John Kobylt has been a staple on KFI AM 640, including during his tenure with co-host Ken Chiampou. But now, The John Koyblt Show is a solo program, meaning it’s time to check in on how his interviewing skills have held up.
Doing a solo show after being teamed up with a partner for decades can’t be an easy transition, but Koblyt has handled it well. He’s continued strong ratings success for the iHeartMedia Los Angeles news/talk station. Heck, he’s a nominee for the Radio Hall of Fame. He knows what he’s doing. So, let’s see if we can dissect what he’s doing well and pass it on to others in the news/talk radio genre.
John Kobylt welcomed USC professor Michael Mische to the show on Friday to discuss his projection that gas prices in California could rise to as high as $9 per gallon due to shutdowns/reduction in production from refineries and tax increases. That forecast was widely dismissed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), so The John Kobylt Show host wanted to hear straight from the horses mouth about the topic.
It wasn’t exactly the most unbiased start to an interview. Kobylt posited that he was sure the professor’s research was correct due to the harsh criticism it received from Newsom. He went on to call the actions from the governor “childish,” adding that he “doesn’t handle criticism” and that the news media in the state has served as “lap dogs.” So, not the most unbiased beginning of an interview of all time.
One of Newsom’s criticisms was that Mische and his forecasting were being funded by Saudi Arabia. Kobylt asked where the guest where that assertion came from. It was a short, sweet, and simple question that helps situate the guest on defense. But there is often a difference between “being defensive” and explaining something. There’s a fine line, and I think Kobylt set up his guest to walk that tightrope well.
The longer the interview went on, the more and more it became apparent that John Kobylt was using the guest more as a co-host rather than an interview subject.
And that’s ok!
There weren’t as many questions to the professor as much as there were statements from the KFI AM 640 host with the expectation that the guest would react and opine on those statements. That’s a conversation. And people love conversations.
But that isn’t an interview. And people also love interviews.
I think news/talk radio hosts have to be somewhat wary of these types of conversations, for a variety of reasons.
First, it’s your show, right? It’s your name on it, the station pays you, the imaging touts you, and the audience shows up expecting to hear you. And when you turn over a portion of your show to someone else, you’re flirting with disaster a little bit. Especially if you get to the point that the audience is more interested in who you’re having on to join you that day than hearing from you.
But also, because when you have conversations like this, it doesn’t always advance the story. Kobylt admitted in the early stages of the conversation that it was the third time Mische had been on the show to talk about the topic. But the interview didn’t necessarily focus on the reaction to being smeared by the governor as much as it was a rehash of Mische’s work and the study he put together. Which — and this is definitely an assumption — they likely had already chatted about on the air previously.
So I don’t know how much the story was advanced by this discussion.
Overall, I’m going to lean more toward the thought process that I chose an outlier from Kobylt rather than the norm. But I think the delineation between a conversation with an ally — in this case, someone against Gavin Newsom — and an interview is worth pointing out.
In this instance, I think The John Kobylt Show host featured a conversation rather than an interview.
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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.
