Mark Simone isn’t slowing down. After more than 40 years in New York talk radio, most hosts start looking toward retirement — but Simone is doing the opposite, expanding his 710 WOR program from two hours to three, moving his start time from 10 AM up to 9 AM.
The change didn’t come from Simone himself. He’s made clear he’d actually prefer a shorter program, not a longer one. Instead, the expansion grew out of listener demand and, even more so, pressure from the sales side of the station.
“Well, if it were up to me, it’d be a one-hour show. I wouldn’t have to get up so early,” said Simone. “What was behind it? Listener demand, but most of all, sales demand — apparently advertisers do very well on the show, and how those sales departments are, they would like to have more breaks. They had advertisers waiting to get on and they don’t like to keep them waiting. If we don’t expand the show, they’ll push the breaks longer. We were having breaks that were 6 or 7 minutes, which we would fight against. But the compromise? We add an hour to the show. We get 3 more breaks that way, and everybody’s happy, and the listeners seem to love it.”
Advertiser demand outpacing available airtime is a good problem for any show to have, and Simone knows it puts him in select company.
“We’re doing very well ratings-wise, and apparently really well sales-wise, advertising-wise,” Simone said. “If we have sponsors waiting, that’s a good sign. The last person who had that problem was Imus.”
How the Extra Hour Changes His Prep and His Mornings
Filling three hours instead of two isn’t a heavy lift for Simone, since he says he routinely runs out of time before he runs out of topics. He’s also no stranger to the format, having filled in for three- and four-hour shows throughout his career.
“Content wise, it’s very easy,” the 710 WOR host shared. “In fact, at the end of every show, I would end up with a ton of stuff I never got to. So it’s much easier, content wise, to do 3 hours than two. I filled in for Sean Hannity a lot — that’s a 3 hour show, so I’ve done it many times. I used to fill in for Imus, like 10 weeks a year — that’s a 4 hour show. And as they pointed out, everybody else on the station does 3 hours: Curtis and Larry, Sean, Jimmy Failla — everybody’s doing 3 hours.”
Show prep, similarly, doesn’t require a major overhaul. Simone treats his research as a constant, ongoing process rather than something confined to the hours before airtime, and he leans on a sharp memory to pull it all together once he’s on the air.
“No, I got plenty of topics. There’s no show prep, but it’s just a 24/7 show prep — watching everything, reading everything, calling everybody who knows anything,” said Simone. “And luckily, I have a photographic memory. I can remember it all. Right before you go on air, just quickly draw a roadmap of where you want to go topic-wise.”
The earlier start time is the bigger adjustment. Simone has built his life around late nights, so trading that extra hour of sleep is the real trade-off of the expansion — even if he’s found a way to keep it in perspective.
“Well, you know me, I’m up — my whole life has been going out every night, staying out very late, so getting up an hour earlier is not the most thrilling thing for me, but I’ll get used to it,” Simone said. “I was reading some message board where somebody was commenting on all of this, and the guy said, ‘Wow, a 15-hour work week — what a trooper.’ So that kind of put it in perspective.”
Why Simone Sees 710 WOR as the Right Home
Beyond the schedule change, Simone’s extension speaks to something deeper: his belief that 710 WOR remains the strongest talk lineup in the market.
He points to the surrounding hosts as proof the station has built something worth being part of.
“It’s the highest quality talk station in New York,” the 710 WOR host shared. “We got all the best talk shows, from Clay (Travis) and Buck (Sexton) to Sean Hannity, Jimmy Failla, who’s now with us — one of the funniest, most interesting shows on radio — and Curtis (Sliwa) and Larry (Mendte) every morning. It’s just real high quality, very, very smart talk.”
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.