Post by bossradio93 on Nov 17, 2003 13:09:48 GMT -5
The Mike Kinosian Interview
He’s Just Like Us
Ask the owner of the most popular business in town why their place is so successful and the answer you’ll most likely hear is, “We give people what they want.”
Simplicity and prudence personified.
The same holds true for one of radio’s most consistently entertaining and shrewdest personalities, who recites his show’s mantra at the top of each hour.
You can practically see the faithful mouthing the words right along with their leader. They know the drill, absolutely love it and can’t wait to dial their hero and give him an elongated “Helloooooo Tom.”
When Westwood One’s Tom Leykis says he talks about things his listeners “really” – with extra heavy punctuation on “really” – care about, he means it and delivers each weekday afternoon.
There’s also very little about the host’s personal life that’s kept secret, although some people take everything Leykis utters on the air as gospel. “I’ve said that women find me irresistible because I wear sport coats made out of $100 bills,” he jokes. “I’ve received countless calls from people wanting to know where they can buy those jackets. But I’ve talked about being married and divorced four times and about being arrested in Boston 10 years ago. I’ve talked about my infidelities. The list is long and that’s why you’ll never read about me in the National Inquirer. My listeners know all that stuff.”
Same Demo – New Approach
Aimed at a young male audience, Leykis’ show is born out of his belief that Rock and Alternative playlists have become tighter, while commercial loads have expanded. “There are many people who are burned out listening to the same very crispy records,” he maintains. “We do a show that appeals to the same demographic as those kinds of radio stations. The difference is that we have the same commercial load, but in a talk format, commercial loads are much less perceptible. That’s why News/Talk stations have been able to get away with heavier commercial loads. Commercials aren’t perceived as interruptions to the product.”
Long a believer that Talk radio can attract listeners in their twenties and thirties, Leykis opines that the problem is content. “You have to concede some hard truths, which are young people don’t read the paper; young people don’t vote; and young people don’t care about the top story in the Washington Post. Most of Talk radio is unwilling to give up on this idea that you have to talk about what’s on the front page of The Washington Times, Washington Post or New York Times.”
The Dean Of Leykis 101
For the uninitiated, the dominant theme on most Leykis shows is – quite bluntly -- the fine art of getting women in bed. There are many “Do’s” and “Don’ts” on the subject and they’re all colorfully covered in great detail under the expansive “Leykis 101” umbrella.
The downside is many “Leykis 101” students aren’t familiar enough with their professor to know he could easily abandon that banter and conduct highbrow political commentary.
But as Leykis points out, “I don’t miss talking about politics or informing people about [issues], because what’s important is selling advertising. That’s what we do. To do that, you have to attract an audience.”
In order to attract audience, he succinctly explains, “You have to deal with what people really are interested in and we figured that out a long time ago. I can assure you that it’s highly unlikely that anything on the front page of today’s New York Times is going to be on our show. The audience doesn’t care about that.”
They do, however, tend to gravitate toward such Leykis staples as listener-suggested “Flash Fridays,” where female listeners expose their breasts. “It wasn’t planned as a radio bit beyond one day,” Leykis notes.
As many radio people in the Northeast did, Leykis listened to WOR/New York’s Jean Shepherd. “On his show one day, he said that he didn’t believe that the ratings accurately reflected [the size of his audience],” recounts Leykis. “He was in New York City and [broadcasted] to people in their apartments. To prove that his ratings were wrong, he asked people to flash their lights on and off and then look out the window to see how many other apartments flashed their lights.”
Doing his radio show one Friday afternoon, Leykis randomly zeroed in on that childhood recollection. “I asked people to turn their lights on and off on the freeway so they could see who [else was listening]. Everyone reported how many headlights they were seeing. Someone called in about 30 minutes after I suggested that and said women should flash their [breasts]. I said that would never happen and hung up. But within 20 minutes, I had a call from someone else on the 22 Freeway, who said he was seeing a woman flashing her breasts out the window. It just went from there. Later on, it started happening in public as well.”
Violent Endings
The conclusion of most phone calls usually prompts another signature part of the show: Listeners practically beg Leykis to either “take them out” (not in the social context) or “blow them up.”
That bit’s origin actually started many years ago as the sound effect of a toilet flushing. “I was working at a mom and pop station in Albany,” Leykis recalls. “Whenever I’d get upset at a listener, I’d use the [flushing sound effect]. The Owner/GM came into the studio and said it was in bad taste and asked that I remove it, but I thought it was [perfect].”
The irate station owner came in a few days later and took the cart out of the studio. Leykis, however, simply went back to the sound effects record and dubbed the same effect on a different cart. He labeled the new cart “dog barking” and put it back in the studio. “It drove him insane that he couldn’t find the cart,” Leykis recalls with great delight. “He ultimately harassed me about it, so I started blowing up callers. The callers were usually racists, bigots, or old people who thought I was disgusting. It became kind of a cartoon. At the end of a call, people ask if I’d blow them up. They remembered the old show where I’d blow up people because I was ripping mad.”
