Katz, Katz, and Cunningham. No, they are not a new law office, Tony Katz, Jeff Katz, and Bill Cunningham were all ranked as the #1 news/talk radio hosts in their Mid-Market time slots — mornings, afternoons, and middays, respectively — in the Barrett Media Top 20.

Barrett Media spoke with Tony, Jeff, and Bill about the honor, their preparation process, and what they’re doing to create some of news/talk format’s most successful shows.

Tony Katz, 93 WIBC

“Finally, my mother can be proud of me,” Tony Katz said in his usual tongue-in-cheek manner. “She called and said, ‘Tony, before I thought you were this guy whose brother was a doctor. But now I realize that you’re number one, whose brother is a doctor, and I’m so proud of him.’” 

Thinking more deeply, Katz said of the honor, “I don’t know what it necessarily can mean or does mean. You’re talking about excellent people in great cities serving their city and serving it well. If [that is what this] means — that I’m serving Indianapolis and the surroundings in a way that people like — thank you. I appreciate it quite a bit.” 

One big way Tony Katz believes he’s setting himself apart? “I drink much more bourbon.” Jokes aside, he added, “The conversations are honest, and I think profound. They’re funny and it’s how we mix it and how it gets woven through. There’s a moment for something that’s deep and there’s moment for something that’s light.”

A lighter moment for the show is Katz’s ‘Marketplace’ segment.

“I do this segment where I highlight something for sale on Facebook Marketplace that I think is cool.” The segment lightens up all the serious political talk but initially he said his Program Director needed convincing. “My program director (David Wood) asked if I was crazy.” Today its one of the biggest ways Katz lightens things up.

“And yet it also promotes capitalism, the markets, and people creating, selling, and doing things,” he said. “So it all fits within brands. But doing that, not being conventional as a political morning show has been very advantageous.”

Tony Katz isn’t sure if his show preparation is different than anyone else’s but he does have one fundamental principle. “The mantra is I’m not trying to tell you what to think; I’m trying to give you something to think about. That has guided me well. But I don’t think that the preparation from the sources or anything else is is better or worse than anybody else. Rather, I work very hard on trying to say ‘How do these stories connect?'”

In addition to hosting local events, Katz hosts the Eat, Drink, Smoke podcast/nationally syndicated radio show, as well as a digital video program. But it’s not the added social media events which Katz believes expands the audience, its the experience. “The Audience doesn’t need more and more ways to see you digitally. They want to touch you. So what I did was I said, I’m holding events.” 

This past November, Tony Katz hosted ‘The Election in Three Bourbons.’

“It turned out we had sponsors and we were tasting bourbon and we were talking about the election, election results, and we had this whole audio/visual thing. Here’s the charts, here’s what it means. And I was taking people through what happened in the election, what happened in the swing states. It was humorous and it was informative and it was engaged and there was food everywhere. After the event some of the listeners stayed behind and “just hanging out. This is the model. You have to be where people are. Experiences matter.”

Jeff Katz, WRVA

“I am totally blown away, surprised, and I keep worrying there’s going to be a recount and there was a box of ballots found in the middle of the night or something,” Katz said in jest. “All kidding aside, this is nothing short of amazing.”

The 33-year talk radio veteran was rendered speechless when the announcement came out.  “I look at the other people that are on that list and I think, ‘My gosh, these are world-class talents. I’m humbled, honored and so grateful to those who voted for me.”

Jeff Katz believes it’s his dedication to service that helps him deliver a solid program on a daily basis. “When my listeners tune in, they know that it’s going to be professional, entertaining, and informative. I’ve established the relationship with my listeners and my advertisers. That is rewarding for each of them, and it’s just a great process.” 

Katz’s relationship with his advertisers is important to him in a similar way that his listeners are. “There are other people that don’t do that on the talent side, and I think that’s a shame. Hosts are missing a great opportunity by saying ‘the salespeople handle that’ and ‘I’m over here, the pretty face’.”

