ron Clay as the co-host of “The Show With No Name,” a morning drive-time program on Louisville rock station WQMFWQMF
WQMF is a Classic rock radio station located in Louisville, Kentucky. The station is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission to the nearby city of Jeffersonville, Indiana and broadcasts on 95.7 FM with a effective radiated power of 28.5 kW.-Station history:95.7 signed on as WQHI in...
-FM. The two provided edgy humor to Louisville’s airwaves, leading the Courier-Journal to declare that “they’re raucous and rowdy, outrageous and bawdy, occasionally offensive and faintly foul-mouthed.” WQMF hired Clay and Meiners away from rival station WLRS
WLRS
WLRS is a commercial radio station located in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, broadcasting to the Louisville, Kentucky area on 105.1 FM Broadcasting....
-FM, where the duo hosted the risque “Morning Sickness” show from 1981-1983.
Awards
Meiners has won the popularity contest sponsored by the free bar scene circular Louisville MagazineLouisville Magazine
Louisville Magazine is a magazine distributed in the Louisville area and is titled with just the name Louisville. It covers local business and culture.-History:...
’s “Best Radio Personality” award 18 times, every time the category was offered in the annual readers’ survey. He also collected “Best Radio Personality” awards from other reader surveys, such as Kentucky Monthly
Kentucky Monthly
Kentucky Monthly is a general interest regional magazine about the U.S. state of Kentucky and Kentuckians. Founded in 1998 by Stephen M. Vest, publisher, Michael Embry, editor, and business manager Kay Vest, it featured actor George Clooney on its first cover and has featured such Kentucky...
magazine and the free pulp newspaper LEO Weekly.
In both 2010 and 2011, LEO Weekly published its Readers’ Poll which listed Meiners as both the “Best Radio Personality” and “Best Local Media Celebrity You Love to Hate.” In the 2010 poll, the second most-hated media celebrity was Karen Sypher, the convicted extortionist of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino
Rick Pitino
Rick Pitino is an American basketball coach. Since 2001, he has been the head coach at the University of Louisville. He has also served as head coach at Boston University, Providence College and the University of Kentucky, leading that program to the NCAA championship in 1996...
, a friend of Meiners.
Controversy
Meiners’ online postings and radio commentaries have elicited some highly charged responses.Accompanied by the tune Dueling Banjos
Dueling Banjos
"Dueling Banjos" is an instrumental composition by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith. The song was composed in 1955 by Smith as a banjo instrumental he called "Feudin' Banjos", which contained riffs from "Yankee Doodle". Smith recorded it playing a four-string plectrum banjo and accompanied by...
, Meiners regularly caricatured Wallace G. Wilkinson
Wallace G. Wilkinson
Wallace Glenn Wilkinson was an American businessman and politician from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. From 1987 to 1991, he served as the state's fifty-seventh governor. Wilkinson dropped out of college at the University of Kentucky in 1962 to attend to a book retail business he started...
, Kentucky’s governor from 1987–92, as a scheming huckster with a warbling hick accent. At a 1989 NCAA basketball game in Minneapolis, Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson introduced Wilkinson and Meiners, with the governor snapping, “What did I do to piss you off?” When Wilkinson died in 2002, he was mired in bankruptcy proceedings that illustrated his orchestration of a $400 million Ponzi scheme
Ponzi scheme
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation...
that depleted the fortunes of many prominent Kentuckians and forced changes in auditing standards.
Louisville civil rights activist Rev. Louis Coleman, whom Meiners regularly parodied as a race-baiting extortionist on Meiners’ radio show, refused to be interviewed on the air. Coleman eventually wrote a letter to the founder of Clear Channel Communications in Texas, demanding that Meiners be fired. Coleman called Meiners a “trained imitator (certified nut case)” who should stick to comedy and not “serious issues.” In the letter, Coleman also misspelled both the first and last names of Clear Channel’s owner, and sent it to “San Antonia.”
