Traditionally, most people who pursue a career as a radio host tend to set their sights on morning drive. But not everyone feels the call of an early alarm clock. For instance, Josh Klinger, afternoon host on iHeartMedia Rock WCHI (Rock 95.5) Chicago, found his groove in the afternoons. For him, playing Rock to help Chicagoans get home just feels right.
“I feel like I’m most at home doing afternoons plus I think you get the best of both worlds,” Klinger says. He’s talking about the momentum the station builds up during the day with The Morning Mosh Pit followed by midday host Walt Flakus. He believes it’s the strength of that lead-in that gives him the ability to fly solo. “I have always been a one-man show. And I really like it that way because of the connection I have with the listeners. That is the duo. The listener and me.”
Seizing the Moment
Klinger says leaving his night show at DC101 in Washington to take over afternoons at Rock 95.5 was a dream come true, even if it did come at an awkward moment because the station launched in the winter of 2020. “It was in the middle of COVID, and when we originally moved to Chicago it was a ghost town. It was like an episode of The Walking Dead,” Klinger remembers. But the strangeness of the moment also created opportunity. “We started Rock 95.5 as a grassroots movement in the middle of a pandemic. We had a real opportunity and have taken advantage of it to forge friendships with listeners.”
And he isn’t throwing the word friendship around lightly. “I realize it sounds so cliché, but when I’m at home talking to my wife I’ll say something like ‘Beer Dave invited us up to his neighborhood this weekend.’ She’ll just smile and say, ‘Is Beer Dave your friend, or your listener?’ And I have to think because he’s a listener, but listeners are my friends.”
Postcards and Personal Connection
That feeling of friendship led Klinger to a unique way of cementing his relationship with listeners, inspired by his father. “He taught my brothers and I to always write thank-you notes to our grandparents when they would give us stuff. And he would hound us. ‘Hey, Grandma Klinger wants to know if you received the gift,'” was a common refrain according to Klinger. “So, my dad would get us stationery and stamps, and we would write and send notes. That has always stuck with me.”
That led to Klinger creating postcards that say “Together We Rock” next to his show logo. “If I have a pretty good interaction with a listener, I get their address, and I pop a thank you note into the mail,” he says. “Myself, I appreciate a handwritten note from anybody, personally or professionally. Especially in an era where I can text someone, it takes me twenty seconds to fill out a postcard and pop it in the mail, and I think it makes more of an impact. It kind of hammers home the idea that these are my people.”
Jan Jam: Celebrating Lives
It’s not just his father who has provided him with inspiration. His mother Jan’s recent passing also led to an idea for a unique segment on his show. A big fan of Rock music, his mom used to listen to him daily and would always text to let him know she had tuned in.
“I loved getting that text message. And when she died, I had the idea of doing a feature for my mom, where I would play a song for somebody that’s no longer with us,” Klinger explains. “And it was (Senior Regional Vice President) James Howard’s wife Marcy who said, ‘Why don’t you call it Jan Jam?’ and I was like, hell yes!”
Over time, he’s refined the feature to be more upbeat. “When I first started, I would let people call and tell their story and that turned into a little bit of a radio downer. The listeners don’t necessarily want to hear that every single day,” he says. “So, I really worked with James on it, because I wanted it to be a celebration of life.”
Now Klinger focuses the discussion with the caller on finding a great song to celebrate the person’s memory. For example, he might ask what the first concert they went to together was. “It’s quicker and keeps the ball rolling with a badass rock song. I’ve taken the focus off the doom and gloom.”
Music First, Personality Second
That interest in the listener’s lives goes far beyond just the Jan Jam. “I ask the listeners a lot of questions, I’m nosy as hell, but I find that opens people up to tell an interesting story,” Klinger says. “If you’re a truck driver, I want to know how you drive as far as you do without peeing. I’m joking, but I’m sort of not. Whether you’re an underwater welder or you’re a schoolteacher, I’m going to ask you fifty questions, because I’m genuinely interested in what you do.”
While Klinger works hard to incorporate listeners into the show in every way possible—including calls, texts, and talk back messages on the iHeartRadio app—he also works extremely hard to strike a balance between all that content and the music.
“That goes back to why I love afternoons. I get to sprinkle in my personality with content and some rock news framed in a palatable way where the music is still the show. I’m not naive enough to think that the listeners would ever want four hours of this guy.”
Fittingly for Chicago and its great restaurant scene, Klinger thinks of his show as being similar to going out for a good meal. “The music is the entrée and when you go to a restaurant that may be what you go for. But do you know what? The customer service, the interaction with the server, the dessert, and the cocktails are all important too. And I’d like to think that I’m all of those other things outside of the main plate.”
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