Michael Smerconish: Takin' it nationwide

Michael Smerconish

CBS Radio and Dial Global will syndicate The Michael Smerconish Show, currently heard weekday mornings (6:00-9:00AM, ET) on CBS Radio’s The Big Talker WPHT-AM in Philadelphia and WHFS-AM in DC. They’ll also launch an additional live program (Noon-2:00PM) beginning 2/2. WOR New York is the first new affiliate to sign on and will carry the two hour show 8:00-10:00PM each weekday night. Both shows are available to stations across the country.  Dial Global handles ad and affiliate sales.

Smerconish is an independent thinker who speaks the "bald" truth from just right of center. Once a Republican Presidential Appointee under George Bush Senior, he broke for Barack Obama in the 2008 general election after careful deliberation. A Philadelphia lawyer turned political commentator, Smerconish has also guest-hosted the Radio Factor for Bill O’Reilly and filled in for Glenn Beck on CNN Headline News. He has frequently appeared as a guest on David Gregory's Race for the White House, NBC.s Today Show, It's Your World with Neil Cavuto on Fox News, Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC, the Sean Hannity Show on ABC Radio Networks.

He’s the author of three books and he writes separate, weekly columns for both the Philadelphia Daily News and Philadelphia Inquirer. Together with Maureen Faulkner, Smerconish is the co-author of “Murdered by Mumia,” about the murder of her husband and Philadelphia cop, Danny Faulkner, 25 years ago. The killer is Abu Jamal Mumia who is currently in jail. 

More than just politics, Smerconish covers everything from government to pop culture: all-things-Obama, dating, marriage, kids, wine… and a little more politics of course. It’s a formula that has propelled the morning show on The Big Talker from a 2.4 to a 5.8 AQH Share with Men 35-54 (ARB Metro, FL’03, SP ’08) during his tenure. We asked:

Tell us how it feels to clear the mighty WOR in NYC.
You know, it’s funny because I’ve been told by so many people: prepare yourself for this being a distance run not a sprint and you’re going to start in small markets.  And then hopefully you’re going to get with bigger markets and then all of a sudden the WOR thing came through and I thought this is fabulous. I don’t mind telling you that long before there was a hint of a talk with WOR, it was one of my pre-sets in my own car.  The other thing is when I was doing all that guest hosting for O’Reilly, literally for years, I was most proud of the fact that I was in New York City.

Over Christmas I was with my family down in Florida – and this is just sort of another example of what brought home the significance of WOR – I had dinner one night with a good friend of mine who is the Miami Police Chief, John Timoney.  And Timoney used to be the number two in New York and used to be the Police Chief in Philly as well and he’s a real serious guy.  He said, ‘So what’s going on?’ And I said, you know maybe this syndication thing is about to pop and believe it or not maybe with WOR.  He told me a story about how, for a long time, police in New York City used to tune in to WOR on the day they would take the police exam and ‘OR would read out loud the answer key.  He said, ‘You have to be proud because there’s this affinity between cops and that radio station.’ Which for me, given all the charitable work I’ve done for Maureen Faulkner, was almost like an omen.  I thought, oh man this is really going to happen.

How do you envision your show changing as you add more and more affiliates? 
Hopefully very little, because I have always operated without an ideological or doctrinaire mindset.  I’m a Larry David type.  I operate on the Seinfeld principle.  My show is a show about nothing, and by that I mean it’s a show about everything.  All of those incidentals of life, sometimes front page and sometimes not, that people are really interested in.  Some days it’s a political subject and some days it’s shits and giggles.  What I’m most proud of is that I talk about everything.  There’s a little something for everybody and that’s what I’m going to keep doing because it’s worked for me in Philly.

When a CBS Radio talent gets syndicated they usually do it through their “sister” company Westwood One.  Why do you think that didn’t happen this time when it went to Dial Global instead?
I have for five years been Bill O’Reilly’s chief fill-in on the Radio Factor.  I believe that I am known to those affiliates.  Not uniformly, but I think that the relationships between the affiliates that carried O’Reilly or are still carrying O’Reilly and my work are pretty darn strong.  And I think Dial Global, to their credit, saw that as an opportunity and they were very anxious to do a deal with me because they knew I wanted to pursue those affiliates and they saw an opportunity.  So I think they’re street smart.  What I like about David Landau is the guy strikes me as sort of a mirror image of the way that I am.  And that is I’m smart, hopefully, an aggressive guy who sees opportunity and pursues it.  Westwood – I think they always made it clear they wanted a name.  Well okay, David Lee Roth was a name too, wasn’t he?

