The first time I met Dee Snider, we were running a blood drive at WMRQ/Radio 104 in Hartford. He shook my hand, and before long I was building my first morning show around him.
There was one catch. When I asked my boss how I was supposed to build the rest of the team, he said, “You’re going to have to figure it out with the money you’ve already got. There’s no more money left.”
So I took the pieces still in the building — a producer, the morning news anchor, the overnight board op — and crossed my fingers.
That’s usually how this job works. Nobody hands you a dream cast and an open checkbook. You get a centerpiece, a budget, and whoever’s down the hall. Which is exactly why programmers should think like casting directors.
Ensembles Beat All-Stars
A collection of good voices isn’t a show. An ensemble is a group of people who understand their roles and how those roles fit the conversation. They know when to speak up, when to shut up, and who’s driving the ship.
When I got to Portland, we decided to build the morning show around Tanner as the centerpiece. That didn’t make anyone else less important. He just needed somebody to play in the sandbox with him, and finding that person became the whole job. By the time I left, it was Tanner & Drew. The station later added Laura Hall, and when Drew left in 2025, it didn’t go shopping outside the building. It promoted Casey “Beefwater” Bay, its promotions director and a longtime regular on the show, to co-host. Tanner, Laura & Casey has since expanded to five more iHeartMedia markets. The cast changed, but the show kept working because everyone who joined understood whose sandbox it was.
Five Rules for Casting Your Show
Cast for chemistry. Someone can deliver a great audition alone and struggle when three other voices are in the room. Solo tapes tell you about talent. They don’t tell you about chemistry. So at the very minimum, take your finalists to lunch with your centerpiece. Watch how they interact, both in conversation and as human beings. Who listens? Who interrupts? Who makes the table laugh, and who makes someone else funnier? If they can’t carry a conversation over a burger, they won’t carry one at 6:15 in the morning.
Give every person a purpose. Who drives the conversation? Who challenges it? Who spots the absurdity? The strongest shows let those roles grow out of real personalities. If you assign someone a role that doesn’t match who they are, listeners will hear the act.
Look beyond the résumé. Radio experience matters, but it isn’t everything. Curiosity, timing, storytelling, and the ability to listen deserve just as much attention in an audition. Some of the best pieces you’ll ever work with won’t be polished talent. They’ll be people already in the building with something worth developing.
Don’t cast copies of yourself. It’s tempting to hire people who laugh at what you laugh at and think the way you think. Resist it. Different experiences and perspectives give a show more places to go. If everyone agrees, you don’t have a show. You have a meeting.
Test the quiet moments. Here’s the audition question most of us skip: What happens when someone else gets the laugh? Great ensemble players help build a moment without needing to own it. Watch for the person who sets up the punchline and lets a teammate land it. That’s who you want next to you at 6:15 on a Tuesday.
Build Your Bench Monday Morning
Look around your building. See the pieces and how they might fit together. Sometimes it’s a puzzle. And don’t wait for someone to show up with more money. Au contraire. They’re more likely to show up and take some away.
So get to know who’s accessible to you: the producer with a sharp sense of humor, the part-timer who tells a great story, the board op who makes the jock laugh off the air. That’s your bench.
Then ask yourself the question that matters most: Are you hiring people who sound good individually, or people who make each other better?
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