The Career of Media Strategist David G. Hall

Good day, mate. Luke Ford here and my guest today is media strategist David G. Hall. David, how did you get into radio? I got into radio when I was 12 years old. Uh, my very first job was as a call screener at a top 40 radio station in Sacramento, California, and I've been doing it since then. >> So, I moved to Sacramento in 1980. I I worked in radio the same time as you in Sacramento. So, what was the uh top 40 station that you started at? >> K. It was K Y, which was the big one at the time. >> Okay. Did they have the big morning zoo? >> Uh, no, not at that time. It was before all that. It was a few years before all that. In 1980, I was working at KWOD, Quad 106 in Sacramento as a board op, I guess, and also at KXPR, the public station. >> Okay. And where were you when you worked there? >> So I started out at KH High Kill Radio. So Khill was the Sacramento station, but we >> Oh, sure. 101.1 and AM 950. >> Yes. So I was at the Mini 950. I did news reports. I was in high school till 1984 and then I came back from a year in Australia and I anchored the news on the weekends for for KH High from May of 85 until August of 88. So, >> oh, very good. That station is still going, you know. >> Yes, I know. When I go back there, I It's like lot a lot of fun memories. So, >> yeah, I bet. >> Talk to me about your progression through Sacramento radio. >> Well, I worked uh at some music stations uh all off the air. Uh, I worked at uh tiny little station in a cornfield in Davis KL 105.5 where which is really the first time I was on the air. Um, and then I moved to uh San Jose, worked at KZR in San Jose and then KNRY in Monterey on Canary Row, also music. Uh but KN&RY is where I switched from being a DJ to being a news anchor and that's that's when I started spoken word and that was in 1983 and then I went back to KFBK in Sacramento as a news reporter and left there five years later as the assistant news director and came down to KFI in LA at that time. >> So did you work with Rush Limbbo when he was on the air in Sacramento? >> I did. I was his news anchor. We actually shared a desk for a while or we had not shared the same desk. We had two desks like uh buted up against each other and I was the news anchor in his show and he was local in Sacramento. >> So when did you first start working for Rush? >> Uh well I worked with him. I was the news anchor and he was just he was a talk show host. Uh it was October of 1984. I think he started maybe a month earlier if I'm not mistaken or a couple months maybe. And how long did you work with him in Sacramento? >> Well, in 1988, I guess he moved to New York and WABC and then went syndicated. So, from 84 to 88 >> and what did you learn from working with Rush that uh shaped your career >> show? He he always said he's not a journalist, he's a showman. And he really was. So I learned a sense of show from Rush. We we had this funny moment once. I was uh when I was the news anchor in his show, uh some state politician had gotten arrested for drunk driving and uh spent the night in jail. And in the state of California, if you are arrested for drunk driving, it's mandatory that you spend the night in jail. So everybody does. So Rush was making a huge thing about this guy. He was it was so bad and he must have been so drunk because he ended up in jail. And uh so then during the break I said, you know, uh everybody goes to jail if they're caught, you know, if they're arrested for DUI. And he said, "You think I don't know that? This is a show. This isn't the news. You do the news. I'm doing the show." And that was a great lesson. And he's right. And uh so there were a lot of a lot of moments like that where just watching him actually do the do a show was really uh educational. >> How would you describe your relationship with him on air and off? >> Uh on air I was the Pinko Kami news anchor from the newsroom u uh to him. So he's how he used to introduce me and off air we got along quite well. >> And did you give it back to him or you just played it straight? >> No, I played it straight. I was the news guy so I had to play it straight. >> When did you realize that you could be really good at at directing a news and talk operation? >> Um I guess about that same time. I I it was kind of funny. I I was a reporter mostly even though I did the anchor the news and his show but I was mostly a reporter and um so I had my little you know 40 seconds from my report and at some point I thought um you know I only get to control the 40 seconds and the rest of it I have no control over the quality of what we're doing. And so I took myself off the air at some point and got into management so I could have a little more say over what the overall um you know news style and sound and content sounded like. >> What can you do in news? So I moved here from Australia in 1977. I was 11. I I got a radio. I listened to KCBS and KBR and and KGO and I was just a big news fan that like San Francisco had an all news station but when I would work in news like I think a 60-second story was was fairly long. What what can you do to make news reporting if it's a 45 second news report or a 82 second news what can be done to make that more compelling? Oh well, two things. Uh, it's all in the writing and it's all in the sound. So, if you have great sound and if you're a good writer and it is very difficult to write for 40 to write creatively in 45 seconds, but if you're able to do it and you have good sound, that really makes all the difference. >> And so, how did you get the job at at KFI? Why do you think they hired you? Uh, I was assistant news director at KFPK and our program director at the time was a guy named George Oliva and um I remember having a conversation with him once about why uh there was nobody doing news and talk in Los Angeles. There was KBC which was the huge talk station and in fact it was the top billing station in the United States at that time and the number one uh station in audience in Los Angeles and had been for a long time and then there was KN&NX the big all news station and then KFWB the little scrapper all news station but there wasn't really anybody doing both and so I was talking to him one day and I said somebody should really try to do both and he said yeah that's really interesting then he went to KFI try to be program director and called me a few months later and asked if I wanted to go there to be news director. >> Wow. >> And do pretty much what I had described to him in Sacramento to put on a pretty serious news department uh amid, you know, a bunch of talk shows which just was not being done at that time in LA. And what kind of resources did you have? >> They they made quite an investment. It's very different from today. I had um I think it at its peak uh I had about 18 people in the news department at KFI. Um we had uh you know a couple of news cars and all the equipment we needed and uh and a you know good way to get uh reports back to the studio without you know before cell phones. it was right as cell phones were coming into being. So, we, you know, we didn't really have that use of that yet. So, we needed to have a two-way radio to be able to get reports back to the station. But, um, I mean, we had a we had a great staff. We had, you know, like writers and anchors and reporters and an Orange County bureau and a Washington bureau and a stringer in Sacramento at the Capitol. We were a pretty serious news operation. And how many minutes an hour would you get? >> We had uh four at the top and uh minute and a half or two at the bottom and no network. So it wasn't like a five minute network and then we would come on. We did we we had to do both national and local which I always preferred. >> So I I assume that many of the people you were directing had worked in the medium much longer than you. So, I'm sure you're learning things from them and you were repeating certain things to those who are working for you and with you. Can you just share some of those things? >> Well, I was really young. I think I was 21 or 22 when I got to KFI as news director. 22, I guess. I was really young. So virtually everybody in that newsroom before I got there had been there um they'd been in radio longer than I'd been alive. I think every single one of them and a couple of them had been at that station longer than I'd been alive. So you know that always presents its own challenge. Uh I we uh we we brought other people from Sacramento. So there were four of us that came down at the same time, including our big reporter uh from KFBK. Uh and that really helped. So I was able to kind of build my own team in the news department, you know, because I just had a very different vision from what they had been doing before we started. And I should also say that when George got to KFI, George Oliver, the program director who hired me, um he [snorts] really uh flipped the station from still playing some music to talk and and actually news talk. So, um the the my first day working there was the last day that a an actual record was played on KFI, like an actual song was played on KFI. And then it was all spoken word the starting the day I started. So it was really about putting on a completely different kind of programming and my task, my mission was to put on a very different kind of news than had been done there or in the market before. >> Now I came to UCLA in 1988. I was 22 and uh I remember I think Terry Ray Almar did she come down to KFI with you? >> Yeah, she did. 1989 actually is when we came. July 17th, 1989 is when we got to KFI. >> That was your first time. >> Dave Crosby, Terry, >> Dave Crosby. I remember he did sports. >> Yes, he did. Uh Terry Elmer, her husband Jerry Wallace who did weather, Andy Freriedman, and myself. >> So July 17 was a reporter. >> July 17, uh 1989 was your first day on Yep. Yep. Okay. And so that was the so that was the last day that KFI played any music. >> Yep. >> Wow. And uh yeah, I I was just I was there. So all this is has has just additional resonance to me. So, what were some of the things that you found yourself telling other people in the news department uh repeatedly or what what were things that you were trying to communicate to them that required either many repetitions or different ways of trying to communicate something? >> I wanted to really focus on active reporting. So, I wanted reporters who were all out in the field almost all the time. uh which in LA, you know, with the traffic is not an easy thing, but I was very insistent on that. Anyway, I wanted the sound of the news to be very fast-paced and very conversational. So, no battling blazes, no gubernatorial moves, uh you know, no legislative whatevers. I wanted no u the deceased vehicle one the suspect apprehended none of that kind of stuff. I didn't want any of that jargon that the old news stations at the time had. So I wanted it to be very conversational, very fast and a lot of active reporting with a lot of sound. >> And did they get it? Did you have to repeat