Savage, the most successful radio host ever to emerge from the Bay Area, said his controversial comments were aimed only at the caller, and that he thought he was off the air when he said them. He also blasted MSNBC for criticizing him.

"I'm sitting in front of the camera. I have no control over that," Savage said. "In radio, I have total control. . . . He got really vile with me . . . I meant to insult him personally, not all people with AIDS."

On his Web site, www.michaelsavage.com, Savage apologized to gays, and for causing anyone pain with his comments.

The apology is not enough to save his show. MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines refused to comment on Savage's response and would only reiterate an earlier statement that Savage "made an extremely inappropriate remark. The decision to cancel the program was not a difficult one."

SAVAGE FEELS 'INJURED'

Savage said those remarks stung.

"They didn't have to make a comment which in any way injured me," Savage said. "They put the leper bells around me. I'm dead in the water on television. "

Savage, 61, has drawn fire since he first showed up on San Francisco's KSFO (560 AM) in 1994, when the station adopted a conservative talk radio format. The former Michael Weiner, an herbalist and nutritionist who had written 18 books, reinvented himself as a vitriolic talk show host, and became a phenomenon.

Last week, he jumped to rival KNEW (910 AM) in a lucrative deal. His show is heard nationally on 300 radio stations, reaching about 5 million people.

MSNBC, the cable network jointly owned by NBC (a unit of General Electric) and Microsoft, hired Savage in February to boost its sagging ratings.

MSNBC WAS 'WARNED'

"It's fair to say that we warned MSNBC that something like this would happen eventually," said Cathy Renna, news media director for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, an advocacy group.

GLAAD, which had long objected to what it viewed as Savage's homophobic rants, had led an advertiser boycott of Savage's show, "The Savage Nation," that kept big consumer companies like Kraft, Procter and Gamble, and Dell Computer off his sponsor list.

Jeff Perlstein, executive director of Media Alliance in San Francisco, said the organization "was alarmed at his hiring in the first place, particularly because (MSNBC) was replacing Phil Donahue, who was someone fostering lots of civic participation in society, with Michael Savage, who is known for all sorts of hate speech."

Savage believes liberal groups are stifling his First Amendment rights. Perlstein said he supports Savage's rights, but not on public airwaves, and Renna said she objected to Savage wrapping his opinions in the mantle of NBC's journalistic credibility.

On his radio show Tuesday, Savage showed no sign of shelving his combative persona, assailing President Bush (for comments about slavery), Chicago Cubs manager Dusty Baker (for comments about race), fellow conservative host Bill O'Reilly (for criticizing Savage's televised remarks) and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (a "radical left-wing buck-toothed hag").

"I'm proud of my work on television," Savage told one caller. "I was the first one in MSNBC history to dig up the photos of the gassed Kurds. . . . I made America see what Saddam Hussein had really done."

At another point, he said: "I slept quite well. I slept like a baby. I snoozed like a lamb. Because I believe in freedom of speech. The American people understand what went on. I am the underdog. I am Daniel in the lions' den. I am a victim. They know very very well that the left are like jackals in this country. They do not believe in freedom of speech, they only believe in freedom of their speech."

Savage's firing was precipitated by an active prankster calling his show. Bob Foster, 39, a Sacramento computer technician, says he's been on CNN 25 times -- including three times on Larry King's show -- and once convinced a Fox News host that he was witnessing an earthquake, when he was really making the whole thing up. Foster usually gives a plug to his favorite radio show, "Don and Mike," which emanates from Washington, D.C.

Foster called Savage's show Saturday when Savage was doing what he described as a "schtick" about airline horror stories. Foster started a yarn about someone smoking in a plane's bathroom, and then, in a non sequitur, said,

" 'Don and Mike' should take over your show so you can go to a dentist appointment, because your teeth are really bad."

Most of that comment was bleeped off the airwaves, but what Savage said was not. Instead, his rant will likely live in infamy.

He asked Foster if he was a "sodomite," and when Foster replied yes, Savage said -- according to a transcript posted on GLAAD's Web site (www.glaad.org), along with the video: "Oh, you're one of the sodomites! You should only get AIDS and die, you pig! How's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig? You got nothing better than to put me down, you piece of garbage? You got nothing to do today? Go eat a sausage and choke on it. Get trichinosis. OK, got another nice caller here who's busy because he didn't have a nice night in the bathhouse and is angry at me today?"

Savage said he immediately asked if that got on the air, but didn't receive an answer.

He said his show had been gaining traction. According to MSNBC, it had a viewership of about 347,000 total viewers.

Although that is a small rating -- less than a single percentage point -- Savage said he had dinner with MSNBC President Erik Sorenson two weeks ago, and Sorenson told him, "We don't care about your ratings. We love your show."

Sorenson, through spokesman Gaines, declined to comment.

"They were too quick to jump the gun," Savage said. "It's been a struggle from day one. They don't want to switch to anything moderate or conservative. The bias is very liberal."

Foster, the prankster, said he's already getting a lot of "hate mail from the Savage nation."

"My intention was not for him to get fired. My intention was to drop the 'Don and Mike' name,' " Foster said.

In fact, Foster is a fan of Savage's show, and he picked him for one simple reason: "I look for a reaction."

E-mail Dan Fost at dfost@sfchronicle.com.