After 10 years of parodying U.S. Senator Wendell Ford, whose character continually coughed as he defended the tobacco industry, the senator paid a visit to Meiners’ studio. Without saying hello, Sen. Ford motioned toward the WHAS broadcast panel and asked “Is this your desk?” Meiners nodded. The Senate Minority Whip took his lit cigarette and flicked its ashes right onto the electronics panel, then turned and walked out the door.
Larry Birkhead
Larry Birkhead
Larry E. Birkhead was a partner of Anna Nicole Smith and is the father of her daughter, Dannielynn. He was in a child custody battle for his daughter until DNA results proved his paternity.-Personal life:...
, the onetime photographer who fathered a child with the late model Anna Nicole Smith
Anna Nicole Smith
In 1992 Smith was chosen by Hugh Hefner to appear on the cover of the March issue of Playboy, where she was listed as Vickie Smith, wearing a low-cut evening gown. The centerfold was photographed by Stephen Wayda. Smith said she planned to be "the next Marilyn Monroe". Becoming one of Playboys...
, repeatedly threatened WHAS Radio and Clear Channel Communications with litigation to prevent Meiners from calling him “The Sperminator” or posting photos Birkhead claims he owns. In May 2010, a federal appeals court ruled that Anna Nicole Smith’s estate would not receive any proceeds from the estate of her late husband, billionaire J. Howard Marshall. Meiners posted the story under the headline, “Louisville’s Larry Birkhead is flying coach again.” Birkhead wrote multiple angry replies on Meiners’ Facebook page, calling the announcer a “douchebag (sic) on local AM radio.” Meiners replied, “Thanks for writing. Better go buy some work boots this weekend.” Birkhead responded “I am flying in FIRST CLASS to talk to my attorney about your defamatory comments…Do you want your legal papers served to you at work or at home?” In June 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal appeals court ruling denying Smith any part of the billionaire's estate, ending Birkhead's path to the money. The child Birkhead fathered has the billionaire's surname included within her full legal name. Birkhead is now selling Anna Nicole Smith's home in California, with proceeds reportedly going back into the estate which provides for the child.
In September 2009, Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
writer Alexander Zaitchek profiled Fox News program host and former Louisville radio personality Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck
Glenn Edward Lee Beck is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks...
. In a segment titled “Glenn Beck becomes damaged goods,” the piece included Meiners’ recollection of Beck’s relentless cruelty toward another WHAS Radio show host in the 1980s, a period where Beck admits to erratic behavior triggered by drug and alcohol abuse. The Salon article opened up Meiners to fierce criticism from hundreds of Beck’s ardent followers, many of whom accused Meiners of being jealous of Beck’s ascent to national prominence.
In 2001, Meiners published an online parody article projecting massively acerbic behavior from Kentucky Wildcats fans toward now-hated Rick Pitino’s return to UK as the coach of arch rival Louisville. Meiners created moronic quotes and assigned hillbilly-like nicknames to each of the imaginary UK fans chronicled in the faux article. Two days later, the Lexington Herald Leader newspaper ran a front page story headlined, “Web site parody sparks outrage in Eastern Kentucky.” The next day, the Louisville Courier-Journal published a news story about the Meiners parody, followed by a Courier-Journal Sunday editorial excoriating Meiners for perpetuating hillbilly stereotypes upon eastern Kentuckians.
In 2010, the University of Louisville
University of Louisville
The University of Louisville is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General...
switched from Freedom Hall
Freedom Hall
Freedom Hall is a multipurpose arena in Louisville, Kentucky, on the grounds of the Kentucky Exposition Center, which is owned by the Commonwealth of Kentucky...
to a new downtown arena, tossing out familiar seating assignments for longtime season ticket holders. Meiners publicly criticized school administrators, saying that decades of fan loyalty had been ignored in the re-seating process to accommodate late line jumpers making fresh donations to the athletics department. In a live radio interview, Meiners asked a university fundraising spokesman about the number of prime seats school officials kept for its own use, whether school employees who received those free tickets were allowed to resell them “to enhance their compensation packages,” and about advance block sales of seats to ticket brokers before seats were made available to common fans. Meiners was soon removed from an upcoming charity golf tournament where University of Louisville athletics director Tom Jurich
Tom Jurich
Tom Jurich is the Director of Athletics for the University of Louisville. He was hired on October 21, 1997 after holding the same positions at Colorado State University and Northern Arizona University. On March 9, 1999, he signed a contract to stay the Director of Athletics until 2012, an...
was slated to play in Meiners' foursome. Meiners responded by offering to buy two foursomes in the charity tournament, stocking the one in front of Jurich with four slow-moving octogenarians and the foursome behind Jurich with four long-hitters having “a delightful day of methodical shot selections.”
