For the second time this month, Premiere Networks is expanding its national lineup, this time to include Your Morning Show with Michael DelGiorno.
It has been a meteoric rise for DelGiorno at iHeartMedia. After exiting Cumulus Media Nashville news/talk station SuperTalk 99.7 WTN in March of last year, he joined the radio giant in October. When joining iHeartMedia, he was added initially at Talk Radio 98.3 WLAC in Nashville, while also being added to stations in his old radio markets like Tulsa and Oklahoma City.
And then markets continued. Ultimately, he landed on 25 iHeartMedia stations around the nation before the latest opportunity with Premiere Networks opened up.
For Michael DelGiorno, it’s been a whirlwind, but fruitful, year with the organization.
“It’s just been tremendous growth,” DelGiorno said of his show with the company. “And then enough time to pass for the ratings growth to be there. Then one day, I got a call that (Premiere Networks President) Julie Talbott wanted to visit with me, and it was a very Forrest Gump-like moment.”
He couldn’t have higher praise for the leadership at iHeartMedia, noting executives like Dan Endom, Chris Berry, and Brian Gann as reasons for why he’s in the position he is now.
“Everybody is so smart, so supportive, so good at what they do. Everybody’s intentions are the same. They’re talented. They’re a part of something bigger than themselves. And they love what they do, who they do it for, and who they do it with. So I’m in radio heaven. I’m fine if I die this way,” DelGiorno joked.
“I really haven’t processed very much. It’s almost surreal, but Julie (Talbott) is just the greatest. The notion of working with her and Chris (Berry) and Brian (Gann), the notion of setting the tone for the lineup with Glenn (Beck) and Clay (Travis) and Buck (Sexton) and Sean Hannity, and being at a place where Rush (Limbaugh) once called home for so many years, it’s just amazing,” he added. “I don’t know if there’s nothing above heaven, so I guess I’m just in the highest cloud of heaven.”
He added that he was blown away by the behind-the-scenes efforts and employees who help create great content daily has given him even more excitement to begin with the syndicator on Monday, October 14th.
Your Morning Show with Michael DelGiorno won’t be as focused on hard-hitting, big-picture topics from a conservative viewpoint as some of the other programs on the network. While he is an unabashed conservative, he knows there’s a time and a place for those topics. And, most days, it isn’t from 6-9 AM ET as people begin their days.
“I’ve always just been myself, and whatever happened happened for me. I think what’s validating is at this moment in time for radio, talk radio is at a crossroads. It’s either going to become a part of the problem or it can be a big part of the solution,” DelGiorno said. “It must return to being that bastion of trusted truth.
“So for us in the morning, we say things like ‘Starting your morning off right’, because who wants to wake up and be riled and provoked and beaten up? People want to wake up with good, old-fashioned morning radio. ‘Hey, this is a day nothing happened while you were sleeping,’ or if something happened while you’re sleeping, we’re back to intimate, friendly, warm relationships and information.
“And then we say things like we won’t tell you how to think. There’s enough narrative in the world going on right now. We have enough talking points being shoved down people’s throats. We like to make our goal first and foremost, to inform them, and then the second goal is to not tell them how to think, but give them a lot to think about and trust them to make the journey of understanding,” Michael DelGiorno continued.
“(And we want to) return talk radio to a conversation again, and stop with all the ego, the monologues, and just get back and give a show that belongs to them, and get back to informing, entertaining and being a part of their life. The fact that iHeart first and now Premiere Networks embraces that, that makes me very excited.”
From departing SuperTalk 99.7 WTN last year to now finding himself with a growing affiliates list on the national stage, Michael DelGiorno has taken it all in stride. And now that he’s made it to what many news/talk radio hosts would consider the pinnacle, he has extreme gratitude for the journey.
“I am grateful that it came one step at a time. “And if somebody would have just tapped me on the shoulder and done this, I’d have probably fainted,” he admitted. “I remember how thrilled I was when Sacramento came on board, when Memphis came on board when KFYI in Phoenix came on board, and there’s people behind all of these stations … without their validation, it’s too surreal. I’m going to need a little more time.
“When you win the lottery, I don’t know how long it sets in before you realize, ‘Oh, I don’t have to worry about that anymore.’ I’m just completely thrilled about what I do, who I do it for, and now, who I do it with. Tomorrow, the next day, I just keep getting home runs for them.”
Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
