Banke, Presiding Judge.
This action arises out of comments broadcast by WGST Radio talk-show host Tom Houck on a restaurant review segment of his listener call-in show broadcast on November 6, 1987. A discussion of the restaurant owned by plaintiff S & W Seafoods Company commenced when a listener telephoned Houck to report, over the air, that he had received unsatisfactory service at the restaurant. Defendant Houck directed his program producer, Marcy Rubin, to telephone S & W and invite a representative to respond to the listener’s complaint over the air. Rubin spoke with the restaurant manager, plaintiff Robert Weinberg, who declined to participate in the radio broadcast. Although plaintiff Weinberg disputes Rubin’s account of the conversation, Rubin reported to defendant Houck that plaintiff Weinberg had been rude to her and insulted her over the telephone. During a news and commercial break, Houck telephoned Weinberg; and, again, the content of that conversation is disputed. However, when Houck returned to the air, he commenced a series of critical and unflattering comments about the restaurant and Weinberg. On the basis of these comments,* 1 Weinberg and S & W sued to recover damages based on [234]*234theories of defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, invasion of privacy, and tortious interference with business relations. The trial court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment in the action, concluding that each comment was either (1) an expression of opinion and therefore constitutionally protected speech; (2) hyperbole which could not reasonably have been interpreted by the listeners as a statement of fact; or (3) a statement of fact which was not proved by the plaintiffs to be false. Held:
1. The trial court did not err in granting summary judgment on plaintiffs’ defamation claims. Defamation by broadcast includes ele[235]*235ments of both libel (OCGA § 51-5-1) and slander (OCGA § 51-5-4). See Montgomery v. Pacific & Southern Co., 131 Ga. App. 712 (2) (206 SE2d 631) (1974). We agree with the lower court that the statements at issue in this case were not actionable under these statutes, either because they were shown not to have been false or because they fell within the ambit of protected speech.
“[T]here is no such thing as a false idea. However pernicious an opinion may seem, we depend for its correction not on the conscience of judges and juries but on the competition of other ideas.” Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 339 (94 SC 2997, 41 LE2d 789) (1974). In regard to the comments made about the food and service at plaintiffs’ restaurant, the case is similar to Bergen v. Martindale-Hubbell, 176 Ga. App. 745 (337 SE2d 770) (1985), in which a lawyer took offense at the professional ability rating he had received. We upheld the lower court’s grant of judgment on the pleadings to the defendant in that case, stating that “[t]he expression of opinion on ‘matters with respect to which reasonable men might entertain differing opinions’ [cit.] is not libelous.” Id. at 747.
Some of Houck’s comments referred to statements which had been made to him by call-in listeners to the effect that Weinberg had had cars towed from the restaurant parking lot. The burden is on the plaintiffs to prove the falsity of an allegedly libelous statement, see Philadelphia Newspapers v. Hepps, 475 U. S. 767 (106 SC 1558, 89 LE2d 783) (1986). Houck testified in his deposition that he believed this information to be accurate because of the consistency , of the remarks made on the subject by several different callers, and Weinberg himself implicitly confirmed the truth of these statements in his deposition. As the record contains no contrary evidence suggesting that the comments concerning car-towing were false, the trial court correctly concluded that they could not be considered defamatory.
2. While the expressions of opinion made during the broadcast were constitutionally protected, we cannot conclude as a matter of law that such protection extends to Houck’s exhortations to his listeners to “[g]o by and see this guy Weinberg at S & W on Roswell Road [and] [t]ell him he stinks,” to “go by and spit in his face for me,” and to “[g]o by there today and give a little five fingers in the face ... to [him].” An “utterance is not protected if it ‘is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.’ ” Walt Disney Productions v. Shannon, 247 Ga. 402, 404, fn. 2 (276 SE2d 580) (1981) quoting from Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444, 447 (89 SC 1827, 23 LE2d 430) (1969). Accord Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572 (62 SC 766, 86 LE 1031) (1942) (holding that the First Amendment does not protect utterances which “tend to excite an immediate breach of the peace”).
Although it appears from the record that none of Houck’s listen[236]*236ers actually followed his advice to go to the restaurant and spit on Weinberg or confront him with insulting words and gestures, it does not follow that Weinberg had no reason to fear such a response. When Houck made the statement, “Go by there today and give a little five fingers in the face there to Bob Weinberg,” he was speaking to a specific call-in listener, who responded by stating: “Yeah, I might do that, for sure. . . .” Weinberg testified that numerous profane telephone calls were in fact directed to him following the broadcast, both at the restaurant and at his home, causing him to become “real nervous and shaky for about ... a week or ten days.” Construing the evidence most strongly against the appellees as movants on motion for summary judgment, and considering the fact that the remarks in question were made to the public at large over a commercial radio station in an apparent spirit of animosity, we believe a factfinder might reasonably conclude that they were likely to provoke an imminent breach of the peace.