yourself? >> Oh it yeah it took a while. You know, Andy Freriedman, the reporter that came with me from Sacramento, I had already been doing that because it's that was it was the same kind of thing. I had started to transition at KFPK before I moved. So, he got it and then uh you know, slowly we built the team of people who really got it and you knew what we were looking for. There wasn't really anybody doing that. Certainly not in Los Angeles at that time and not much anywhere else in the US. So it wasn't like I could just go hire people who were already doing it. I had to hire people who had the right kind of talent and ambition and then train them to do it. But once you know we started to find those people, it went very well. >> Were there any radio hosts who had a particular impact on you before you were 18? I know you're already working, but you started listening to radio very early. Were there any hosts that had a particular impact on you? Well, I grew up uh really listening to KFRC in San Francisco, which was was one of the really big top 40 stations in the country. And I was very influenced by the the DJs and the news department on KFRC. So, if I was if I had like a sound in my head that I was trying to emulate, it was that KFRC sound even though we weren't playing records. Um, but it was that same kind of feel that I was going for. >> That was the number one station with my fellows in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Like it was KFC. >> Yeah, >> it was huge. It was huge. And it was very, very good. Very well programmed. >> And uh then how did you get into talk radio? You were the news director. How did your career progress at KFI? I was the news director for two years and almost exactly to the day, two years later, uh, George Oliver left to go do other things and they were looking for a program director and I had no programming experience whatsoever. I had just been the the news director there and then, you know, reporter, anchor, writer, assistant news director at KFPK. But I uh I applied for the job and um got it, which is crazy because it's a big station, big market. They probably could have hired anybody from anywhere. But I guess they they liked what I was doing in the news and they liked what I said, you know, we could be doing or should be doing on the programming side. And so I got the gig as program director in July of 1991. How would you describe the ratings and the sound and the feel of KFI prior to your first day there? >> Prior to my first day programming or as news, >> sorry, first day at all. So, prior to July 7 when you arrived KFI to take on his job as news. >> It was it was middle of the road. Uh they had started doing some talk shows. They did a game show. Tom Lis was doing the afternoon. So they had a you know a a loud and very attention getting engaging uh talk show already in the afternoon but then they were still playing some music in the morning and in fact my very first day there then this will be a good way good illustration to answer your question my very first day there I went to uh the general manager's office to meet him in the morning when I got there and the door was closed and his assistant who was sitting outside said that he was firing hiring the morning show because there was like a, you know, a middle of the road uh morning show that had been on and we were going to change to Terry Ray and Dave Crosby. And so I waited and when the door opened uh Gary Owens came out who of course is, you know, a huge legendary LA personality and I certainly knew who he was and he had done you know t national TV and all that. So he comes, he just been fired as the morning host. So he comes out and sees me and I stand up and he introduces himself and I introduce myself and he I said, you know, today's my first day. I'm going to be the news director. And he said to me, well, he shook my hand and held it for a moment and he said, well, welcome to Los Angeles and I hope this market is as good to you as it has been to me. I absolutely wish you all the best. And it was such an amazing thing for him to say having just been fired, you know, five minutes before. And that was uh the outgoing morning show and sound of the station and I was the incoming part of the incoming sound of the station. But that really uh that was an amazing moment actually because I really looked up to him and had listened to him for years on and off when I was in Southern California. And for him to be that gracious was really cool. Now, I presume that when you lived in Sacramento, you you loved nighttime when you could pick up LA stations. How would you describe the the sound or the feel or whatever it it conotes for you uh between LA radio, San Francisco radio, and Sacramento radio prior to you moving to KFI? So, during the 1980s, I assume you still listen to some LA radio at night when the when the signal would bounce up to Sacramento. Yeah, I used to when I was a kid, I used to listen to KFI actually at night and during the winter, you know, when it gets light later, I would listen to the morning show. And actually, I won I won a Bee's album from KFI. I was the whatever caller from Sacramento at, you know, probably 5:00 in the morning or six o'clock in the morning or something when the album and they never sent it. So, when I started working at KFI, I said, "Hey, where's the uh fabulous uh prize closet?" Because you guys owe me a Beey's album. It's here somewhere. It's got to be. Uh but so yeah, I used to listen to KFI all the time when I was a kid. Um at night, like you say, uh KHJ in LA was very similar to KFRC. They were the same company. They had the same consultant. A lot of personalities went back and forth, but I always found KFRC to be better programmed. And I think that might just be because it was Northern California and I was more familiar with it. But whenever I was in Southern California, I would always try to listen to KHJ. I would always listen to KFI. Um, you know, as time went on and FM became bigger, I would try to listen to KME 94.7 and KOS as much as I could. I always really appreciated hearing LA radio. So, is there a certain personality who perhaps does better as a Sacramento radio host versus a certain personality who does better as a San Francisco radio host versus a certain personality who does better as a LA radio host? Are there any stereotypes or generalizations? >> No, I I think the things that listeners listen for are pretty universal. And these days, you know, now I'm doing consulting full-time and I have been for I don't know 20 something years, 30 years. Uh not I've been doing it full-time for 30 years. I've been doing it full-time for 15 years. But I'm, you know, I've been consulting for a long time and I have clients all over the world. And one thing I've really found in my experience is the needs of listeners really are pretty universal. Whatever makes somebody turn up a radio in LA is the same thing that makes them turn up a radio in Sacramento or Madrid or Bogota or Mexico City or Toronto. It doesn't really matter. How would you uh describe KABC radio? What was going on with it when you moved to KFI in July of uh 1989 and then you worked as a news director for a couple of years? What what was K KBC doing then? >> Well, KBC, as I said earlier, was the number one station in the market by far. I mean, it by far it wasn't close, I don't think. They were the top billing radio station in the United States. Um, they had huge personalities. Michael Jackson, who I think had been there, you know, for a long time. Ken Minard was doing the mornings and had been there for a very long time. Um uh they they just had these huge personalities. Um and so uh they were um comfortable, really professional, comfortable, very entrenched and pretty inside. So I found that station to be very good for people who had always listened to it and less good for people who hadn't always listened to it. And that's where I, as news director and program director, I always thought that KFI had a real opportunity uh to, you know, to grow audience that we weren't going to just steal audience that had been listening to KBC for 40 years. We were going to steal from the from the fringes, which is exactly what we ended up doing. >> Could you tell me more about stealing from the fringes? Because I I experienced that. I I was there when KFI was this upandcomer brash uh shocked. Would it be fair to call it shock talk radio from KFI in 88 89 90 or so? >> Um, no. Before 1991, it certainly wasn't that. I've never called it shock radio and the whole time I was there or since. Um, but what I tried to do with KFI starting in 1991 was uh just to be as different as I could from KABC. So, you know, as I said, K KBC was very comfortable, certainly very informative, serious interviews. Uh, and I, so I want everything they did, I wanted to be the opposite of that at KFI. We even used to run billboard campaigns at KFI that were against the Dodgers, which is a crazy thing to think of now because it's just such an institution, of course, but KBC carried the Dodgers. And I knew from audience research that every time they ran a Dodger game, some significant portion of their audience that didn't really want to hear a Dodger game, whether they are a fan or not, started spinning the dial looking for something else, which was another great opportunity for us. So that's why we did those billboards. But I just tried to be everything that KBC was not, so that we were a real like a a serious alternative and not just another flavor of the same thing. And so how would that show up? I I assume that your demographics were like 10 years younger with listeners. >> Yeah. At least how that would show up. That's a there's a here's a a good illustration. Um, when I put Bill Handel on in the morning, um, doing a talk show, I don't think there was another show in the morning on a spoken word station in America that was anything like what Bill Handel was doing. What KBC was doing with Ken and Bob was the morning show, Bob Arthur and Ken Minard. Uh they were doing a very traditional and extremely successful morning show. Um and they would do like the dumb office facts of the day and you know that kind of thing. So I had a handle go on and ju and kind of go back and forth between just giving in his opinion like a talk show which did not talk shows at that time just did not occur in morning drive anywhere. uh to give his opinion and go back and forth between that and explaining. So helping you understand what's going on today in no uncertain terms and easy to understand terms and giving his opinion on what's going on today. Uh rather than uh you know the dumb office facts of the day and I don't mean that as a put down of that morning show at KBC. They had been extremely successful doing that for a long time and they had a you know much bigger audience than we did doing that. I just needed to be completely different than that. >> So what do you remember the the date when you took over as program director at KFI? >> July 19th, 1991. >> Okay. So