Rocky Allen, the talk radio host whose warm, celebrity-filled afternoon show on WPLJ made him one of New York radio’s most familiar voices across two separate runs at the station, died on June 3, 2026. He was 71. The cause was cancer.
Born Donald Allen Jr. on April 15, 1955 in Georgia, Allen built his career the old-fashioned way, moving city to city and market to market, honing his craft in Cape Girardeau, Providence, Detroit, St. Louis, Buffalo, and Dayton before landing in New York. It’s the kind of radio education that produces broadcasters who know how to talk to anyone, anywhere, about anything, and Allen carried that versatility into everything he did.
His most prominent home was WPLJ in New York, where he hosted an afternoon drive show from 1993 until 1998, a run that established him as a genuine presence in one of the most competitive radio markets in the world. The Rocky Allen Showgram, co-hosted with his long-time on-air partner Blain Ensley, was a mix of celebrity interviews, Top 40 music, and variety talk — the kind of radio that sounds effortless and isn’t. Ensley joined the show in 2002, and the two developed the kind of on-air chemistry that listeners come back for every afternoon without quite knowing why, except that it always feels like good company.
The years between his two WPLJ stints included one of the more remarkable stories in New York radio. Beginning in October 1996, Allen underwent a series of surgeries to remove calcium deposits causing persistent back pain. The surgeries left him partially paralysed and requiring a wheelchair. For a year he couldn’t walk. In October 1997, doctors advised full-time rehabilitation as potentially the only path back to walking, prompting a five-month leave of absence from radio. He came back walking. That is not a small thing, and he never made it a big deal, which tells you something about the man.
He and Ensley returned to WPLJ on September 20, 2005, nearly seven years after leaving, and picked up essentially where they had left off. The show was cancelled in February 2008 as part of cost-cutting measures by parent company Citadel Broadcasting, the kind of ending that the radio industry has delivered to too many good broadcasters over the years.
He is survived by his wife Julie and their two daughters.
Rocky Allen spent decades doing one of the hardest things in broadcasting: showing up every afternoon and making it sound easy. New York radio was richer for both runs he gave it.