The Tony Kornheiser Show

History

WTEM (1992–1997)

Because Kornheiser needed to focus on writing his Style column in the Washington Post weekly, he usually did not host the show on Thursdays, and would have Andy Pollin, the sports director at WTEM, guest host instead. Between November 1995 and December 1996, Warner Wolf was named the guest host of the Tony Kornheiser Show on Thursdays until he moved to New York City as a sports anchor on WCBS-TV.

ESPN Radio (1998–2004)

One of the features of the show was that when Davis reported the updates, Kornheiser would interrupt the Dan "The Duke" Davis's updates and make comments. At first the Duke was not amused with Kornheiser's interruptions and it took Davis a while to get used to it.

Tony's Mailbag concluded the show on ESPN Radio with Kornheiser reading emails from his listeners. The music that plays in the background during this segment is "Tea for Two Cha Cha" by Roy Battle (pronounced bah-tell by Kornheiser) and the Altones. The band is dubbed "[t]he official house band of the Tony Kornheiser Show".

In late 2001, Kornheiser decided to leave the microphones on when his show went to a commercial break, as a treat to his internet radio listeners. The result was the infamous yet wildly popular "Internet Show", where online listeners could hear what the people on the show really thought about sports, entertainment, and politics.

WTWP/WWWT and XM Sports Nation (2007 and 2008)

After completing the 2006 season on ESPN's Monday Night Football, Kornheiser considered offers from WTEM and WTWP to return to the Washington, D.C., area radio airwaves.

On January 23, 2007, Kornheiser decided to go to WTWP to host The Tony Kornheiser Show. Effective February 20, 2007, The Tony Kornheiser Show aired live on weekdays from 8:30 to 10:30 am, with a repeat that aired immediately afterward (on Fridays the last half-hour was preempted by The Politics Program).

The deciding factor for Kornheiser to join WTWP was his desire to work for a station affiliated with The Washington Post, where he had been since 1979.

For the new incarnation of the show, Kornheiser retained Marc "Nigel" Sterne as producer. Andy Pollin and Gary Braun remained at WTEM and Triple X ESPN Radio, respectively. The main cast of the show included:

• Brennan Haselton, the news reporter
• Joe Barber, the entertainment editor of WTOP
• David Aldridge of The Philadelphia Inquirer and TNT when Barber is away
• Jeanne McManus, former food editor of The Washington Post, a.k.a. "my dear friend Nancy" in Kornheiser's Washington Post Style columns. Several frequent guests on the show had been limited by their affiliation with ESPN; Kornheiser had stated on-air (most recently on March 13, 2007) that ESPN management enacted a policy that prevents ESPN employees and commentators—the majority of whose work appears on ESPN—from appearing as guests on stations that compete with ESPN Radio affiliates.

Kornheiser vowed to return to WTWP in 2008 and "do the radio seriously". As a tradition when quitting the show from ESPN Radio and WTEM, the last show before hiatus ended by playing "Famous Last Words" by Billy Joel. With the demise of Washington Post Radio on WTWP, and the Post affiliation being the key reason Kornheiser joined the station, it was initially unclear whether or not the show would return.

The Tony Kornheiser Show went off the air on June 27, 2008, as Kornheiser prepared for Monday Night Football. However, on August 11, 2008, because of the format change, WWWT was canceled and Bonneville stated it would no longer air The Tony Kornheiser Show.

WTEM (2009–2016)

This incarnation retained the "softcore sports talk format" from the previous one at 3WT.

The new incarnation saw the debut of several new features, including Ron Jaworski and James Carville offer their picks to select NFL and college football games every Thursday and Friday during the football season. Jaworski's picks were compared to the show's resident monkey Reginald in a showdown called "Jaws vs. the Monkey." The other running-in joke is Carville's seemingly made-up lines on sports games. In 2012, with Carville unavailable at the start of the football season, Courtney Cummz started to offer one pick to select an NFL game.

The WTEM show was available immediately after airing via podcast on iTunes. Previously, between May 27, 2011, and March 20, 2015, the show had to wait 24 hours to distribute the podcast due to contract restrictions, which was ridiculed by Kornheiser's loyal listeners, and was a frequent joke on his program.

On March 23, 2015, Kornheiser announced the podcast of his radio show would be available without a 24-hour delay.