Avoiding A Career-Killer
The ability to avoid being locked into a particular label has been a major key to Leykis’ success. “Over time, that’s one sure career-killer,” he explains. “Why limit yourself by saying you’re a conservative or liberal? It’s much more interesting to be whoever you are on a given day. As Rush Limbaugh just found out, on a given day, you might not be as conservative as you think you are.”
Listeners don’t know exactly what they’ll get with Leykis, but are confident they’ll enjoy it. “On many of these conservative talk radio programs, you pretty much know what’s going to happen,” he says. “You know who’ll be interviewed, who’ll be praised and what the host’s opinion is going to be – every day. In the long haul, it’s just not that interesting.”
Perhaps as savvy about the medium as anyone working in Talk radio, Leykis is keenly aware that he needs to appeal to more than just P1 listeners. “We have many P2 and P3 listeners. People will sample us and they’re all over the road.”
On flagship Infinity Talk station KLSX-FM/Los Angeles, for example, he says his audience is “40% Hispanic, which pretty much reflects the market. I don’t think there’s [another] Talk radio show – other than in Spanish – that can say that.”
No Guests Needed
Interviews were once an integral part of his show, but as Leykis comments, “The film and record companies look down on radio and won’t provide us with `A’ list guests -- not even occasionally. My attitude about that is I really don’t want the third banana from the new WB sitcom as my guest; that’s who they want to give us. We can do a much more entertaining radio program without people like that. Frankly, it’s my job to do a great show without guests. I worked in smaller markets where you couldn’t get guests or phone calls. You produced your own show and ran your own board. I did all of that. Doing it myself is what I’ve been used to all these years.”
In Part Two of our exclusive Tom Leykis interview, the professor of “Leykis 101” shares his extremely candid thoughts about ratings, Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, radio personalities who want to venture into television and why he enjoys doing afternoons.
Look for this must-read this Thursday (11/20).
WHO: Tom Leykis
WHAT: “The Tom Leykis Show”
WHERE: Westwood One
WHEN: Monday – Friday 3 - 7pm (PT)/ 6-10pm (ET)
HOW MANY AFFILIATES: 40
Source: Los Angeles Radio People-11/17/2003.
He’s Just Like Us
Ask the owner of the most popular business in town why their place is so successful and the answer you’ll most likely hear is, “We give people what they want.”
Simplicity and prudence personified.
The same holds true for one of radio’s most consistently entertaining and shrewdest personalities, who recites his show’s mantra at the top of each hour.
You can practically see the faithful mouthing the words right along with their leader. They know the drill, absolutely love it and can’t wait to dial their hero and give him an elongated “Helloooooo Tom.”
When Westwood One’s Tom Leykis says he talks about things his listeners “really” – with extra heavy punctuation on “really” – care about, he means it and delivers each weekday afternoon.
There’s also very little about the host’s personal life that’s kept secret, although some people take everything Leykis utters on the air as gospel. “I’ve said that women find me irresistible because I wear sport coats made out of $100 bills,” he jokes. “I’ve received countless calls from people wanting to know where they can buy those jackets. But I’ve talked about being married and divorced four times and about being arrested in Boston 10 years ago. I’ve talked about my infidelities. The list is long and that’s why you’ll never read about me in the National Inquirer. My listeners know all that stuff.”
Same Demo – New Approach
Aimed at a young male audience, Leykis’ show is born out of his belief that Rock and Alternative playlists have become tighter, while commercial loads have expanded. “There are many people who are burned out listening to the same very crispy records,” he maintains. “We do a show that appeals to the same demographic as those kinds of radio stations. The difference is that we have the same commercial load, but in a talk format, commercial loads are much less perceptible. That’s why News/Talk stations have been able to get away with heavier commercial loads. Commercials aren’t perceived as interruptions to the product.”
Long a believer that Talk radio can attract listeners in their twenties and thirties, Leykis opines that the problem is content. “You have to concede some hard truths, which are young people don’t read the paper; young people don’t vote; and young people don’t care about the top story in the Washington Post. Most of Talk radio is unwilling to give up on this idea that you have to talk about what’s on the front page of The Washington Times, Washington Post or New York Times.”
The Dean Of Leykis 101
For the uninitiated, the dominant theme on most Leykis shows is – quite bluntly -- the fine art of getting women in bed. There are many “Do’s” and “Don’ts” on the subject and they’re all colorfully covered in great detail under the expansive “Leykis 101” umbrella.
