Adam Copeland is Thinking About The Modern Audience at KNBR

The Bay Area has watched Adam Copeland grow up. That means more than just spending his entire life in Northern California. Sports fans in the area have literally heard Copeland start and stop phases of his life on air at KNBR.

He started at the station as an intern way back in 2009. Now, 15 years later, he is the boss. He took over as the station’s program director in November.

Kevin Graham left the station two months earlier. Copeland did not immediately view it as an opportunity. He just wanted to make sure the people who would be hiring the next programmer knew what KNBR really needed, so he made it a point to keep Larry Blumhagen, Cumulus’s San Francisco market manager, and Bruce Gilbert, the company’s head of sports programming, informed.

“So after about eight weeks, I pitched an idea about bringing a Warriors show to KNBR. We didn’t have the Warriors. It was just an idea I had and there was no leader,” Copeland said. “So my market manager says, ‘Stop this idea.’ And he takes his glasses off and he goes, ‘Do you want to be the PD?’ It stopped me dead in my tracks. I said, ‘Do I want to be? I don’t know that I want to be,’ I said, I think I’m a good guy for the job. I don’t know that the job is right for me. I don’t know that that’s what I want to do.’”

After a round of formal interviews, which included meeting with another candidate to see if that person may be a better fit, Copeland got the job. It would be a new phase of his career in the one place that has always been his professional home.

From the outside, it’s easy to look at what has gone on with KNBR and Adam Copeland in the last 18 months and think it has been a rocket ride. He moved from the early mornings to afternoon drive in 2022 and by the end of 2023, he was everyone’s boss.

It doesn’t quite feel that way to Copeland. He’s the one that was living every day of that 15-year grind. He learned from his father that there is truth in the old saying “you fake it till you make it.” Maybe that is what he was doing on his way to his current job.

“When I was sitting in this chair a couple weeks ago in my office, I thought, ‘Well, I faked it too hard.’ Like, now I’m here,” he says.

Sure, it feels like an accomplishment, but now Copeland has to watch the teams he grew up rooting for with half of his brain focused on the action and the other working out strategy. Case in point, he is happy to see his 49ers capture another NFC title, but it also means that he is responsible for securing the details of the station’s visit to Radio Row in Las Vegas. And, by the way, he didn’t give up his on-air role. He has to find time to prep for the afternoon show in there too.

“It’s a long day every day,” he says. “It’s a stressful day, but it’s a toy factory. We’re talking sports and we’re hanging with buddies, and it’s a blast, dude, I don’t know, that I want to be PD forever, but it’s definitely something that has already been a really cool and fulfilling part of my life.”

The KNBR staff is filled with names and voices Copeland grew up idolizing and rooting for. They became co-workers and now, they are supportive of him as their boss. Copeland wants people like Greg Papa and Tom Tolbert to be themselves. It’s what made KNBR the legendary station that it is. 

That doesn’t mean change is off-limits though. The station is locked in a ratings battle with 95.7 The Game after all. 

After years of going without phone calls, Copeland says the station is giving a voice to listeners again and the listeners are ready any time the phone number or text line is given out on the air. It’s been a real difference-maker.

Some of the changes have not been as fun. Late last year, cuts across Cumulus hit KNBR particularly hard. Copeland was forced to deliver bad news to FP Santangelo, who was hosting at night, and Paul McCaffrey, who had co-hosted the morning show since 2005. They were out. So was morning producer Eric Engle.

Copeland says breaking the news to those guys was one of the hardest moments of his career. He doesn’t like admitting that though, because at the end of the day, he is still at KNBR. No matter how hard it was for him, he knows it was so much worse for Santangelo, McCaffrey and Engel. It was something he realized before he even had to do the job.

“It was terrible. It was awful,” he says. “The angst around it, the nerves around it, the lack of sleep, the appetite stuff. It was really frustrating and upsetting because I was an intern here. I’ve known a lot of these guys for a long time.”

There were no phone calls to his mentors seeking advice, no long conversations about how to handle the worst part of being a boss. Instead, Copeland talked to each person who was losing a job man-to-man and let them know the situation. He says he is still in touch with all three. 

It wasn’t just the people that would be leaving. The staff still at KNBR needed answers too. Copeland knew that they would want to see that there was a plan going forward, that these weren’t just budget cuts for the sake of saving money.

Several producers got promotions. Copeland made it clear that there was a new vision for the station. KNBR had to evolve from a radio station to a media company that included a radio station.

There was external criticism. He didn’t stop his staff from airing their own feelings publicly. But in the end, he knew there was enough buy-in for his vision to be executed successfully. It’s why he can focus on the future now.

He’s thinking about how to reach the modern audience. Copeland makes it a point to say that he doesn’t talk about reaching a “young” audience, because even his mom is streaming audio from her phone now when she is in the car. It’s something he wants his bosses and his air staff to understand.

“Nobody’s flipping on the radio and saying, “Dude, I like this guy. I’m going to listen every day!’ What happens is they’ve got to see a YouTube clip or something on social and they go, ‘That’s interesting. I’ll follow it.’ Then they check in regularly.”

His other focus is authenticity. He points to Rod Brooks, who he listened to on KNBR at night when he was younger. It mattered to Copeland that Brooks looked like him and lived where he lived. It meant that doing this was possible for Copeland when he got older.

It’s not just trying to find other minority sports talk talent. Copeland wants to find people who are not afraid to be themselves. He knows part of what stood out about him on air is that there aren’t a lot of Black people in the Bay Area who will drop everything to talk about the minutiae of baseball. He will.

It’s not just sports opinions and tastes either. He wants talent that listeners hear their own experiences in. 

“When I’m talking about a pizza place that I went to in my hometown in the East Bay of San Leandro, I mention that pizza place, because then a kid from San Leandro texts you and says, ‘Dude, I’ve been to that place!’ That’s how you gather that community,” he says. “It’s about representing the market you’re in and you’ve got to know where you are in order to do that.”

Maybe Copeland won’t be a program director forever. That’s the job right now though, and he isn’t going to half-ass it. He has given his full focus to every position he has held at KNBR and this one is no different. Was he faking it before? That’s hard to say, but he has made it now, and Adam Copeland is set on doing this his way.

Demetri Ravanos

Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.

You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.