on on that that time period, what were your ratings compared to KABC? They were I don't remember 10 share, eight share, something like that. And we were about a eight or 0.9. >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> Wow. By the way, what did you notice about how Rush Limbbo changed when he went national? >> He didn't change uh for a long time. after several years of being national, he he w he became less entertaining and more serious. And that was probably the biggest change over the course of his uh career. Um you know, he was really entertaining when he was local and when he went national, he was at least as entertaining. He used to beat up on Teddy Kennedy and, you know, and now the National Organization for Women and all kinds of things. and he had a lot of fun doing it and he had song parodies and you know he just he he had a lot of fun which was the show aspect that he brought to what he was doing and then later on in the show um he didn't do the parodies quite as much um there wasn't quite as much humor I think he was more and more focused on um you know trying to get people to understand his point of view uh from a more serious standpoint than early on. That was the biggest change. But it wasn't when he went national. When he went national, I think the entertainment value of his show is one of the things that made him really take off uh from the get-go. If you had to name a year for when Rush changed on his national show from primarily hilarious and entertaining to something different, what what year would you say? >> Maybe 1998. Yeah. Yeah. And so you take over as talk radio programmer at KFI and what what are the things that you you start doing and what are the things that you start learning that just talk to me. Well, um I guess there were two things that were part of my programming of KFI from pretty much the day I started. Um well beyond when I left, I think well into Robin Berluchcci's time. Um the first one was we did a lot of audience research. So even though you know you use the word shock and even though we were pretty out there sometimes as some of the things that we did um none of it was or very almost none of it was like by the seat of our pants or random. It was I used a lot of audience research. I think at one time I probably had a budget of a couple of hundred,000 dollars a year and I did focus groups and I did big studies and I did content studies where I would play pieces of audio and have people comment on you know what they thought we were doing. So it was a just like a very good music station just like KFRC in San Francisco in the 1970s. It was a really wellressearched product that was very much aligned with the audience that I was trying to attract. And uh that was like from the very beginning. And the other thing I think um that was certainly I don't know about when Robin started but from my time from the from the day I started as program director till the day I left in 2002. Um I never programmed this station to be liberal or conservative. Um I programmed it to be stimulating. So that was the word for me. Like today, I think a lot of stations that try really hard to be very conservative and more and more, you know, over time, I never even look never once looked at it that way. I I just looked at stimulating. We were more stimulating talk radio. So, every single thing we did, every show, every person I recruited, every segment of every show that we did, you know, that the for me the main measure was is it stimulating? And KBC at that time was not seen as stimulating. they were seen as very comfortable as was KN&X. So that was my way of really kind of, you know, flanking both of those radio stations with KFI. But again, it was with a lot of audience research and very um methodical and intentional. >> Now, how how do you know that the research represented something real? >> Because the more we followed it, the better the station did. uh the the more we started to grow >> and and do you do you remember some of the insights that you you got from the research? >> Yeah, I'll give you I'll give you one. Uh Bill Handel in the morning used to talk about his wife all the time and um one of the things that came back in research was, you know, I got my own wife. I don't really need his wife at six o'clock in the morning. what I need at six o'clock in the morning is to know what's going on in the world and what do I what do I do with it? So I really kind of changed his show really focused his show on explaining. So we added a thing in the morning with one of the first hours of six o'clock hour in the morning was handle on the news and what that was was Bill like the the team kind of throwing news stories at him. Hey did you see this? What do you think about this? And then Bill just commenting and really explaining, helping us understand what was going on in the world in the news. And that hour was the first hour of his show that really took off. And that was straight out of audience research. The audience saying in the morning, I don't just need the headlines. I got that from K&X in the newspaper. I what I want is to really understand. I don't need the dumb office facts of the day. I don't need another set of headlines. I just want to understand what's going on. and he he's I mean he's personally, you know, a student of history and incredibly knowledgeable and he was the right guy to be able to pull that off. So the audience research said if you do this people will really listen and so we did that and we took his wife out of it and people really did listen and that show really took off. Now, do you get clues from your physiology, from what's going on in your your body, like precognitive cues about what works in good radio? >> Wow, that's a great question, Luke. When I was a little kid growing up listening to KFRC for hours and hour, I mean, I spent hours listening to KFRC and KOI in Sacramento. Uh, I felt uh touched like, you know, John M. Flanigan did the afternoons on KFRC and he was probably talking to a million. I mean, he's talking to the whole Bay Area. I was way off, you know, to the east in dusty little Sacramento. Um, and yet every time he was on the radio, it was like he was talking right to me and he touched me. So my entire career and to this day consulting that's uh something that I kind of feel for as I'm listening and sometimes I feel it and sometimes I don't and when I don't I try to figure out how to help a personality get there and communicate you know in a way that will make a listener feel touched because if you can make one listener feel touched you can make them all feel touched. So the the cliche I think for what you just described is that words that come from the heart or heard in the heart. >> Well, I've never said it that way, but I guess I just look at it like, you know, I say something on the radio and it makes you look at the radio, like literally physically look at the radio and what you're thinking is, "Wow, that's that's the moment. That's the thing that KFRC used to do for me that I tried to bring to everything I did at KFI when I was both news director and program director. >> And so, Bill Handel, uh Tom Lus, who who are some of the other big uh names at the station as we we move through your talk radio career into 92, 93. I think Dr. Laura comes along about 94. n 93 was when I put Bill Handel on the air. Uh Tom Lus left. I put um very controversial police chief Daryl Gates on the air as kind of a interim between Tom Lus and John and Ken. John and Ken I think started in I think it was September October of 93. Laura was already on the station when I started, but she was like a fill in. Um, and then I put her on at night and then I ended up putting her on during the day and then she went on to become syndicated. Um, and then I added Stephanie Miller, um, who I think is still doing a show or a podcast, I think, a show, syndicated show out there. Uh, and then Phil Hendry, and there were others, you know, Mr. KFI and there were others in between, but that it that that's kind of how it evolved. I think I put Handel on first, then John and Ken. No, then I think Laura, then John and Ken, uh, and then Henry, and that ended up being the lineup that, you know, stuck. And in the case of Handle and John Cobalt, 30 something years later is still going. Now, how would how would sessions work between you and hosts? I I would assume you don't tell them I need to coach you up. So, how and I I'm sure you had to speak to communicate with each one differently. Um, so I don't I I'm just curious how how that those relationships worked when you needed to communicate something to a host. How how did that happen? >> It completely depends on the host. Um, Bill and I would sometimes meet in the office, sometimes go to lunch. We used to go to dim sum in downtown LA and that's where we talked. John Cobalt and I had one meeting in the office that did not go well and we ended up screaming at each other. So after that, we always ended up over a burger in Beverly Hills at a particular place that he really liked. uh everybody had a different way of uh communicating and a different comfort zone and almost none of it was in the office over the desk and to this day it's like that you know I work with these personalities some of them really big and really successful all over the place and the relationship with each one and the way we meet and communicate is completely different for each one. >> Uh yeah I I I can only imagine. So when did the when did the the ratings start heading up and were there any major milestones in your early years as program director at KFI? >> Uh it took about two years. The first big milestone was right after I became program director. a weekend host on KFI made a comment that turned out to be controversial about a news anchor, a television news anchor at the time. that comment was um misconstrued and then a PR firm was hired and it was blown up and then FCC complaint was filed against us and there were protests outside the radio station um over a comment that had been completely misconstrued but I think probably misconstrued on purpose and that was the first time we got a bump in the ratings and then because I was brand new to programming I didn't really know yet how that mechanism worked I learned that firsthand in real time and in a very scary way. So, I have this weekend host make a comment. It gets blown out of proportion, totally misconstrued, becomes a huge uh thing. Uh, and I, you know, I I'm I I was sure I was going to get fired and, you know, the station was going to get an FCC fine and all this. None of that happened. And then the ratings came out and we were I don't know I think a h 100,000 listeners more than we had been before all of that happened. And then I thought wow that's really interesting how that worked. Now your your your uh challenges uh KBC KN&X uh if if I'd spoken to to their leadership at the time 89 to 93 they would have told me KFI is vulgar. It's it's low class. It's it's shock uh radio. And is that is that a