Growing up in Indiana, Rob Kendall was an avid listener of Jeff Pigeon’s morning show on WIBC. He found Pigeon’s lively discussions and banter comforting and insightful.
However, it wasn’t just Pigeon who left an impression on Rob Kendall. He was also inspired by one of the greatest talk show hosts of all time, Rush Limbaugh, whose fearless and passionate commentary fueled Kendall’s dreams and aspirations. Kendall always dreamt of the day he would be heard on WIBC, the 50,000-watt powerhouse.
Rob Kendall, who previously served as a local elected official in Hendricks County, left politics to become a talk show host. His unique background allows him to provide a distinctive perspective on proposed laws and their impact on residents. This sets his show apart from other radio programs in and around the Indianapolis area.
Rob Kendall co-hosts the Kendall and Casey show on 93 WIBC with Casey Daniels. Daniels, who previously worked as a program director for Grand Rapids’ classic hits station 98.7 WFGR, has extensive industry experience but is relatively new to the news/talk genre.
Almost two years ago, Miriam Weaver, also known as “Mock” and formerly co-host of the Mock n’ Rob Show, announced her departure from WIBC, leaving the station in search of a replacement.
Although Rob Kendall admits that he may not have wanted a partner at first, he has come to appreciate Daniels’ professionalism and her ability to adapt to a new format.
During a conversation with Barrett News Media, Rob Kendall addressed the challenges of discussing political figures, such as former President Donald Trump, as a talk show host. He also talked about WIBC’s recent success as a live and local station tackling tough socioeconomic issues impacting the city of Indianapolis and how his transition from politics to radio makes Kendall and Casey a must-listen.
Ryan Hedrick: Lately, WIBC has experienced a notable increase in ratings. When it comes to your specific time slot, what do you believe has contributed to this achievement?
Rob Kendall: WIBC is a great local radio, so we give people things they can’t get anywhere else. When you look at the direction of the business, stations that continue to do well are stations that attract an audience because they give people something that you can’t get on the internet. And in terms of local talk, you’re just not going to find it the way you find it with WIBC.
RH: Some talk show hosts are hesitant to criticize former President Donald Trump because they fear losing their audience. What do you think about this? Do you think you will lose your audience if you are too hard on him?
RK: Once you start taking teams, you lose the trust of some of your audience. Our audience is different from some of the other audiences because we aren’t on anybody’s team. The only team we are on is the team of the listener, and there are areas where people like Donald Trump do well, and we talk about it. His foreign policy was phenomenal. You look at the peace in the Middle East and the areas where he made great strides, like North Korea; he deserves praise.
And then you at the stuff during COVID where he essentially printed five trillion dollars. He was a person who propped up Dr. Anthony Fauci. He was a guy who supported mandatory masking. You look at those things, and there is no defense for that. If you try to excuse it, you’re going to lose the trust of your audience.
RH: When did you start your career at WIBC?
RK: I started in December of 2016. I spent four years as a local elected official in Hendricks County, I was on the Brownsburg Town Council, and as you know, you can either be a pundit or a politician. You can’t be a pundit and a politician and so when my term was up, I decided talking about people was a lot more fun than being talked about so I ended up doing a local talk radio show for two years.
At that time, I ended up interviewing Donald Trump, and it caught the eye of WIBC, and they brought me in as a permanent fill-in guy. They hired me full-time as the producer for the Chicks on the Right in addition to the fill-in duties.
RH: How challenging was it for you to shift your career from a politician to a talk show host?
RK: I owned a radio station near Wilmington, North Carolina, so I had been in and around radio for a long time. That’s part of the reason I was intrigued by WIBC because I didn’t come at it from a radio perspective, even though I knew a lot about radio.
I spent a year as the Pharmacy Board Director for the State of Indiana under former Governor Mike Pence. I worked for a year in the State Auditor’s office, so I knew a lot about the inner workings of state government. And I learned a lot as an elected official about how the local government was run. So, we give a much different perspective than other shows because I’ve been there, and I’ve lived it.
RH: As a former legislator, how does your experience inform your analysis of proposed laws and their impacts on residents?
Rob Kendall: Unlike all of the other shows on WIBC, we solicit such a reaction from politicians because we call these people out because I’ve seen it from the inside. I know a lot of people that we’re talking about, and I know how they operate. That gives us a unique perspective in telling the people what’s happening.
If we’re talking about property taxes, I know about it because I cut it four years in a row as an elected official. If we’re talking about how the state government operates, I know because I saw it from the inside. We give people a viewpoint that they’re going to get nowhere else. There’s nobody on the radio in Indianapolis that has the background that I have.
RH: Talk about the differences between hosting a solo show and having a partner to banter with.
RK: I compare it to playing golf if you’re a professional golfer playing alone versus in the Ryder Cup. In the Ryder Cup, there are a lot of team events, and that’s a lot of fun, and you see a lot of incredible shots. You get some of the best golf in the world every two years at the Ryder Cup, but you must have a special skill set to do that versus doing radio by yourself; it’s like playing the PGA Tour each week. You’re hitting your ball; you know what you will do, whereas, at the Ryder Cup, you have to feed off the other person on your team.
And so, luckily, I have somebody like Casey [Daniels] who is a great professional; she’s been around a long time, and even though she had never done talk radio before, she picked up on it real quick. Casey is great at showcasing what I do well and putting me in a position to succeed because she is such a professional.
RH: How can you tell if your audience is enjoying a segment?
RK: You can’t explain it, but you feel it. This is going to sound weird, but I’ve been around this business long enough now that I can almost feel the audience’s energy. It’s not necessarily who leaves us a voicemail (Kendall and Casey play voicemails on the air during a regular segment), who comments on X (formerly Twitter), or who leaves comments in the YouTube chat; it’s almost like an extra sense where you can feel the audience, and so you know what topics are going to resonate.
You know where our audience is at, so when you get done, you’ll see whether you hit the ball out of the park.
RH: Americans have experienced unprecedented censorship from Big Tech. What is it like to work knowing you may fall victim to social media censorship?
RK: That’s the great thing about WIBC. There’s only one guy who can censor me, and his name is David Wood (WIBC Program Director). One of the great things about WIBC is that they allow us, whether it was Emmis Communications (previous owner) or Urban One (current owner), they allow to say what we think; they don’t tell us what topics to talk about.
They look at those ratings, and they say you guys are connecting with the audience, your broadcasters, your professionals, and we trust you to do your job. So, they let us go; they do not censor us.
RH: Do you have any plans to return to politics? What are your future plans?
Rob Kendall: I’m very retired from politics. When I was a kid, my dream was to be on WIBC. I grew up listening to Jeff Pigeon, Terri Stacey, and John Gillis, and my dream was to be on WIBC. Rush Limbaugh was there at the time when I was growing up. I’m exactly where I want to be, and I’ll keep showing up until the keycard stops working and the direct deposit stops showing up.
