When Charlie Harger was five or six years old, he became enamored with listening to KIRO Newsradio. A few decades later, he finds himself as the host of Seattle’s Morning News.
Harger took over the main anchor chair from longtime host Dave Ross and his co-host Colleen O’Brien after the duo exited the Bonneville Seattle news/talk station late last year.
It was a full-circle moment for Harger, who said he can remember listening to station as far back as 1980.
“I’ve always wanted to work here and be here, and never really thought I would wind up in this position, in a really high-profile, morning host role,” he said. “But here I am, and it’s been just so incredible. The staff has been super supportive. I’ve been working behind the scenes here for three years, and I kind of figured my life as somebody on air was a thing of the past.”
Charlie Harger joined KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM in 2021 as the outlet’s News Director after previously spending 19 years as an anchor and reporter at crosstown KOMO, now known as Northwest Newsradio. And while he called the staff and audience “super welcoming,” replacing a legend like Dave Ross — who had been with the station for 47 years — is an intimidating proposition.
“This is a brand that people across the country know, especially in the industry. This is a heritage station and this is where people want to be,” he shared. “We have just such a long line of prominent morning show hosts … So the idea that I get to do this, it really is something special.”
He said that he thought his role as News Director was going to be his final landing spot, with the days of being on-air behind him. But when the opportunity arose, he was prompted to try out for the spot by KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM Program Director Bryan Buckalew.
“News Director was really what I thought my career was and I would have been so, so happy to do that. But this opening, I hadn’t even really applied for it. Our program director basically said ‘You really should try out for this role.’ I’m glad he did. We were able to get a really great news director to take over after me. He’s actually my old news director, as well. He’s doing an awesome job, and it really does feel like we’re firing on all cylinders.”
KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM tabbed Frank Lenzi to serve as its News Director to fill the slot vacated by Harger taking the morning host position. Lenzi, like Harger, came to the station after a long tenure at Northwest Newsradio.
Dave Ross and Gregg Hersholt — the two previous hosts of the venerable morning news show — have each been endorsers of Harger’s appointment to the position. The pair each voiced liners as a way to introduce the new host to the audience lending their credibility to Harger.
“Dave really gave a great endorsement of me to the audience. That’s something I’ll never forget. We have Dave doing liners for the show, so there he is a couple times a morning introducing me. But we also have Gregg Hersholt doing liners for the show and introducing me,” he said, noting that it’s the “Mount Rushmore of KIRO” telling listeners to trust him as he begins his tenure.
It’s easy to enter a situation and try to reinvent the wheel. But Seattle’s Morning News has what Charlie Harger described as “good bones,” so there wasn’t much that needed to be tweaked. Harger, however, is working on putting his own stamp on the show, which involves a community-focused approach.
“I think the one thing I’ve been trying to do is get out in the field and report from the scenes of stories and interview people in the field, which I think is really helpful, especially here in the Seattle area,” said Harger. “Unlike a lot of the country, there has been an uptick in violent crime here, and so not just doing crime stories, but talking with crime victims, I think, and kind of speaking with the community and advocating for the community, that’s something I really enjoy the opportunity to do.
“But also coming in and doing so many of the same things that have been done before, but I might just approach them a little bit differently. What I decided very early on was I did not want to be a copy of Dave, because the audience would be able to sniff that out. I have a different personality, kind of a different take, but I also appreciate and embrace the heritage of this show and what really sets it apart from anything else in the Seattle market.”
Seattle’s Morning News airs from 5-9 AM on the Bonneville International news/talk station.
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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.