For the same reasons, we further conclude that a factfinder might reasonably consider the statements sufficiently outrageous and egregious to support an award of damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress. A defendant may be held liable for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress where his conduct is “of such serious import as to naturally give rise to such intense feelings of humiliation, embarrassment, fright or extreme outrage as to cause severe emotional distress.” (Emphasis from original.) Moses v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America, 187 Ga. App. 222, 225 (369 SE2d 541) (1988). The plaintiff in Moses had received a threatening message from his former boss on his telephone answering machine advising him to quit soliciting his former employer’s customers “or you are going to find your butt in court or your neck broken somewhere.” We held that, “ [considering the totality of the circumstances . . .
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Banke, Presiding Judge.
This action arises out of comments broadcast by WGST Radio talk-show host Tom Houck on a restaurant review segment of his listener call-in show broadcast on November 6, 1987. A discussion of the restaurant owned by plaintiff S & W Seafoods Company commenced when a listener telephoned Houck to report, over the air, that he had received unsatisfactory service at the restaurant. Defendant Houck directed his program producer, Marcy Rubin, to telephone S & W and invite a representative to respond to the listener’s complaint over the air. Rubin spoke with the restaurant manager, plaintiff Robert Weinberg, who declined to participate in the radio broadcast. Although plaintiff Weinberg disputes Rubin’s account of the conversation, Rubin reported to defendant Houck that plaintiff Weinberg had been rude to her and insulted her over the telephone. During a news and commercial break, Houck telephoned Weinberg; and, again, the content of that conversation is disputed. However, when Houck returned to the air, he commenced a series of critical and unflattering comments about the restaurant and Weinberg. On the basis of these comments,* 1 Weinberg and S & W sued to recover damages based on [234]*234theories of defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, invasion of privacy, and tortious interference with business relations. The trial court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment in the action, concluding that each comment was either (1) an expression of opinion and therefore constitutionally protected speech; (2) hyperbole which could not reasonably have been interpreted by the listeners as a statement of fact; or (3) a statement of fact which was not proved by the plaintiffs to be false. Held:
1. The trial court did not err in granting summary judgment on plaintiffs’ defamation claims. Defamation by broadcast includes ele[235]*235ments of both libel (OCGA § 51-5-1) and slander (OCGA § 51-5-4). See Montgomery v. Pacific & Southern Co., 131 Ga. App. 712 (2) (206 SE2d 631) (1974). We agree with the lower court that the statements at issue in this case were not actionable under these statutes, either because they were shown not to have been false or because they fell within the ambit of protected speech.
“[T]here is no such thing as a false idea. However pernicious an opinion may seem, we depend for its correction not on the conscience of judges and juries but on the competition of other ideas.” Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 339 (94 SC 2997, 41 LE2d 789) (1974). In regard to the comments made about the food and service at plaintiffs’ restaurant, the case is similar to Bergen v. Martindale-Hubbell, 176 Ga. App. 745 (337 SE2d 770) (1985), in which a lawyer took offense at the professional ability rating he had received. We upheld the lower court’s grant of judgment on the pleadings to the defendant in that case, stating that “[t]he expression of opinion on ‘matters with respect to which reasonable men might entertain differing opinions’ [cit.] is not libelous.” Id. at 747.
Some of Houck’s comments referred to statements which had been made to him by call-in listeners to the effect that Weinberg had had cars towed from the restaurant parking lot. The burden is on the plaintiffs to prove the falsity of an allegedly libelous statement, see Philadelphia Newspapers v. Hepps, 475 U. S. 767 (106 SC 1558, 89 LE2d 783) (1986). Houck testified in his deposition that he believed this information to be accurate because of the consistency , of the remarks made on the subject by several different callers, and Weinberg himself implicitly confirmed the truth of these statements in his deposition. As the record contains no contrary evidence suggesting that the comments concerning car-towing were false, the trial court correctly concluded that they could not be considered defamatory.
2. While the expressions of opinion made during the broadcast were constitutionally protected, we cannot conclude as a matter of law that such protection extends to Houck’s exhortations to his listeners to “[g]o by and see this guy Weinberg at S & W on Roswell Road [and] [t]ell him he stinks,” to “go by and spit in his face for me,” and to “[g]o by there today and give a little five fingers in the face ... to [him].” An “utterance is not protected if it ‘is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.’ ” Walt Disney Productions v. Shannon, 247 Ga. 402, 404, fn. 2 (276 SE2d 580) (1981) quoting from Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444, 447 (89 SC 1827, 23 LE2d 430) (1969). Accord Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572 (62 SC 766, 86 LE 1031) (1942) (holding that the First Amendment does not protect utterances which “tend to excite an immediate breach of the peace”).
