Tom Leykis: Blow Me Up Tom

Tom Leykis understands how radio works. He understands people and
how they engage with radio. The Long Island kid who spent his
first radio show playing Glen Pitney (and loathing it), became
one of America's most renowned talk show hosts. He would go to
war against other talk show hosts. He spoke in this podcast of
the time that he challenged Neil Rodgers to a fight on the
streets of Miami, and started off his shows stating that his show
is the one, "not hosted by a right-wing wacko or a convicted
felon". (The former referencing Rush Limbaugh, the latter G.
Gordon Liddy who was rung up in that Watergate thing)


In 2012, after radio ran into financial struggles stemming from
debt, the arrival of social media, and dollars disappearing to
digital, Tom started his own company called the New Normal
Network. For years he would stream to his audience who had paid a
subscription, proving that people were prepared to pay for
premium content. Today you can now access his shows in podcast
for with a few tiers of monthly subscriptions. (Also proving that
you don't need Patreon to take 10% of your money if you can
connect with people properly)


We talked about the early days of his career, the demise of his
relationship with radio, and I even snuck in a little baseball
talk. As mentioned, he is a good follow on Twitter.


There's more about this episode on our show page!


Thanks also to the people who make this show possible
every week including:


Promosuite


Megatrax


For a full transcript, go to
https://www.soundoffpodcast.com/2019/03/04/tom-leykis-blow-me-up-tom
and scroll to the bottom.


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