do you think that's a fair description of how the stations that were on top in in news and talk in LA at the time saw the KFI? >> Absolutely. They paid no attention to us whatsoever. They totally wrote us off which really helped with my strategy and all, you know, all my audience research and everything I was trying to do because they never they never played defense. They never blocked it until it was too late. Now, how did you spend your time? Let's just take say the the first year as as program director. I don't know. You working 40hour weeks, 50 hour weeks, and then how would that get sliced up? Oh, man. I think the whole time I was at KFI, I don't think I ever worked a 40 or 50 hour week. I was it that was a tough job and well beyond full-time. Um, a lot of it was spent talking to personalities. A lot of it was spent or some of it really was spent with the news. I had a very I replaced myself with a very good news director, a guy named Mark Thomas. Um, and so I didn't have to worry about the news as much because I knew he was on that. It it it was just trying to keep people to the strategy, you know, on air, off air. Um, just trying to keep people to the strategy of what we're trying to do. Be more stimulating. uh you know explain things, have a lot of fun, never take ourselves seriously, you know, like big talk stations at that time took themselves very seriously. And so we very deliberately never did or tried not to. And that's, you know, so it was it was really just trying to work on those fundamentals all the time with the entire staff. >> And what was the typical commercial load? 20 minutes an hour? >> No. When I started there, I think it was 15 or 16 and when I left it was 22. >> Wow. Like I Yeah. I remember in the 80s when I was in radio, there were there were all sorts of top talk radio stations that had 22 plus minutes of commercials an hour. I don't know how you do it. I mean, I I don't know. >> Well, we we didn't for a long time. We kept it to 16 for a for a very long time. >> Yeah. Wow. That is just uh it's just incredible. So, when did when did uh KFI become the number one talk station in Los Angeles? >> Oh gosh, probably 1994 or 1995 is when KBC started to come down. Really come down and we continued to go up and we passed them. I don't remember exactly but probably in there '94 95. It it it took a couple years. I mean I started in you know July of 91 took a couple years just to get the station set and to start to build the audience and then after that um probably another couple years for it to really turbo with the audience. >> How would you describe your sources of energy? Were they coming from success, from the excitement of running a radio station, from your uh personal connections inside the radio station? Like what was fueling you? um success, you know, because we started like from that very first thing with the weekend talk shows that I uh described, we um you know, the more we did the the more we followed the strategy, the more the audience grew and that was pretty cool to experience that. At the same time, Rush really started to take off. It took Rush about two years to get any traction whatsoever in LA, but then once he did, he also really started to take off. So, I think, you know, we kind of had uh it was like a multifactor thing. I think Rush was bringing starting to bring a lot of audience into the radio station that I was trying to spread around to other shows. Um, and he very quickly became the number one show on the station. Um, the other things that we were doing were starting to kick in. uh the news was starting to kick in. We were noticing or finding that more and more people would listen to us for news because then they didn't have to listen to the all news station uh and they could get everything, you know, they needed from us and then be entertained by the the talk shows, which was that whole thing that I described to the program director in Sacramento all those years before was really starting to kick in. So, we had it it was like we had a lot of things going right for us all at the same time. In those days, um, unlike now, we had, uh, some marketing money. We didn't have a lot. We didn't, I don't think we had as much as KBC or KN&X, but we had some marketing money and we had a very good marketing director. And our strategy with marketing the radio station, you know, outside to draw a new audience was to focus it. So instead of just doing a billboard campaign where we'd have billboards up all over LA, so you wouldn't really see any any of them because we didn't we couldn't afford very many, we kind of like um grouped them. So in one area you would just see us all over the place like we'd own it because if we could only have 20 billboards rather than diluting it over the the whole metro area, we would just use it all in one place or you know with one campaign or whatever. And that I think I think that also really helped. I think the way we we marketed and we did a lot of guorilla marketing and I think every single one of those was a big factor that led to it and the more successful we became the more energy I got from it. To answer your question, >> did you have mentors during this time period once you became news director at KFI and then program director? Was there some guy in New Orleans or New York who you'd reach out to first when you didn't know what to do >> there? We absolutely. We had a consultant uh who lived in Cambria at the time up the central coast and he had been the consultant of at KFI long before I started. And I think he might have had something to do with how I got hired without having any any previous experience. And he and I talked every single day except for when he was on vacation. Every single day that I worked there until I left in 2022, he and I talked in in 2002, I mean, sorry. He and I talked and I would run everything past him and he would say, "Oh, that's a great idea." Or, "Be careful about this or you're not thinking about that or somebody tried that over there and it didn't work." You know, whatever. He was he was a great consultant. He's the reason why I'm a consultant now actually. He really inspired me. But we we really programmed that radio station together. >> And can you just give me a taste of like what those conversations were like? >> Um [clears throat] gosh, I don't know. It was just daily programming, you know. Uh Handel wanted to do this. I don't really see how it fits. What do you think? Um, you know, John did this and it was it was great. I want to get him to do more of that. Is there, you know, is there a blind side? Is there something I should know that I'm not seeing? You know, it was questions like that most of the time. >> And what kind of feedback did you get from your advertisers? What did your advertisers want? >> Well, they want their phone to ring. And we were a very engaging station. We were not the kind of radio station you could have on in the background across the office and do your work. You had to people listen to KFI really listen to KFI and so the products that we sold sold very well and when we would do endorsements when Bill Handle would do an endorsement for something people would buy it. Um, and so the advertisers got tremendous response from KFI, much more than they did from KBC, much more than they did from KN&NX, and much more than they did from music stations, just because we were so uh foreground and, you know, and so engaging. >> And did you learn did you go to national conferences with other radio elites and did you learn at those conferences? I went I didn't I didn't learn too much. What we were doing at that time was so different from what this format the spoken word you know broader format was doing anywhere. There there wasn't really anyone else for me to listen to or talk to. It was kind of lonely to be honest with you. There were very very few other stations if any that were doing anything similar to what I was trying to do at KFI. And so I would go to those things and I'm sure I learned a thing or two, but um not very much. I learned mostly by doing. I learned mostly by let's try this and if it doesn't work, it's just radio. It's not brain surgery. Nobody dies and we move on, you know, and if it works, then we're on to something. That's that was a big part of my philosophy. >> How did you help your host find the emotional center of a story? Um there's one thing that I think a great host uh does to this day and this is something that is in my work currently in different countries and that is to say what people are thinking but they don't necessarily say and so from somewhere maybe not right at the beginning it took me a minute to figure that out but I I figured that out that that's what really makes hosts authentic. um vulnerable um and engaging is they say things that you've been thinking all along, but you don't say it yourself and then all of a sudden you hear it coming out of the radio and you go, "Oh my god. Oh my god, that guy is so right. Oh, thank God. Somebody's finally saying it." As you turn the radio up, that's how somebody becomes a very loyal longtime listener. And that's how the host really connects with uh with the listener. I I'll give you an example that's not from KFI. Uh it's another show I work with, syndicated show that I've worked with for several years, nationally syndicated show. One of the guys is very um very pro- second amendment, you know, no gun control, you know, uh that kind of thing. and the Sandy Hook shooting, school shooting happened and he was on the air saying um we got to figure out how to keep guns out of the hands of wackos because you know Sandy Hook I guess it was a grandmother who who gave or lent her grandson the gun that he went and and did the shooting with. So this guy was saying, "We got to figure out how to way. We got to figure out a way to keep the guns out of the hands of wackos." Basically, and another guy in the show, his partner, goes, "You know what? Uh, don't look now, but uh, you're talking about gun control, which you're completely against." And the first guy goes, "I know. I know. and it's driving me crazy, but I can't stop thinking about that. But I know I'm against gun control, but I know that we need something. That's being very vulnerable. You know, it's not being a know-it-all and it's not being the smartest guy in the room. It's just being authentic and vulnerable and people can relate. And that's what I try I try now to bring to every star I work with and try. We did that at KFI. >> How do you think that John and Ken lasted so long together? because usually there are tensions that that crop up in these arrangements. >> Oh, I think well they I think they're very they were very professional. I think they um like a lot of teams that I work with, you know, I don't I think they were friendly and social, but I don't think they were friends necessarily. They were like business partners, you know. It's just like how do you know long-term business partners work together? Ron Howard and Brian Glazer when they have extremely