On June 2, WTEM announced that Kornheiser would do his last show on WTEM near the end of June 2016. Kornheiser said that he would launch a podcast in September 2016. Kornheiser said in a statement, “I have loved every minute on the radio at WTEM, but I felt it was time to pursue a new and appealing challenge. I will be launching a podcast this September. I am excited that this endeavor will allow me to continue to work with so many of the people who have been a part of my radio show for over the past 20 years. But I will miss all of my friends and colleagues at WTEM.” On Kornheiser's last show, aired on June 28, 2016, Kornheiser said,I’m gonna miss pretty much people my age, but you should understand this: the opportunity to do this, I walked away from two years left on a contact ... I don’t know what is being written or what is being said, but the truth of the matter is, I walked away with two years left on a contract, which at my age is so stupid and an indefensible position. And why did I do it? Because I thought it might be nice to see if I could get [not] people to pay for it daily, but advertisers who I could bring them a certain amount of listeners: smart, funny, affluent people all around the country. Maybe we could get ads. Maybe we could get a sponsor from all around the country.

Podcast-only (since 2016)

The show was relaunched as a podcast-only show on September 6, 2016. According to Kornheiser on June 6, 2016, the reason to do a podcast-only show was to own his content and work "someplace a little closer to my house", but the show format would still be the same as the radio show. Kornheiser said his new podcast would probably be 60 to 70 minutes instead of the 80 minutes he filled on his radio show.

The podcast-only show is produced in partnership with sports talent agency IMG and on-demand audio company DGital Media.

WSBN (since 2019)

WSBN announced it would air the Kornheisers' podcast show starting September 10, 2019.

References and notes

References

1. (2012-07-20). "2012 TALKERS Heavy Hundred of Sports Talk". Talkers Magazine.
2. (2016-02-05). "America's Top 20 Local Sports Midday Shows For 2015 Are…". Barrett Sports Media.
3. Warner Wolf and Larry Weisman (2000), ''Let's go to the videotape: all the plays and replays from my life in sports,'' Warner Books ({{ISBN. 0-446-52559-6).
4. Reid Cherner. (December 11, 2003). "Fans all ears when 'The Duke' spreads the news". USA Today.
5. Bill Lehecka. "FAQ - Who plays the background music while Tony reads e-mails?". This Website Stinks! - An Unofficial Tony Kornheiser Website.
6. Steve MacLaughlin. (February 11, 2002). "Gonzo radio returns". Saltire: Blogging by Steve MacLaughlin.
7. Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts. (January 10, 2007). "Reliable source: for Kornheiser, a host of offers". The Washington Post.
8. (January 23, 2007). "Kornheiser Comes to Washington Post Radio". WTOP Radio.
9. Paul Farhi. (January 24, 2007). "Post Radio brings Kornheiser into fold". The Washington Post.
10. Jim Williams. (January 24, 2007). "Tony Kornheiser to return to radio on WTWP".
11. Michael Hiestand. (March 14, 2007). "CBS has pieces in place for NCAA jigsaw puzzle". USA Today.
12. Bill Lehecka. "Tony Kornheiser's Message to the Blogosphere". This Website Stinks! - An Unofficial Tony Kornheiser Website.
13. Paul Farhi. (August 28, 2007). "With low ratings, Post Radio venture to end next month". The Washington Post.
14. (August 11, 2008). "Federal News Radio Expands to Full Market Signal".
15. (September 8, 2009). "''The Tony Kornheiser Show'' Podcast". ESPN 980.
16. "Orgasm News Interviews Courtney Cummz".
17. Robb Ryerse. (June 1, 2011). "Positioned for Irrelevance: WTEM ESPN 980's Terrible Decision to Hold Tony Kornheiser Hostage".
18. Dan Steinberg. (March 23, 2015). "Tony Kornheiser announces the end of his ESPN 980 podcast delay". The Washington Post.
19. Des Bieler. (June 2, 2016). "Tony Kornheiser to leave D.C. radio after 24 years to launch podcast". The Washington Post.
20. Dan Steinberg. (June 29, 2016). "Tony Kornheiser's radio show ends with a 'Sopranos' moment". The Washington Post.
21. Scott Allen. (August 30, 2016). "Tony Kornheiser's daily podcast to launch Sept. 6". The Washington Post.
22. Scott Allen. (June 6, 2016). "Tony Kornheiser's new podcast will sound very familiar to fans of his radio show". The Washington Post.
23. John Ourand. (August 30, 2016). "Tony Kornheiser Discusses Format, Style Of New Podcast Set To Roll Out Next Month". Sports Business Journal.
24. Lance Venta. (September 10, 2019). "Tony Kornheiser Returns To Washington Radio".