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When I was tipped off last week that The Daily Wire and Westwood One wouldn’t be renewing their deal to distribute one-hour shows nationally, I was initially floored.
Ben Shapiro has become a conservative media titan since his podcast was launched into national syndication, with Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles also seeing their stars rise since they were added to hundreds of stations in recent years.
But the departure got me wondering: Does The Daily Wire need news/talk radio? Or is it just another signal of radio’s diminishing influence and the rise of digital audio?
Undeniably, Shapiro has been helped by the terrestrial radio presence. While his podcast has continued to grow, it has done so on the back of millions of listeners — frankly, older listeners — who have heard the program on any number of news/talk radio stations, Cumulus-owned or otherwise.
And also, undeniably, those same stations have benefitted greatly by having someone the caliber of Shapiro — and most likely either one or both of Walsh and Knowles — on their station.
The Daily Wire does many things well. Maybe most impressively, they’ve done a fantastic job at tribe building. Once you enter The Daily Wire ecosystem, the outlet does whatever it can to make sure you don’t leave, and that you’ll like what you see. It’s truly a lesson in brand-building and meeting your audience where it is.
Faithful readers, viewers, and listeners of the brand place a high value on the content it creates. The truth and credibility it has built with conservative audiences is insanely impressive. So, the association that news/talk radio has had with the brand, has definitely helped buoy it in recent years.
I’ll be the first to tell you that I think news/talk radio needs some fresh, younger blood. That’s not to speak ill of some of the hosts who have put decades of work into the format. Because there are still some that are at the top of their game. But fresh ideas, perspectives, and insights, as well as an embrace of digital and social media wouldn’t hurt the industry in the slightest.
And that’s why it was so disappointing to break the news that The Daily Wire would be leaving news/talk radio. Because it offered all of those things. And then some.
Maybe this is all premature. Maybe the company co-founded by Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing is working out a different deal with a radio giant like iHeartMedia or Audacy. And maybe this entire discussion is actually a moot point because it has something bigger and better than a syndication deal with Westwood One up its sleeve.
The Daily Wire has to be concerned about not having a national radio partner, right? That feels like a logical place to land. However, they built themselves into a conservative media juggernaut without traditional media outlets. So maybe the fear just simply isn’t there.
And news/talk radio stations — especially those Cumulus-owned brands that utilized the shows — have to be worried about what replaces the shows from Shapiro, Walsh, and Knowles. You’d think that there are concerns that whatever fills the timeslot — whether it be The Guy Benson Show from Fox News Radio or any other assortment of nationally syndicated programming — would perform as well as The Daily Wire programs.
Yet, a deal couldn’t be struck. I wasn’t given much info on the thinking from either side, and neither side has been willing to comment publicly about the deal ending. Basically, the final days for the shows will air is Tuesday, December 31st, and that will be that.
What happens next is still a mystery. A fun, perplexing, and will have me on the edge of my seat thriller. Not immediately, but in the coming days.
But, right now, it feels a little bit like the chicken and the egg conundrum. Will The Daily Wire see a diminished presence without a national radio partner? Will news/talk radio suffer without the likes of Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, and Michael Knowles?
Ultimately, I don’t know if neither The Daily Wire nor news/talk radio as a whole is better served without the other. It feels like, at least to me, one of those situations where both sides lose a little bit in the end.