different personalities, you know, uh they re they come to realize and I think Sean and Kennedy come to realize this before I even met them, but they come to realize, hey, we don't have to be friends. We don't have to be best buddies doing the show. We're we're in business together. And so, we show up and we bring everything we can to support the business. And we want a business that's bigger and better than any one of us individually. And I think those guys were partic particularly good at that. >> I've got a commercial question, not a moral question here, about uh Tucker Carlson's final years at Fox when he would often get monster ratings, but nobody wanted to advertise on his show. So, did you have to deal with anything like that? >> Oh, we had advertisers uh bail. Um not very much. I mean, we had we produced such great results, you know, I think and it really the advertisers that we had, they're mostly local. They're mostly, you know, direct business advertisers. Uh we we never did very well in advertising agencies even when we the ratings went way up because we did so well locally. Um and we just made their phones ring. I don't think they cared that much. So yeah, I'm sure over the years we, you know, lost a few, but not very many and certainly not like that. >> When you were the program director, what was your attitude towards syndication versus local programming? >> I did not like syndication, which is funny because now I work with some syndicated shows that have become very successful. [laughter] But I did not I was not a big fan of syndication. I wanted KFI to be live and local as much as possible. >> So, I remember when uh I used to listen to Ron Owens because I was in Northern California. I listened to him for years and then I was like, "Oh, wow. He's come to KABC." But that didn't work. And in Australia, uh big Sydney radio hosts, right? They don't do well in Melbourne. And uh not not Ron Owens didn't do so well in LA. Uh, any thoughts on anything that I was just offering? >> It was worrisome to me when I heard that he was going to do both and he was going to be on KBC because I also grew up listening to Ron Owens and KGO. My dad listened to KGO when I was a kid. So, I was certainly very very familiar with his show on KGO and I always thought he did a great job. Um, so I was pretty worried when I heard that he was going to come to KBC and I did this. I went to Arbitron, which at the time was the ratings company. Now it's become Neielson, but at the time it was Arbitron. I went to Arbitron and asked if I could do a deep dive into his ratings in San Francisco because I did not have audience research for San Francisco the way I had it for, you know, my own market for LA. And I've already talked about how much I relied on that. Um, and I wanted to really understand his audience and and I wasn't going to have enough time or budget to do an audience research project in a market that, you know, I don't even broadcast to. So, I went the I went to Arbitron and I did this big, you know, deep dive. And what I realized or what I discovered I guess not realized but what I discovered is KGO was so big as you remember that um there were certain people that carried KGO forward that that you know moved it up and then there were some people that KGO kind of brought along. So you could have a high rating on KGO, but really your high rating is because KGO, you know, rising tide floats all boats. And it was a huge discovery to me. It was surprised to me to see that Ron Owens at that time, and I know he really was a a you know, a big leader of KGO for many, many years, but at that time he had kind of crossed over to being more carried by KGO than carrying KGO. And so that meant to me if he came to LA, he certainly would draw an audience, but he really would depend on the existing audience of KBC, which was dwindling and way down at that point. And that, you know, as long as I play good defense against him, I wouldn't probably have much to worry about, which is exactly how it turned out. So at uh a lot of stations the the top hosts earn four or five times what the program director earns. Uh how does that affect relations between the program director and the host in your experience? >> Uh it's never been a factor for me ever. Um I can't I can't speak to how others have dealt with that but it's never been a factor for me. I guess the way I always look at is like if you know Bill Handel can go on the air in the morning in this market against Rick D's or Ryan Serest and KBC and Howard Stern and Mark and Brian and the you know just the absolute biggest personalities not just in this market but in this country and win and beat them and draw more listeners than they do and sell things that you know that generate millions of dollars of revenue for the radio station. He I would want to see him paid very fairly for that and I would I never looked at it and would never look at it like, "Wow, this is what I make. That's what he makes." I that that just wouldn't even come up. Wouldn't be a factor. >> Were there any hosts for whom you didn't give notes anymore because they were just so good at what they did? >> I'm sorry, I missed the question. Are there any hosts that what >> were there any hosts at at stations that you work for who who became so good what they were doing that you hardly needed to give them any notes? They just like let them fly. >> Um Laura, I think probably kind of got to that point. Dr. Laura. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yeah. What was it about her? Like there was some compelling quality she had. I I can't describe it. >> She She did that thing I described earlier. She said what people were thinking >> and they wouldn't say, you know, so somebody would call her up and they go, "Oh, my boyfriend and I are still in love and we're going to move in together." Well, they wouldn't be calling her if the person making that call did not have some doubt somewhere deep in their mind. Why on earth would you call Dr. Laura with a question like that unless you had a doubt and she would go right to that doubt. It's like she had x-ray vision. So she was particularly good at putting to words things that people were thinking and sometimes couldn't even admit to themselves. >> But it's that whole thing I described earlier saying what people are thinking but don't necessarily say. She she does that at a completely different level. That's one I think that's her superpower and always has been. >> And what did your bosses say to you? I don't want you to violate confidence, but what sort of feedback were you getting from people who are on top of you when you were running KFI? >> Well, we were owned by uh Cox um Enterprises, which is based in Atlanta. And so we had some, you know, real distance, physical distance, geographical distance from the home office, which I think was good because I think there's a lot of things that we did that probably made them pretty nervous. Um, the the general manager that I worked with, his name was Howard Neil, and he was amazing at letting us do what we needed to do and playing good defense for us in the community. um you know or and with the ownership. So he was always fighting Atlanta and he was always you know fielding calls from community groups or whoever that you know was offended or you know didn't like what we were doing and let us do it. He was involved in all the audience research. So, he knew that this wasn't me trying to be, you know, anything liberal, conservative, um, you know, um, [clears throat] any anything in particular. He knew what the strategy was and we all agreed to the strategy together and it was my job to execute it but he was aware of it and I think that made it possible for him to defend us uh you know both to corporate and in the community and also to really sell us and to to speak for us and speak very well of what we were doing. He was amazing in his ability to do that. I don't know that I've worked with many managers since then who are have been able to do that or are able to do that to the the extent that he was. He didn't take it personally. Was there a moment when you realized that uh talk radio was in decline as a genre in the United States? I left for Premiere and I launched some shows at Premiere and was there for a couple years and really enjoyed it. Uh, and then when I came back uh to local radio, I came back to KN&X and KFWB and I ran both of those together and kind of got back to the news, although I tried to bring a little bit of the show side to KN&X, but you know, got back to the news side of it. And then the very last thing I did in local radio before I started the consulting full-time was I put in a little bit of time at KBC. And when I got to KBC, um, I realized the extent to which talk radio had become purely ideological. And as I said at the beginning of our conversation, for me it never was. I didn't want us to be talking about politics very much anyway, except for Rush Limba. But it was never ideological. It was never righty lefty. And when I got back into talk radio, I saw that it had really turned pretty conservative and hard right. And the whole format was pretty much doing the same thing. And without agreeing or disagreeing with that or agreeing or disagreeing personally or ideologically because that doesn't have anything to do with it, it just it limits the audience. It's like if all rock stations all go yacht rock at the same time, that really kind of limits the audience, you know, to people who only like yacht rock and not people who like hard rock or metal or, you know, singer songwriter or any other kind of any other genre in that format. The same thing was starting to happen in talk radio. So let me give you a theory for for for part of that and that is for for a regular bloke who's not liberal, right? Just not liberal and has a job in an office like he just has to walk a minefield, right? He he can't he has to so squaltch like his natural reactions to the world around him. He like your your average bloke who's an employee in an office feels castrated and and things that are just blindingly obvious to you. You cannot say at a workplace you have to behave like you know a castrated bloke and bloody talk radio like that's a way of of letting off steam. Does any of that make sense to you? >> Yeah, totally. and it that it does exactly that in one category politics but there's a lot of other things to talk about and that's why you know again at KFI I tried to not be political especially nationally political and tried to keep it to more local things and more real life things and more daily things and not just politics now the format is really just politics isn't it to a large degree not entirely but to a large degree and yep that uh bloke I don't know how many blo we have here in the US, but that bloke definitely now has a voice and now has an outlet and now has liked people, you know, talking that he can agree with and that have been say that are now saying on the radio things that he probably was thinking all