Shortly thereafter, a university official notified WHAS-TV
WHAS-TV
WHAS-TV channel 11 is the ABC affiliated television station in Louisville, Kentucky. Owned by Belo Corporation, the station's transmitter is located in Floyd County, Indiana, near the community of Floyds Knobs...
of changes in the coach’s show format for the fall of 2010, resulting in Meiners no longer hosting the program. Once the story was broken by a popular UK fan site that antagonizes its rival, Pitino told the media hours later that he would take a year off from his TV show, claiming it was not punishment to WHAS-TV for its news coverage of the Karen Sypher trial. WKRD
WKRD (AM)
WKRD is a sports talk formatted radio station in the Louisville, Kentucky metropolitan area. It is currently owned by Clear Channel Communications, and is known as My Sports 790...
-AM and WHAS-AM sports radio host Drew Deener was selected to replace Meiners on the weekly WHAS-TV U of L basketball show with a new format approved by the university. Deener's radio shows are consistently friendly to University of Louisville athletics.
Television
Meiners has appeared on WHAS-TVWHAS-TV
WHAS-TV channel 11 is the ABC affiliated television station in Louisville, Kentucky. Owned by Belo Corporation, the station's transmitter is located in Floyd County, Indiana, near the community of Floyds Knobs...
since 1985 as a feature reporter, interviewer, live commentator, and magazine show host. For the past 15 years, Meiners has appeared at different locations every Friday morning on Good Morning Kentuckiana, the early morning news lead-in to ABC-TV’s Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
. He now co-hosts Great Day Live! weekday mornings at 9 on WHAS-TV, a show that earned a first place rating in its time slot from its debut. Meiners hosted the Rick Pitino coach’s from 2001-2004 on WDRB
WDRB
WDRB is a television station in Louisville, Kentucky, broadcasting locally on channel 41 as a Fox affiliate. Owned by Block Communications, the station's transmitter is located in Floyds Knobs, Indiana alongside sister-station WMYO...
-TV, then switching with the university contract to WHAS-11 from 2005 to 2010.
During the 2008 – 09 college basketball season, Meiners and Pitino created disruptive live interviews during halftime of University of Louisville games. Pitino would either bristle at Meiners’ questions or mock his clothing instead of talking about the game at hand. The two finally struck pay dirt when their halftime farce was reported on ESPN’s Sportscenter
SportsCenter
SportsCenter is a daily sports news television show, and the flagship program of American cable network ESPN since the network launched on September 7, 1979. Originally broadcast only daily, SportsCenter is now shown up to twelve times a day, replaying the day's scores and highlights from major...
broadcast in December 2008.
Personal life
An avid exerciser, Meiners airs a daily radio segment rewarding an exerciser and touting the benefits of exercise and healthy eating habits. His fitness campaign called "Walk more, eat less" encourages listeners to lose a pound every month, "and lose 4 more for the people who won’t exercise." Meiners conducts radio interviews with a rotating cast of personal trainers and nutritionists in an effort to curb obesity.Along with television news anchor Melissa Swan, Meiners co-hosts the WHAS Crusade for Children, the long-running annual local telethon benefiting children's charities. Meiners has been a part of the Crusade for Children broadcast for over 25 years. Meiners also provides emcee duties and/or promotional work for Metro United Way, the Homeless Coalition, Dare to Care Food Bank, Louisville Metro Police Foundation, and the Yum! Brands fundraisers for World Food Program.
Meiners has two sons from his first marriage, Maxwell and Simon. He is an avid golfer, marathon runner, and private pilot.