At the New York Financial Writers Dinner, November 2007: Ray (center), with friends from BusinessWeek, Forbes, and the Rooney and Associates Communications firm.

When Ray Hoffman began broadcasting the play-by-play of the financial markets, the Dow was at a lowly 775. Today, more than two decades (and several thousand points) later, Ray's breezy-yet-insightful reports are among the standards by which business and financial news is judged.

Ray's live reports are aired every half-hour on WCBS Newsradio 880 in New York from 1:55 to 6:55 PM Monday through Friday; his feature pieces, known as CEO Radio, air three times each morning.

A Penn State grad, born and raised in Pittsburgh, Ray broke into broadcasting in the '70s in State College, Pennsylvania and Youngstown, Ohio. His first major market job was a four-year stay in Cleveland, as a reporter, newscaster, talk-show
At the New York Financial Writers Dinner, November 2007: Ray (center),
with friends from BusinessWeek, Forbes, and the Rooney & Associates
Communications firm.
host and managing editor of the morning-drive news program on WERE. Coming to New York in1981, Ray helped establish The Wall Street Journal's broadcast service. After five years at the Journal, Ray moved to BusinessWeek, where the magazine's legendary editor Steve Shepard dubbed him The Voice of BusinessWeek. For the next two decades, Ray represented the magazine on major radio stations from coast to coast. Initially, that involved daily broadcasts on the Westinghouse all-news stations (WINS in New York, KYW in Philadelphia, WBZ in Boston) and then, beginning in 1989, a highly popular five-year run on WCBS.

Networking...

That led directly to the formation of the BusinessWeek Reports for the ABC Radio Networks. Starting in January 1995, and for the next 12 years, Ray was the morning voice of business and market information on more than 150 stations, including WABC and WOR in New York. On WABC, he was an integral part of the Curtis and Kuby program (where sportscaster Warner Wolf had a habit of interrupting the reports with a "Come on, Ray!"); on WOR, Ray was one of the players on the long-running Rambling with Gambling show. Also during this period, Ray's reports returned to WBZ in Boston as well as KABC in Los Angeles, and a couple of particularly wonderful morning programs in the Detroit and Dallas-Fort Worth markets: the Paul W. Smith show on WJR and the Hal Jay morning show on WBAP. Ray logged a dozen years on each of them.

What comes around...

The WSJ wanted him back and WCBS wanted him back, and so on November 1, 2006, Ray started a second stint with the Journal, broadcasting not only on WCBS, but also afternoons on KTRH in Houston, KLIF in Dallas-Ft. Worth, and for a very pleasant year ("I love that Ro Conn show," says Ray), WLS in Chicago.

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