Although it appears from the record that none of Houck’s listen[236]*236ers actually followed his advice to go to the restaurant and spit on Weinberg or confront him with insulting words and gestures, it does not follow that Weinberg had no reason to fear such a response. When Houck made the statement, “Go by there today and give a little five fingers in the face there to Bob Weinberg,” he was speaking to a specific call-in listener, who responded by stating: “Yeah, I might do that, for sure. . . .” Weinberg testified that numerous profane telephone calls were in fact directed to him following the broadcast, both at the restaurant and at his home, causing him to become “real nervous and shaky for about ... a week or ten days.” Construing the evidence most strongly against the appellees as movants on motion for summary judgment, and considering the fact that the remarks in question were made to the public at large over a commercial radio station in an apparent spirit of animosity, we believe a factfinder might reasonably conclude that they were likely to provoke an imminent breach of the peace.
For the same reasons, we further conclude that a factfinder might reasonably consider the statements sufficiently outrageous and egregious to support an award of damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress. A defendant may be held liable for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress where his conduct is “of such serious import as to naturally give rise to such intense feelings of humiliation, embarrassment, fright or extreme outrage as to cause severe emotional distress.” (Emphasis from original.) Moses v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America, 187 Ga. App. 222, 225 (369 SE2d 541) (1988). The plaintiff in Moses had received a threatening message from his former boss on his telephone answering machine advising him to quit soliciting his former employer’s customers “or you are going to find your butt in court or your neck broken somewhere.” We held that, “ [considering the totality of the circumstances . . . , including the language used in the offensive message, the means by which the message was delivered to plaintiff and the relationship of the parties, . . . the threatening and offensive language used in this instance could not have reasonably and foreseeably resulted in the mental distress of which [the plaintiff complained] because the offending message did not, as a matter of law, rise to the requisite level of outrageousness and egregiousness.” Id. at 225-6. Compare Greer v. Medders, 176 Ga. App. 408 (336 SE2d 328) (1985).
In contrast to the statements in Moses, supra, the statements at issue here were not mere warnings left on an answering machine by an individual with whom the plaintiff had an existing personal or business relationship. Taken at face value, they were instead exhortations to the public at large to go to Weinberg’s place of business and confront him in a hostile and insulting, if not assaultive, manner. Of course, reasonable men and women might differ as to whether these [237]*237exhortations were meant literally and whether they were reasonably likely to be acted upon by members of the listening public. However, “[w]here reasonable men may differ, it is for the jury, subject to the control of the court, to determine whether, in the particular case, the conduct has been sufficiently extreme and outrageous to result in liability.” Restatement of Torts (Second), § 46, Comment b. Accordingly, we hold that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to the defendants on plaintiff Weinberg’s claim for actual and punitive damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
3. Since there was no physical injury involved in this case, and since this state recognizes no cause of action for negligent infliction of emotional distress, see Hamilton v. Powell, Goldstein, Frazer, & Murphy, 252 Ga. 149 (311 SE2d 818) (1984), summary judgment was properly granted to defendants on plaintiffs’ negligence claim.
4. The defendants were also entitled to summary judgment on the plaintiff’s invasion of privacy claims. “[A] constitutionally privileged statement of opinion cannot form the basis of a claim for invasion of privacy by placing a person in a false light.” Ault v. Hustler Magazine, 860 F2d 877, 880 (9th Cir.), cert. den., 109 SC 1532 (1988). Moreover, the plaintiffs waived their right to be “let alone” in regard to the operation of their restaurant by inviting and advertising for public patronage. See Pavesich v. New England Life Ins. Co., 122 Ga. 190 (50 SE 68) (1905).
5. The plaintiffs’ claim for damages for tortious interference with business relations is based on the loss of patronage which the restaurant allegedly suffered as the result of the derogatory statements regarding the quality of its food and service. Inasmuch as these statements were constitutionally protected expressions of opinion, the trial court similarly did not err in granting summary judgment to the defendants on this claim. See Nager v. Lad n’ Dad Slacks, 148 Ga. App. 401 (1) (251 SE2d 330) (1978).
6. For the foregoing reasons, we hold that the lower court erred in granting summary judgment to the defendants on plaintiff Weinberg’s claims for damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress but that the court correctly granted summary judgment to the defendants on each of the plaintiffs’ remaining claims.
Judgment reversed.
Carley, C. J., Birdsong, Sognier and Beasley, JJ., concur. Deen, P. J., McMurray, P. J., Pope and Benham, JJ., dissent.