Industry Views

Talk Host Rick Smith is This Week’s Guest on Harrison Podcast

Maverick talk show host, Rick Smith is this week’s guest on the award-winning PodcastOne series, “The Michael Harrison Interview.” Ranked by TALKERS at number 100 on the journal’s Heavy Hundred list, Smith – who has positioned himself as a tell-it-like-it is champion of the working class – is described by Michael Harrison as “somewhat of a square peg in a scene dominated by round holes on both the left and the right.” The Chicago-based genre-bender is a 30-year Teamster trucker-turned-working-class talker heard 9:00 pm to 11:00 pm ET on dozens of radio stations across the U.S. – a mix of commercial and public. He tells Harrison, “I’m not a red hat, I’m not a blue hat… I’m a hard hat.” His left-of-center talk media footprint is enhanced by exposure on a variety of cable TV channels including Free Speech TVDirecTVDish and more. He has a successful podcast with millions of downloads, and he streams on FacebookXTwitch and YouTube. All this is accomplished with a modest, independent operation run by two people and a homemade studio. His show’s slogan is “Where working people come to talk.” Listen to the podcast in its entirety here.

Industry News

David Pakman is This Week’s Guest on Harrison Podcast

Progressive talk media host David Pakman is this week’s guest on the award-winning PodcastOne series, “The Michael Harrison Interview.” Pakman is one of the relatively rare breed of progressive talk show hosts currently heard with a modest footprint on commercial radio. But beyond that, he has a significant and growing presence on his own YouTube channel where he has over a million-and-a-half subscribers, a commerciallyDavid Pakman - The David Pakman Show sold-out schedule, and is part of an emerging genre of progressive hosts seen regularly by loyal political talk media consumers. Only 39, Pakman has been a practitioner of progressive talk media since his early 20s. “The David Pakman Show” started in August 2005 as a community radio program called “Midweek Politics” in the basement of WXOJ’s studio in Northampton, Massachusetts. Today, it is a daily internationally syndicated politics and news talk show airing on radio, television, and the internet, as well as on Free Speech TV via DirecTV and DISH Network. Pakman is a naturalized citizen of the United States having moved here with his family at the age of five from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Harrison and Pakman discuss the rewards and challenges – financially and otherwise – of multi-platform digital broadcasting. Listen to the podcast in its entirety here.