“Where do people go to geek out about podcasts?” asked Product Hunt co-founder Ryan Hoover in an October episode of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz’ podcast, a16z. Perhaps the best example to answer Ryan’s question comes from an unsuspecting audience: listeners of “The Tony Kornheiser Show”.
The show’s host needs no clarification; after all, his name is in the title, and to sports fans and beyond Tony Kornheiser needs no introduction. Mr. Tony – as his legion of listeners refer to him – himself describes the show as “nominally” a sports show. While the show airs in the DC market via ESPNRadio from 10-12 AM on weekdays, it is also available immediately at the conclusion of each episode via podcast. The station is reticent to disclose any information of how many listeners consume the show live versus in the podcast form. However a source familiar with the show says that “as many as 100 thousand” people download the show daily in podcast form.
The program has been airing for 23 years from Mr. Kornheiser’s adopted hometown of Washington, DC, and follows a predictable structure. An introduction usually talking about a noteworthy event from the previous day, then a guest spot, followed by the news, then a preview of that day’s “Pardon the Interruption” TV show (co-hosted by Mr. Kornheiser) with producer Matt Kelliher. The second hour of the show opens with another guest spot, followed by “Old Guy Radio” – an opportunity for Mr. Kornheiser and his co-hosts to discuss whatever topic they wish, another news segment, and finally closed out by reader mail.
The reader mail was for twenty years, opened by a song introducing the segment recorded by regular co-host Gary Braun. In 2013, Mr. Kornheiser held a contest for listeners, or “littles” as they refer to themselves (Mr. Kornheiser is the “Big”) to submit their own mailbag song. Loyal listener Jerry Negrelli was one of the first to submit such a song, now referred to as “jingles”, and in the years since says “I have done well over 250 and have lost count at this point.” It didn’t take long for others to follow suit, and in March of 2014 Mr. Negrelli took the lead on curating all listener submitted songs to his Kickstarter funded TKJingles.com. To date, Mr. Negrelli says “littles submit 10-15 new songs every week.”
Because “The Tony Kornheiser Show” airs five times a week for about nine months out of the year, there are hundreds of jingles that never make the show. Mr. Negrelli’s website is a platform where all submitted jingles can be played and replayed, with an upvote feature that allows fans to promote their favorite tunes. With the Kickstarter funds, Mr. Negrelli also started his own podcast to feature jingles that aren’t played on “The Tony Kornheiser Show”. Mr. Negrelli’s show, The TKJingles Podcast, also features guests who are often some of the littles whose names and voices have become recognizable by the listeners, as well as co-hosts from “The Tony Kornheiser Show”. Even the man responsible for this cult following, Tony Kornheiser himself, appeared on Mr. Negrelli’s show once.
The strength of Mr. Kornheiser’s audience is exhibited not only by the volume of jingles his listeners submit, but also by the amount of mail he receives. The amount of mail that show producer Marc Sterne, or “Nigel” as he is better known, sorts through daily has been talked about on-air as being several inches high. According to Mr. Kornheiser, the emails have to be “smart” to make the show. Daily listener Graham Van Hook says he has submitted “a couple of dozen emails that haven’t made the air.”
There exists another medium for listeners to commune and chat amongst themselves about the show, thanks to listener Bill Lehecka. In 2005, Mr. Lehecka created a message board for listeners to discuss minutia about the show as it is happening in real-time. A typical show will get several dozen messages in a thread, and most users have in the tens of thousands of posts over the years.
In the same a16z podcast referenced earlier, successful podcaster Roman Mars discussed “intimacy” as being a primary factor to gaining a podcast audience. He expanded on that by saying “you need to get people interested in listening to the host talk about boring stuff.” Despite being a show with a diverse set of regular hosts and guests including Chuck Todd, Tim Kurkjian, James Carville and Rachel Nichols, “The Tony Kornheiser Show” audience feeds off that boring stuff. The listener mail that often makes the show are often the ones that poke fun at Mr. Kornheiser, talking about his route to work, Uber experiences, and shopping at Nordstrom’s.
As a reward for getting their mail read on air, littles receive a “TK” bumper sticker in return. Mr. Kornheiser has read several examples of littles who write into the show exclaiming their excitement for running into a fellow little with the bumper sticker. Co-hosts and guests have talked about littles stopping them in the street not to fawn over their celebrity status, but to let them know that they love listening to them on the show. Huffington Post editor Howard Fineman discussed this phenomena recently when he threw out the first pitch at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, noting the amount of signs in the stands referencing his appearances on Mr. Kornheiser’s show.
Going back to Mr. Mars’ appearance on the a16z podcast, he said the most successful “shows are the ones propelled by online communities.” There is no better example of an online community coming together than the TKJingles Live event hosted this past summer. Another initiative from the mind of Mr. Negrelli, TKJingles Live was designed to be a meeting place for littles to meet one another and sing their favorite jingles. When co-hosts of “The Tony Kornheiser Show” got wind of it, they promoted the event on air for months prior.
Mr. Negrelli said that “150 people registered for the event and folks came in from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, DC, Virginia, Georgia, Minnesota, and Alaska!” Despite being non-committal on attending up to the day prior, Mr. Kornheiser not only showed up, but also stayed for the duration of the event. He took pictures with, had drinks with, and made a heartwarming speech to his legion of littles.
After two plus years since the first jingle, the groundswell of content submitted by littles grows more and more in the most creative of ways. It all has been embraced by Mr. Kornheiser, and the delight in his voice is often palpable when reacting to a clever email or jingle. Above all the guests, insight and news he features, Mr. Kornheiser often says that the littles are the best part of doing his show.