Indeed. 
Yeah.  You know everybody thinks they can do radio and people think, ‘Well how difficult can that be?’  You throw a switch and you talk and ‘ah this man or this woman they’ve been out there in the public spotlight, I’m sure they could do a radio show.’  Well that’s not the way it works.  It really didn’t occur to me until I got on the air this morning and I frankly spent the entire program reminiscing with my audience and playing old sound clips.  Many of them are just hideous radio, but they are me over time.  It took me a long time to realize I’ve been doing this a while.  I am a radio guy and there are a lot of people getting into the market who are not radio people.

You can’t just jump in that chair. 
It’s the mindset, ‘Get us a name.’  Well, Smerconish is a mouthful.  It might not be a recognizable name, but I believe I know how to do a radio show.

What are your predictions for 2009 and the Obama era?
People wanted to read into my Obama endorsement.  All sorts of political objectives and conspiracy theories and a whole bunch of wackiness.  And in truth, for me when I looked at this guy, the attraction was competence.  It didn’t matter so much to me that he was conservative or that he was liberal.  What mattered to me was that he appeared to be intellectually honest, a smart guy, and a breath of fresh air.  So I’m pretty optimistic, I really am.  I mean I’m worried as hell about the economy, but I’m pretty optimistic about what effect he’s going to have.  I think that he’s going to improve the psyche of people at home and abroad in this country.  I have a lot of optimism as we enter the New Year, I really do.  I’m ready for a change myself.

It’s true—we need a little optimism here.  A lot of people I know are just not turning on the TV news anymore.  They can’t take it anymore.  It’s just economy, economy, lost jobs, lost jobs, etc. 
My wife is a realtor and one of the things that she’s convinced me of is that the psychological factors are huge.  If people are turning on that television everyday and hearing that the real estate market blows, well then the real estate market does blow.  Not necessarily because of interest rates or product, but because mentally that’s what everybody has been led to believe.  Somebody asked her, ‘When’s the real estate market going to turn around?’ and I thought she had a good reply.  She said, ‘When Matt Lauer says it is turning around.’  You know what I mean?

It’s really doing some damage and there was a survey done recently that 77% Americans think the media has a good part of the reason why things are so bad.  They blame the media.
I’m part of that 77%.

How is your book “Murdered by Mumia” doing? 
As a lawyer on a pro-bono basis – meaning not for charge – I represented Maureen Faulkner for about 15 years.  She’s the widow of the cop who was murdered by Mumia.  The guy not only became a poet, he published books.  He published articles, he delivers radio and commencement addresses.  I mean, if you can believe it, literally colleges have had him as a commencement speaker on audio tape while he has been behind bars.  And I was drawn to her years ago because I thought she needed an advocate and I had access to a microphone.  A close relationship then began and for years I would say to her ‘You have to write a book, you have to write a book’ and she just wasn’t in a position to get it done.  After I wrote two books I came to her and I said, ‘I will write your book.  I won’t accept a dime.  We’ll dedicate all the proceeds to murder victims’ children,’ and we published the book a year ago.  It made the New York Times Best Sellers List and it comes out in paperback within the next 30 days.  I’m really proud of the fact that we got paid – I got paid frankly.  I got paid $200,000 and gave every penny of it to her charity.  It’s been one of the better parts of my life oddly enough.  In other words, such good feeling has come through the silver lining of that case that I’m proud of my association with her and with the book.  It’s been very controversial.  It’s a subject that has never stopped making me a magnet for hate mail, oddly enough, from certain folks.  But I’m passionate about it.

What would you like to say to potential affiliates that are considering picking up your program across the nation? 
I would like to say that I hope they won’t be swayed by this mindset of bringing household names into their homes and their cars simply because they are household names.  In other words, I think I’m a radio guy and I believe that for more than a decade I’ve established a track record of being able to deliver a good, entertaining product.  And to do it in an unconventional manner – meaning not through ideology, not through doctrinaire politics, not through hanging up and being rude to callers or trying to indoctrinate.  I’m a guy who I think is engaging in working with headlines, but not ‘beat me over the head with a political point of view.’  On my program you are likely to hear everyone from the President, because I’ve had the last five of them on my show, to Bono, who has also been on the program.  Or to Nelson Demille, who’s an author, or to Cole Hamels, you know, the ace Phillies pitcher.  It really covers the spectrum.  I think that’s how I’d sum it up.

--Carl Marcucci

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