Over 30 years on KFI, Los Angeles, the John and Ken Show became as iconic to Southern Californians as the Hollywood Sign and the Dodgers. When Ken Chiampou announced his radio retirement this past November you couldn’t help but wonder what would become of his career-long partner, John Kobylt.
John announced he’d fly solo but to some of us that sounded like bravado. You don’t replace half of a superstar talk team with the remaining half and expect the same audience chemistry and response.
But that’s exactly what he did.
JK: Things have been going remarkably well. We (Ken and I) had a good last three months and it continued through the first four months of this year. Fortunately, it didn’t skip a beat. The audience stuck with us.
Earlier this week, Kobylt told me outside of missing Ken’s company on and off the air the big difference is the added show prep work.
JK: The structure of my workday, all the stuff off the air, is a lot different, somewhat more stressful than anything on the air. But off air, Ken used to do a lot of work. He was like the super producer on the show. Ray Lopez is our producer, but Ken would get up early in the morning, 6 a.m., and gather up a couple of dozen headlines and send it to Ray and me. He originally did that because I had three little boys aged five and under.
So he said, look, you are really tired in the morning. I’m awake, so why don’t I get things started? And it was true. I had to make the guys’ breakfast and take them to school. By the time I got home, it was after nine o’clock and Ken had already been up three hours. So he got the first rundown sent to us and I could see what he found. And then I could go and do my own search.
He took a lot of what I would say is the obvious headlines of the day and I would look for the longer pieces, the more magazine-style pieces, editorials, or columns to see different ways of looking at issues because I did not want to do the same kind of show that everybody else does.
DW: And now you do it all.
JK: And now I’ve gotta do it all. You know, I get up at 5:30 in the morning and I’ve got to send out the first run of headlines, then I find the extra stuff that I really like to talk about. I guess the big difference is this is all what I’m interested in. You know, this is not through Ken’s lens.
DW: So, has your subject matter changed at all now that you’re doing more of the pre-producing?
JK: No. I mean, I’ve always looked at doing a talk show like, uh, did you ever work at a music station? Top 40 station?
DW: Oh, yeah.
JK: Well that that’s what we did too. And I always looked at it as you play the hit records. After all the time out here in LA, over 30 years, I know what the hit records are. I know what ignites the KFI audience.
I explain it to people this way: there is a circle of things I’m interested in, there’s a circle of things the audience is interested in. Where we overlap is what I do on the show. I don’t do stuff I don’t care about. There are a lot of issues that are beaten to death on other talk shows that I just don’t care about. And I’ll, I’ll say that on the air: ‘I’ve got a big story. I don’t care.’ And you know, there’s stuff that the audience doesn’t care about.
DW: How do you figure out what an entire audience cares about?
JK: Well, after all this time, you know, KFI has this audience for a reason. And since I’ve lived on the inside for over 30 years with it, you know… I hate the word family, but like, you know how your friends and family think, right? And they know how you think, the people closest to you in life.
DW: In LA there’s a lot of stuff going on locally, politically, statewide…
JK: Yeah, you know, (in California) we live under a communist system.
(We both laugh.)
JK: That’s what it is. I mean, you just quickly go through the issues. The homelessness is so out of control and it’s gross, disgusting. Homelessness. You know, these are not poor people down on their luck that just got evicted from the house.
No, these are lifelong drug addicts, criminals, and mental patients for the most part, the street people that you see. And they’re terrorizing everybody, absolutely terrorizing, everybody’s afraid. So that’s a real big deal, you know, and gas here is two dollars more a gallon than it is in most other states. And people see that every day, you know, every few blocks. So it’s that kind of stuff we’re living within California that nobody is living within any other state.
There’s a set of circumstances here that are unique inside the borders of California. And people know I’m here going through exactly the same thing that they’re going through. And that’s a big part of the bond.
KFI Program Director Robin Bertolucci is effusive in her praise of John’s continuing solo success:
RB: Super proud of the great trajectory for The John Kobylt Show! John has a pep in his step and has been super engaged and excited about the show. That comes through loud and clear. The John Kobylt Show is live, local, and focused on the biggest issues impacting Southern California and it is working beautifully! Hats off to the whole team- John Kobylt, Captain of the ship, Producer Ray Lopez, board op extraordinaire and the show’s social media maven Eric Sklar, and news with Debra Mark!
The words fearless and honest are overused in our business. Some very good talk talents have walked into major market stations and crumbled from fear and insecurity. Ask me, I’ll tell you. We try to be what we think we’re supposed to be rather than who we are.
John Kobylt is a nice guy who can’t possibly relate. He’s as honest and fearless as they come.
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The John Kobylt Show can be heard on KFI live weekdays live from 1-4 pm Pacific Time. See my separate YouTube interviews with John and Ken, when their split was first announced in November 2023.
Yeah!! Yeah!! Still hard to hear the phrase “The John Kobylt Show” after years of “The John and Ken Show” -but (and no offense meant to Ken) it’s almost like Ken never left. John is surrounded with really good people and while he’s carrying 99 percent of the weight of making this show work, he definitely feels like most of his devoted audience feels. California is a dream location, but it’s being whittled apart by so many things that it takes someone like John to point out the lunacy that exists in so many aspects of life in SoCal. Some talk show hosts over the years have begun to put their self-importance ahead of the listener, but day after day I find John’s a hero to all of us. If his words could fix everything that’s wrong we’d be in a much better place. Gee, do I sound like a fan? I hope so. KFI has been a unique radio station in the USA and fights daily to maintain its relevance in the storm of mediocrity on the radio in 2024. Thanks to Dave Williams for telling it like it is.