along, which is very powerful as I've said. Um, but that's just one category. That's just that's just one genre, I guess. But but your average bloke like like there are blo who've gotten into trouble for the most like innocuous comments to me anyway um at work like I I'm thinking like in the minefield of male female relations like in in elite media in you can like you can crap on men all day long but if you ever suggest that like women have a weakness or like I'm thinking in male female relations or the these struggles and challenges dealing with with different groups, not not in the in the politics of it, but just in the we're formed raised with different codes, right? There there are all these parts of life that you cannot talk about at the office or in polite society with like if if polite society is like university graduates and and outside of like forget bloody politics but just like male female relations relations between groups um you you saw something and like you were horrified but you know you cannot say that out loud how horrified you are by by what you saw. Well, that's where talk radio should come in, right? Isn't that where, you know, we say the things and I think Howard Stern actually Yeah. was particularly good at this. He would say the things that everybody thought and didn't didn't feel like they could say. That's what we did at KFI, that's what the people I work with now, you know, to the extent that they can, that's what they try to do. That's exactly that. It they solve that problem that you're describing. >> That's what the format at its best, I think, does. So why did >> and even morning shows even morning shows on music radio stations I think sometimes are able to pull that off and I think that's great for the audience that they have that they're able to say things that their audience thinks would never dare say and then they so they say it you know >> how much is talk radio like top 40 radio in that you you have a host who who usually play the hits right whether it's constitutional conservatism or you know whatever their stickick is how much do you think talk radio resembles top 40 radio? >> Well, these days probably not very much. Um, when I was a KFI, uh, KFRC was in my head every single day. [laughter] Um, I think these days it's I think it's very different now. I don't think there's nearly as much audience research being done. KFRC and KHJ and KissFm th those were really highly researched radio stations and I mine was no different at KFI. These days there's just no budget for that especially on the you know the spoken word side. Uh, music stations still get do some research, but talk stations rarely do. And so there's a lot more flying by the seat of your pants and kind of being the echo chamber for the audience or the people that are calling in anyway and not really trying to figure out where that where the line is or where the boundary is, you know. Um, so I would say much less now and much more 30 years ago. >> Who are your peers for whom you have the the most respect? So, not so much the hosts, but the the the programmers and the the coaches and the consultants. >> Who are the I didn't I'm sorry, Luke. I missed the question. Who are the programmers and consultants that I respect the most? >> Yeah. >> Um I don't know. I think I've been away from it uh from the radio station level here too long to be able to say. I don't I don't know. >> Okay, great. So, why did you leave KFI in uh 2002? >> Um, because all of my shows were being syndicated by Premiere and Premiere wanted me to also go there with those shows and create more shows there and I had been at KFI for a long time and it had been a really good run and I felt like that would be a really interesting next chapter. What price did you pay for being a great uh talk radio programmer at KFI? >> Uh I don't know. I I worked too much. Uh I I don't know. I don't know how to answer that question. >> Okay, great. Let's just skip it. Uh when did you stop being a radio programmer primarily? Like what year was it? Was it 2008? July 2010 is when I left KBC. >> And And what was the state? What kind of radio station did you leave in July 2010? >> A very conservative uh talk station that fits right in with conservative talk radio all over America today. >> And how long had you been there? >> I think it was there a year maybe. >> And was that a a congenial experience? No, it it was a tough experience because that's just not, you know, as you can if you think back over the hour of this conversation, that's just not how I, you know, ever programmed it before. So, it was it was more difficult, more challenging than I expected that it would be. And so what were you thinking where you were going to go after you walked out of KBC in July of 2010? What what what type of thoughts were in your head >> when I left Premiere before I went to CBS and the news stations? I knew I wanted to start consulting full-time, but I didn't have the confidence to do it. I thought, you know, nobody's gonna hire me. I'm gonna starve. Um, you know, I didn't have the confidence to do it. So, I went to CBS, ran the two all news stations for a few years, enjoyed that. Um, and when I left there, and I and I didn't get fired or anything. I left there to go to KBC. Uh, it was kind of the same like, oh man, I I don't know. I don't know that I could really do this consulting thing full-time. I really wanted to. I was inspired by that consultant that I mentioned to you that I had at KFI for all those years. I just didn't have the confidence. And then after KBC, I had the confidence and I just did it and I've been doing it ever since and never starved so far. And >> what are the advantages or disadvantages for you between being a consultant versus being the the guy in charge of a station? >> A badge. [laughter] When when uh when you're the guy in charge of the station, you wear a badge. So when you need people to do something, they do it. As a consultant, uh I can highly recommend that people do things. And if they don't do those things, there's not very much I can do about it. >> Is there any reading that you assign people who hire you? >> No. No, I never have. Never even thought about that. It's a great idea. >> So, there's no book about communication or radio that you regard as particularly important? >> Oh, I wouldn't say that. I would there's just no reading that I assign to you know like I take on a client then I say okay go read this book and then we'll work together >> but uh what do you think are the the best books about either radio or communication just off the top of your head? >> Um I think Valerie Geller's books are really good. I know her. We worked together actually at KFI. She was in my news department in the very beginning in 1989. Um, and I think and you know I think she's done a great job uh all the different things that she's done and the places she's worked and I think her books have have been very very helpful to people. So if someone were to ask me about a book I would recommend Valerie's book. Ha have you worked with hosts uh given notes to hosts who you recognize they were they were really good at what they did but they just made you feel lousy and you just didn't like them or it it took a toll on you even interacting with them, directing them, working with them. >> Um not not really. Um cuz it's it's not it it it's just never really been that kind of personal to me. You know, like I said before, whether I agree or disagree doesn't matter. I'm I'm in it for the radio. I'm in it for producing a really great product that comes out of a radio and makes people turn the radio up and want to come back for more, you know. Um, so it it it really isn't about what I like or don't like or, you know, whether I get along with somebody well or don't get along with somebody well. It doesn't it just it doesn't really matter. >> But don't people give you a feeling that you you meet someone and and you you relax inside? You you meet someone and you get excited. you you you meet someone and you you like you start having all these questions like you have we all have strong emotional reactions to people surely that that plays a role in what you do. >> Not really. I don't let it be a factor you know I I don't sometimes people are easier to work with or you know a little more complicated to work with but that's just part of the challenge. I don't I've never been that way. I, you know, it it never mattered whether I like Handle personally or whether he rubs me the wrong way or, you know, or John or Laura or anybody, Henry. It's just it it doesn't it just does not matter. I guess I kind of look at it like music formats. Um, I'm a classic rock guy. I'm not a country guy, but I worked at a country station and in fact, I was on the air on a country station and I and I did okay. It did not matter that I'm that I wasn't a country music fan working at the country music station. And it does not matter whether I, you know, feel better or not as good about a person that I'm working with. That's not what I'm in it for. >> Talk to me about the trajectory of your career once you walk out of KABC and you start consulting and talk to me about where it goes. I started I had already been consulting uh internationally. I put on the first talk station in Poland right after communism in the early 90s uh which is one of the things I am most proud of in my career and it's number one in Poland even today. Talk FM it's called TK. Uh, I put on a talk radio network in um the UK, the f the first real uh network to kind of go up against the BBC I guess a little bit in the UK. Talk Radio UK it was called. Did that in the mid 90s and then I had been consulting in Mexico and New Zealand before I ever left KFI or Premiere I guess. So, I had I already had been doing quite a bit of consulting. And so, when I finally got that confidence to, you know, really go out on my own and do this full-time and start the business, really start the business, um I um I it was, you know, those international things. Uh started to work with some different groups around the United States. Uh and then it kind of went international again and now most of my clients are outside of the United States. I still have clients here and some great ones and important ones but you know I I work in Latin America and I work in Europe in several countries and then uh around the US. So that's been the trajectory. >> And how did you discover podcasts? Um, well, I guess I, you know, I became interested when they first started to become a thing. I I think I was an early adopter and, you know, wanted kind of like when I first started programming at KFI, programming in radio, I wanted to understand how they work and what's the appeal and, you know, and all of that. And so I I started to really kind of study them and listen to a lot of them and different ones and you know really just try to understand them as best I could from the very beginning. >> And what what are the most common things that you say to your clients? >> Uh that's a great