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He’s the longest running and highest rated host on the New York dial. 710 WOR’s Mark Simone credits his success to the facts. “I never give my opinion,” he said. “You might listen and think I’m giving my opinion, but every sentence is a piece of information and hopefully a lot of insight.”
This year’s election is especially important to the Radio Hall of Fame host to make sure all the facts get out there. “That’s the most important, key expert inside information. Even the callers, if they got a great question or great point, perfect, but no opinions. Everything is a piece of information.”
Another way Simone keeps his show fact-based is by having experts on and not having politicians. “It’s fast and quick and right to the point,” he said. “You get a politician out and you say, ‘Senator, thank you for being here.’ And then he goes right into, ‘Well, thank you for having me. I enjoy being on here. It’s a great honor,’ but we don’t need all that. Just get right to the information.”
But he does have one exception, Donald Trump. “Because he’s a great, seasoned professional talker,” Simone said. “He’s a professional communicator.”
Another feature of Simone’s talk radio show which likely aids in his popularity, is no screaming, no yelling. “Some people try to stereotype talk radio as a bunch of screaming, angry [people]. [Our audience is] the most highfalutin executive audience you’ve ever seen.”
Simone noted of his audience, “Our show, our station has the highest per capita income audience of anything on the air, 41% of the audience are millionaires. That’s unheard of.”
But his show is not just for the wealthy. Simone is often stopped on the busy New York streets by listeners who love his show. “[One day I was out with a friend and a few listeners stopped to say hello] My friend said, ‘That’s amazing’ and I said, ‘Well, that happens a lot.’ And he said ‘No. I mean, did you notice the first driver was in an Aston Martin? The second car was a Maybach. That is some audience you have. So, the value of talk radio and political talk radio, you get a lot of smart people listening.”
Armed with the facts plus cool, calm, and collective on the airwaves, Simone believes his audience will head to the polls on November 5th fully informed. “Hopefully they’re heading to the polls,” he said. “That’s a very important point. Don’t write in a ballot. Don’t send in a ballot. Don’t mail in a ballot. There is a little bit of fraud, even though both sides acknowledge it, the Democrats will say it’s about 1 or 2%. Some people argue it’s 3%, but it all happens with those mail in ballots. They once did a massive study. Jimmy Carter was the head of the committee and that’s the one conclusion they made. Mail-In voting is the biggest source of fraud anywhere.”
An area of concern for this year’s election for many, including Simone, is Big Tech’s influence in the election. “They did steal the election legally. Mark Zuckerberg figured out there’s 50,000 votes in 12 different counties. If you move those votes, you could actually change the election. That’s perfectly legal to get to those 50,000 people [to change their vote] that cost them $500 million. [Zuckerberg] found that in his petty cash drawer and paid it.”
With Big Tech trying to sway voters one way, Simone pointed out President Trump is holding his rallies in the very same counties where he believes voters can be swayed. “They’re getting your address, your email, your phone number. The one in New York, 16,000 registered. 50,000 were turned away. That’s 66,000 voters. They got the email, everything. That’s what they’re going to do. The same kind of ground game. At election time, they’ll get to those people, make sure they get to the polls and get those voters out. That’s why each rally is put in a spot where they’re trying to move voters to a certain place.”
Simone’s love of radio, and news, started at a young age. “I first started hanging around radio stations making a pest of myself, and I started as a caller,” he said. “A lot of great talk show hosts started as callers to talk shows. If you’re really good at it, at some point the host invites you down to the station. So, I started doing every little odd thing you could do hanging around, learning everything I could learn.”
Listening to radio and watching television day and night, Simone turned his passion into a grandiose career. “My mother would yell at me and scream at me about the TV and the radio. ‘Turn that off. Do your homework,’ and I said, ‘This is my homework,’ and it was.”
Simone is also on TV often, making appearances almost everywhere from MSNBC to Fox News and even hosting PBS specials on music and the arts. But when it comes to breaking news Simone believes there’s nothing better than radio. “That’s one thing about live breaking news on TV. When the story breaks, the [anchor] could read the headline, but you got to wait till they set up a camera. You got to wait till they have the graphics. [That’s not the case in radio].”
Most recently, Simone broke the news of the indictment of New York City Mayor Eric Adams live on his show. “I’m seeing it across the screen. [I was] in the middle of something else but I could go right to it and start describing [the breaking news] in detail. I had a lot of inside sources. I knew a lot of stuff. So immediately the coverage was faster than anything television could ever pull off and in great detail.”
For those who’ve been bitten with the media bug Simone says before looking at any other part of the industry, “Why wouldn’t you get into radio? It’s the best medium of all. It’s the most intimate. It has the most perfect delivery system of any medium at all. I don’t care where you are, you turn it on, it’s there.”
Once you are in radio, Simone suggests young people need to start developing their sources. “Just get to know everybody,” he said. “All the top sources are people that work in government. I’m trying not to say who they are but get information out of them. After a while, they’ll see [you know how to use] whatever they tell you properly. You won’t take advantage. If somebody leaks you something really big, you know how to cover it.”
Most importantly Simone notes, you have to protect your sources. “You gotta know how to use the information carefully,” Simone said. “Completely cover up the trail where it came from. Just develop a huge network of sources and sometimes I don’t have the network, but I know who does.”
Lastly, he said, “When you first get into the business, hang around with much older people. If you’re 23 you tend to hang around with all the other 23-year-olds, hang around with the old veterans ’cause they will teach you everything. You learn everything.”
Krystina Alarcon Carroll is a news media columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. She has experience in almost every facet of the industry including: digital and print news; live, streamed, and syndicated TV; documentary and film productions. Her prior employers have included NY1 and Fox News Digital and the Law & Crime Network. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.