The downside is many “Leykis 101” students aren’t familiar enough with their professor to know he could easily abandon that banter and conduct highbrow political commentary.
But as Leykis points out, “I don’t miss talking about politics or informing people about [issues], because what’s important is selling advertising. That’s what we do. To do that, you have to attract an audience.”
In order to attract audience, he succinctly explains, “You have to deal with what people really are interested in and we figured that out a long time ago. I can assure you that it’s highly unlikely that anything on the front page of today’s New York Times is going to be on our show. The audience doesn’t care about that.”
They do, however, tend to gravitate toward such Leykis staples as listener-suggested “Flash Fridays,” where female listeners expose their breasts. “It wasn’t planned as a radio bit beyond one day,” Leykis notes.
As many radio people in the Northeast did, Leykis listened to WOR/New York’s Jean Shepherd. “On his show one day, he said that he didn’t believe that the ratings accurately reflected [the size of his audience],” recounts Leykis. “He was in New York City and [broadcasted] to people in their apartments. To prove that his ratings were wrong, he asked people to flash their lights on and off and then look out the window to see how many other apartments flashed their lights.”
Doing his radio show one Friday afternoon, Leykis randomly zeroed in on that childhood recollection. “I asked people to turn their lights on and off on the freeway so they could see who [else was listening]. Everyone reported how many headlights they were seeing. Someone called in about 30 minutes after I suggested that and said women should flash their [breasts]. I said that would never happen and hung up. But within 20 minutes, I had a call from someone else on the 22 Freeway, who said he was seeing a woman flashing her breasts out the window. It just went from there. Later on, it started happening in public as well.”
Violent Endings
The conclusion of most phone calls usually prompts another signature part of the show: Listeners practically beg Leykis to either “take them out” (not in the social context) or “blow them up.”
That bit’s origin actually started many years ago as the sound effect of a toilet flushing. “I was working at a mom and pop station in Albany,” Leykis recalls. “Whenever I’d get upset at a listener, I’d use the [flushing sound effect]. The Owner/GM came into the studio and said it was in bad taste and asked that I remove it, but I thought it was [perfect].”
The irate station owner came in a few days later and took the cart out of the studio. Leykis, however, simply went back to the sound effects record and dubbed the same effect on a different cart. He labeled the new cart “dog barking” and put it back in the studio. “It drove him insane that he couldn’t find the cart,” Leykis recalls with great delight. “He ultimately harassed me about it, so I started blowing up callers. The callers were usually racists, bigots, or old people who thought I was disgusting. It became kind of a cartoon. At the end of a call, people ask if I’d blow them up. They remembered the old show where I’d blow up people because I was ripping mad.”
Avoiding A Career-Killer
The ability to avoid being locked into a particular label has been a major key to Leykis’ success. “Over time, that’s one sure career-killer,” he explains. “Why limit yourself by saying you’re a conservative or liberal? It’s much more interesting to be whoever you are on a given day. As Rush Limbaugh just found out, on a given day, you might not be as conservative as you think you are.”
Listeners don’t know exactly what they’ll get with Leykis, but are confident they’ll enjoy it. “On many of these conservative talk radio programs, you pretty much know what’s going to happen,” he says. “You know who’ll be interviewed, who’ll be praised and what the host’s opinion is going to be – every day. In the long haul, it’s just not that interesting.”
Perhaps as savvy about the medium as anyone working in Talk radio, Leykis is keenly aware that he needs to appeal to more than just P1 listeners. “We have many P2 and P3 listeners. People will sample us and they’re all over the road.”
On flagship Infinity Talk station KLSX-FM/Los Angeles, for example, he says his audience is “40% Hispanic, which pretty much reflects the market. I don’t think there’s [another] Talk radio show – other than in Spanish – that can say that.”
No Guests Needed
Interviews were once an integral part of his show, but as Leykis comments, “The film and record companies look down on radio and won’t provide us with `A’ list guests -- not even occasionally. My attitude about that is I really don’t want the third banana from the new WB sitcom as my guest; that’s who they want to give us. We can do a much more entertaining radio program without people like that. Frankly, it’s my job to do a great show without guests. I worked in smaller markets where you couldn’t get guests or phone calls. You produced your own show and ran your own board. I did all of that. Doing it myself is what I’ve been used to all these years.”
In Part Two of our exclusive Tom Leykis interview, the professor of “Leykis 101” shares his extremely candid thoughts about ratings, Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, radio personalities who want to venture into television and why he enjoys doing afternoons.
Look for this must-read this Thursday (11/20).
WHO: Tom Leykis
WHAT: “The Tom Leykis Show”
WHERE: Westwood One
WHEN: Monday – Friday 3 - 7pm (PT)/ 6-10pm (ET)
HOW MANY AFFILIATES: 40
Source: Los Angeles Radio People-11/17/2003.