question. Um, every everybody that I work with who is either on the radio or produces a podcast that has a, you know, a product that they that they generate. Um, in my experience, there's always a superpower. There's always a thing or two or maybe more than a couple that they're really good at. And also often they shoot themselves in the foot. And I see my role as trying to get them to shoot themselves in the foot as little as possible while highlighting the their strengths and the things that they really do best and maybe better than almost anyone else as much as possible. And you would think that'd be kind of a no-brainer, but that ends up being the challenge almost every time >> for different reasons. What are the most common ways that uh that people in the audio business shoot themselves in the foot? >> They're very inside. So, they do a show for people um who've always listened to them, which makes that show very difficult for somebody who has never listened to them. So, that keeps them from growing an audience. Um, that's probably the that's probably one of the the biggest things that I see and I see that all the time. You know, even shows that do a really good job at some point, you know, they they just kind of assume that the audience is knows knows all their tricks and knows all their nuances and they can they kind of, you know, get into a shortorthhand and new audience, you know, doesn't know that. they don't and it makes it very difficult for new audience to listen. Um so that's one. Um another is uh interviews can be really difficult. They're better on podcast but on radio interviews are really difficult to do because you introduce the person at the beginning and most hosts forget to reset and come back and reintroduce the person later. So, if you hear the first three minutes, you hear the introduction, who the person is, why we're talking to them, and the best question because every host thinks of, you know, the the big question they want to ask, and it's usually they ask in the first couple minutes. After that, it's just kind of an ongoing conversation. And so, anybody who tunes in after that first three minutes often doesn't get who the guest is or why they're there. and they never get the, you know, the big question because that that's already passed by the time they come in. So that's it's actually pretty hard to do an interview well. And so that's another thing that, you know, comes up a lot. >> And being a professional in the audio business, how does that affect your ability to get pleasure from choosing to listen to audio? >> Well, [snorts] I don't listen to spoken word audio recreationally. I just do it for work. I listen to um music, radio and music uh you know when I'm just on my own time. Um but I never it unfortunately it never really turns off. This is kind of embarrassing to say. I've been in church watching a priest do a sermon wanting to air check him, wanting to wanting to say, "No, no, no, you should start with a story and no, you should explain this and no, you should, you know, like you know, like like coaching him." Un most unfortunately, it doesn't turn off. >> If there's anything that turns it off, what is it? Uh, I guess music or movies or >> Yeah, just music. Yeah. >> And do you have a favorite favorite songs, favorite band? >> Uh, my favorite artist is Simon and Garfuncle, as a matter of fact, going way back to my early youth. Um, but no, I like I like a lot of different kinds of music. As I said earlier, I'm probably more naturally a classic rock guy, but then I also grew up listening to, you know, all the big top 40 hits of the 70s on KFRC. So I guess I'm also a classic hits guy. So you know in Los Angeles I listen to KOS, I listen to K Earth, I listen to 93.1 Jack FM. All very well programmed radio stations. >> How did you have to grow to make it in your new consulting business or did it just flow naturally? >> You mean to grow the business? >> Yeah. How did you have to check? Like did you have to learn new skills, new new ways of working with people or did it just flow? >> No, it mostly flowed. I mean I, as I said before, I had been doing it, you know, part-time from the early 90s anyway. So I have a lot of experience and I had a great mentor. So the consultant that h helped me all that time at KFI also inspired me in what I'm doing now. So you know, I had a really good role model. Um, I I I guess I've adopted some things that have really helped over time. Like for example, one of the things I really live by, and I do tell my clients this all the time, is, you know, the way I see my role, I'll give them my best thinking, and I'll make recommendations, but the decisions are theirs because they got a business to run and I'm not on the hook for their business. They are. So once they make a decision my role changes and it goes from uh having the ideas and making recommendations to supporting whatever the decision is even if it was not my recommendation or you know something that I would have decided and I really do live by that and I need to I think that's what you have to do in this role. So I make recommendations they make decisions the moment they make a decision my role becomes making their decision successful. I assume that pretty much everyone you've ever worked with from radio to consulting has an enormous drive to succeed or am I wrong? >> Yeah, I that's very I would say that's very true. >> I mean like it's the number one thing. I would assume most of the people you work with this is the number one thing in their life. It's not number three. >> Uh some sometimes it's not. I've worked with some people who had a lot of TV experience and they often don't do very well in radio um because TV becomes you know they miss it when they do radio. rea is a little too simple I think sometimes for them but yeah for the most part I would say that's accurate Luke that um you know it is they they're they're driven and this really is like the most important thing or one of the most important things in their lives and it makes it that's great you know for relationship for me as a consultant or coach or program director you know I kind of have their attention from the Are are there healthy drives that that you notice and unhealthy drives? Like everyone you work with is incredibly driven. Uh you you don't even think in terms of healthy unhealthy drives like one person trying to get back at a girl who rejected him in fifth grade. You don't notice healthy versus unhealthy drives. >> No, not in my work. Not really. If I were a psychologist, yeah, probably. [laughter] And sometimes I feel like a psychologist in this job, but no, not really. H how much are you required or have you been required in your professional work in radio and then other forms of audio to assure people to tell them that they're good? Well, that's a big part of the job. But I think from the from the beginning when I first started programming, I realized it isn't really helpful to say, "Hey, you're doing a great job." It's much more helpful to say, "Wow, you're doing a great job because I heard you do this and this and this and this." When you do those things, man, you are on fire. And to be very specific and genuine about it. So that I mean my whole career that's that's what I've done. >> The radio or the hosts who've caused you the most a aggravation not because they were bad people but just because they were so provocative. I assume Phil Hendry caused you more than anyone else? >> No, not really. We we have a great relationship. We were um you know we we had great communication when we were working together. Whenever I was going to be a so-called guest on his show, uh he told me I knew it. I knew what he was going to do. Um you know, and I so I always had the opportunity to go, "Oh man, I don't know. That's gotten a little close, you know. I I got kids in school, you know, or whatever." Um so no, actually not really. Uh we >> I mean aggravation from the outside partnerships I I've had in my career actually. >> But you got more complaints. Didn't you get more intense complaints about >> Oh, I don't care about complaints. Complaints are good. Let me tell you the day that I would not get complaints. That would be a scary day. >> But but I love the complaints. >> But they make your life complicated. I mean, >> no, no, no. That's the That's part of the payoff. That's how I know we're touching people. >> So, so the the most controversial I it it and so there was the most you talked about that situation around 1992 where there was a comment made by a radio host about a TV news anchor and that was that was somewhat a scary situation for you. It was and that I think was probably the moment when I realized that complaints are good and and complaints should not complicate my life. They did during that time because I didn't know any better. But after that, you know, they they they didn't that it was that was such a great lesson for me. >> And then after that things just kind of fell into place for how you should regard complaints. Well, I mean, you know, we I there's always a lot of complaints. I guess I always just took them as good news. The more complaints, the better, you know. >> What do what what do you do with with podcasters that you that was different from what you did with radio hosts? Well, the first thing is to understand that podcasting is its own medium. You know, it's like TV and radio are separate media. Um, and podcasting is its own medium. There are a lot of people who start a podcast kind of thinking like they're doing a radio show, but it really isn't a radio show. People use podcasts very differently, and that's that's like the most important thing I think for people to understand when they're doing a podcast. And also radio is is broad. It's broadcasting and it's mass and podcasting is niche, you know, and that's a pretty big difference, too. So, there are some things about it that really are very different than, you know, than than spoken word uh radio. It is spoken word content, but it it's it's really its own medium more than I think a lot of people appreciate. What separates the people who are great at what you do from the people who are merely good? Um well, talent which can't be taught. Uh sense of humor typically. um the ability to really boil things down uh whether it's a podcast or radio show is I think is is really key now maybe more than ever. We're living in a more complicated world all the time. Um yeah, I I would say probably mostly those things. Are are there any things that people share with you that no one else has told them till you did and it it like opened up vistas? It it shone a light where there are certain things that you've been able to get through to people that no one else they told you was able to. >> Well, there are some things that I tell people and their the reaction is, "Wow, never thought of it that way before. Nobody has ever said that to me. I've been doing this for 30 years or 20 years or whatever. Nobody has ever said that to me before. Wow, that is great. That