Valuing himself as more than just a face, Jeff Katz recognizes the symbiotic relationship serving advertisers can have for listeners. “If you don’t have that relationship with an advertiser, there’s a bigger opportunity for advertisers to say, ‘I want somebody else’ or ‘I’d like to work in a different direction.’”

The most important part of the show building process for Katz, is simply remembering he serves. “It’s about being part of a community. So I’ll give you an example, as the wildfires were raging in California, and still going on, it’s a horrible situation that was the dominating factor for every national piece of entertainment information.” 

However, covering a fire thousands of miles away is not serving his base audience in the Virginia capital. “Here in Richmond, we had no water. The main water processing plant stopped working and it was a crisis on the national scope. You’ve got the wildfires, which already have TV crews. Here we are in central Virginia, and that’s my issue now. For a solid week, that was topic A. It wasn’t just about finding out what went wrong or pointing out that the mayor had only been on the job for seven days.”

The coverage Jeff Katz provided wasn’t just on how it happened, but more importantly, it was about “making sure that my listeners were able to have water. We started making sure we coordinated with agencies that were distributing water. I had listeners that were driving 60 and 70 miles out of town, buying pallets of water, and then driving them back to some of the hardest-hit communities in the city of Richmond. They had a special focus on disabled folks and senior citizens. There’s just no way that a show outside of this area could have done that.”

Bill Cunningham, 700 WLW

“I feel like James Brown, I feel good!” exclaimed Cunningham of the honor. “But in a serious way, I think the greatest award you can get is from those who know you the best.”   

Calling his market, “The heart that beats the United States of America,” and his listeners, “millions of hardworking, God-fearing Americans.” And he wants to give them what they want to hear.

While some on the left may presume it’s only the conservative values and opinions he brings to the radio, Cunningham has one other unique way to bring together his audience, and gain some new listeners in the process.

“I’ve been doing this for about 42 years. I started as a very young man by mistake, and I still do it, I speak two or three times a month to groups or crowds. I bring in high school coaches when they’ve won a state title because when a coach comes in with a bunch of 17 or 18-year-olds, most of the time the 17 or 18-year-old is on Spotify listening to music, but the coaches and the parents do [listen].”

Bill Cunningham also connects with his listeners by speaking with them, “I often will go speak at a pep rally and there’s a big high school football game, or if there’s a Reds rally and Cincinnati Reds every year has opening day. And I’m the opening day speaker and I give a great speech about what lies ahead and it advertises and communicates and connects with people that are currently your listeners, because the only way to survive in this business is to replace those the older [listeners], with the younger [ones] so you don’t lose your audience share.”

From Columbus, Ohio to Indianapolis, Indiana and even Nashville, Tennessee these connections give insight into Cunningham’s listeners. “[I know] what they like, what they don’t like, because I speak to them and I hear what they have to say and we interact together. And as a consequence, I kind of know where most people are.”

Politics or not, another distinct attribute of Cunningham’s show is giving the audience perspective or a take on a story maybe they haven’t thought of. For example, “Why these so-called, quote, rich people in California hire private firefighters. And so their visceral reaction most people would have is that’s not fair. You should be able to do that.”

Bill Cunningham elaborated, “Then I talked to a former chief in California who says we like private firefighting paid for by homeowners because it relieves us of the responsibility of caring for that block of houses. Secondly, most of these guys are retired firefighters, but we use each other back and forth in an emergency. Thirdly, the insurance companies actually hire many private firefighters to save them. A larger claim on a house or a block. And so I bring that perspective to an issue so that a listener can understand. This isn’t about elitism or the rich taking care of their own. There’s a public good in that that gives you an example.”

However, two of the best things for Bill Cunningham are, “[Hearing] from a listener out in the real world is that they’ve listened to me and they either learned something or thought about something differently because of what I said. Or secondly, I made them laugh and humor comes from a shared interests and values. When I hear that, I give myself a pat on the back and said, ‘Willie did a good job.’”

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