happens. And that, you know, that's always nice when that happens. It's very rewarding. But more often it's more like um people say, "Wow, no one has ever said that like that before." I've heard that over the years, and I couldn't really do much with it. And then the way you just said it, I can work with that. I can do something with that. you you really made that make sense for the first time. So I I hear that a lot. So it's not like I'm saying something for the very first time. I'm just saying it differently often. So one thing I'm taking away from this is that a successful radio host or or podcaster often is able to say things that other people feel but no one says says out loud. that then you have to have incredible courage to be able to do that on an ongoing basis. Have have do you are you thinking of people who had the ability to say those things that everyone else is thinking but doesn't say but then when when push comes to shove they didn't they couldn't deal with the the push back or have you only dealt with people who are so driven that they they they're willing to pay the price? >> Oh no. I've I've dealt with people who uh couldn't deal with the push back or what is more common is because everybody now has a phone in front of them, you know, they're looking at what people are posting or what people are commenting uh or um you know, what their friends are, you know, their other colleagues are texting them or emailing them and they let that kind of drive what they do. That's a really common thing these days, unfortunately. I wish I could take the phone out of every studio. >> Right. So, are there there must be some persons who when they tell you they don't follow social media, they're they're telling you the truth, or are they pretty much all hooked? >> I think they're all hooked. I I [snorts] think everybody's into social media and gives way too much weight to the comments. They don't get that. uh complaints are good thing that that uh that I do. >> Were you surprised how well your techniques translated to Poland and other places? Yeah, because I never thought of uh radio or you know like the basics of what make what makes a listener listen to radio as as universal as it turns out they are you know and now of course now that I've been doing this a long time on the consulting side I totally get it. You're in your car in Madrid. It's hot. It's already hot. It's 8:00 in the morning. It's already 90s something degrees. Um you're in traffic. Your boss is an idiot. You're ready for vacation. You're hungry. You're already thinking about what's for dinner and you're already thinking about the weekend. And you're listening to the radio. And what is it that we're bringing to make you think, to put a smile on your face, to make you nod your head, and most importantly, to make you physically look at that radio. It does not matter whether that person in that car in that heat is in Los Angeles or Madrid or S. Paulo or Paris or wherever. It's the things that make someone, you know, really listen carefully to uh to to a to anything to a music morning show or a talk show or a podcast. They're all universal. >> And what what constitutes a great radio host or or podcast? Is it 80% talent? Is it 40% talent? 40% discipline? How would you describe the components? >> Probably 70% talent and 30% uh discipline plus and show. I don't know what that mix of those things. They have to have a sense of show. Um which is you know that thing I learned from Rush Limba in the very very beginning. Um they do have to be disciplined. you know, they have to understand the environment that they're in. Um, but I think the rest of it is talent. You know, you asked me before, you know, about what are those things that I end up telling people over and over. And one of those things is people, especially when they're newer at this, tend to think that people listen to their show or their podcast the way they do. you hear you Luke every time you do a video you watch the entire thing but of course your audience does it and the good news with YouTube is you can see just what percentage they actually watch you know over time or per episode um and it's the same in radio you know somebody listening in the morning in Los Angeles is listening to anyone's show for about 12 minutes and the person doing that show hears four plus their mom probably the hears four hours of that show every day. So they assume that everybody hears the whole show when in fact people are only hearing little 11 and 12 and 13 minute snippets of it. And where that comes up and this is both in music morning shows which I also work with and talk shows is they tend to shoot their wad first. So you know they'll go on the air at six o'clock and they have all their best material and they don't repeat it. They don't go back and touch it because they already talked about it and the audience already heard it. But the audience listening at 8:20 certainly was not listening at six o'clock when they did that. So that's a that's where the discipline really comes in and the understanding of you know how the medium works and their place in the medium to really understand how to work that to their advantage instead of against them. So when Dennis Prager was getting started at KBC radio, one of the things that uh was a challenge for him is he kept getting the instruction more energy, more energy, more energy. And I I think this is one thing that distinguishes those who do it versus those who listen is the listener doesn't understand that a successful radio host or podcast host has to bring at least five times the amount of energy that you'd bring to an in-person conversation. Is that you think I'm in the ballpark there? >> Yeah, I think that I think that's often the case. I I think in Dennis's case when he started at KBC, they were already um they had already lost a lot of audience and KFI was really starting to do well. And unfortunately for Dennis, I think a lot of that direction came from an urgent need to somehow follow KFI. we, you know, we were really energetic, so they really needed to be energetic. Like that was the secret sauce and why we were winning and they needed to grab that back, you know, and that's not his style. That's not who he is. It's not his talent. That's not his style. He's he's much more um philosophical and, you know, there's a lot more to him than that. So, in that case, I don't I don't think I would have given him that direction. One thing I remember from working in radio is how absolutely wiped out hosts typically were after a show. Is that your recollection? >> Absolutely. It was like that for me when I was on the radio and it's like that for just about everybody I work with. And let me let me say one thing here that and that I think has to do with that and it's kind of important. You watch a show like Jimmy Fallon or Jimmy Kimmel who comes from radio of course he was on KRock here. uh or John Stewart or you know Steven Cobear when he was on and they have a writer room at 22 writers or 20 writers or 15 writers writing the monologue and writing a script and all that stuff. Bill Handel was on the radio every day for four hours and it's all off the top of his head all of it. And he has to keep a train of thought and he has to remember what he's going to say and he has to be creative and he has to you know think about what his opinion is and how he's going to express himself. That is remarkably challenging and I I don't think people really appreciate that a radio show generates three, two or three or four or more hours of original content every day all by themselves. Whether it's one person or two people, Rush used to do three hours because he had no guests. He used to do three hours every day, all original content, all gener generated by himself. He had no writers. That's that's amazing when you compare them to especially people in national television and the support that they have. And so, yeah, of course they're exhausted. They should be mentally exhausted. I feel like I can get a read on someone from one, two, three seconds of their voice. Like when I when I call my friends, family, what I immediately know what's where they are emotionally, what's going on with them. I I do a lot of uh 12step work and sponsorship. I can immediately tell in my own mind, this is my assertion here, that like I can tell whether someone feels beaten down, whether someone's making progress, whether someone's like it's just so quick the the voice just like screams at me somebody's state. Um how about you? Do you do you feel this? Yeah, I think I'm pretty good at reading people. >> I have I think I have a sense, you know, especially when I'm listening to them when whatever they're >> whether they're, you know, a music morning show or a talk show or news or podcast or whatever. And this you'll find this to be kind of entertaining, but I used to do this um I did this I guess at KFI and maybe even a premiere a little bit. somebody would want to do a talk show and so they'd come in and pitch me their show and I would invariably every single time I would say uh you know John Cobalt just choked on a pizza I need somebody to go in and do afternoon drive in 30 minutes if that's you what do you talk about what are you going to go on the radio with 30 minutes from now and 90% of the time they would say oh my god I haven't even looked at the paper today I don't know let me you know look at the paper see what's going on and I would I think a good talk show host, you're just you're dying to talk about stuff. You just need the microphone in front of you. You don't need to look at the newspaper first. You would know immediately. And all the best people that I've worked with have all been like that. I would ask that question and they would say, "Oh, oh my god." You know, the thing that nobody's talking about is this or that, you know, or whatever. And they would jump right into it. >> Yeah. My mind immediately goes to what are the obvious truths that you can't say out loud, particularly in polite company, right? I I would just start making a list. Male female differences, uh, relations between groups, uh, just like obviously, blindingly obvious things that you cannot cop to or admit in plight company. Like that's to be like endlessly fascinating. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which that's good. See, I would have hired you to do a [laughter] talk. >> Well, what have I not asked you about that I should have? >> This is pretty extensive. This is the longest interview I've ever done. That's for sure. I think you asked some really good questions. >> Oh, thank you. I've I've thought about it for years because I've loved radio since I came to America in 1977. And >> I can tell I can tell. Very impressive, Luke. Your knowledge. >> Thank you, David. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. This was I've been looking forward to this for for years. >> All right. Well, great. Thank you very much. Let's stay in touch. >> Sounds good. Cheers, mate. Cheers. >> All right. Cheers.