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Lynda Lopez
November 15, 2016
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Despite having a globally famous sibling, Lynda Lopez has carved her own notable career in radio and TV. Starting with Long Island and New York radio, through an Emmy-winning detour into local TV news, to VH1 and now back to radio, Lopez has been adept at informing and entertaining people on a variety of mediums. Now, as co-host of ABC Radio's "GMA After-Hours," Lopez will offer radio listeners her own life in a "The View"-like radio presentation. Here, she offers her insight into her career and the new syndicated show.
What first captured your interest in radio as a potential career?
I grew up in New York City, the greatest radio market in the country. I loved radio from the time I was a kid, just loved listening to it while being driven around with my parents. I remember listening to the old WABC; I remember when some of the big pop stations in New York first came on the air. I loved radio and how intimate it was, how it felt like a one-on-one conversation with people.
Describe your early days at WBAB, WKTU and WLIR and the most important things you learned there.
I learned everything there. Those were my very first experiences with great jocks and good programmers. I learned how important it is to really be yourself, to be someone who communicates to listeners in a way where they learn who you really are.
While working as a reporter for a morning news show on WPIX-TV/New York, you won an Emmy. What was that like?
That was about the coolest thing and one of the things I'm proudest of -- winning an Emmy for helping to create a new morning newscast for TV. The station we were on never had a morning news program, so we created one from scratch. I was picked to be the entertainment anchor because they decided they wanted to do something different and my radio skills interested them. They built a new morning show model, which has been emulated around the country, and in our very first year on the air we won an Emmy for Best Morning Newscast. I learned something important there, too -- we had a great Executive Producer with great vision, who was full of creative ideas, and our success was due to creating a newscast that we believed to be really good and we stuck to our vision. It doesn't matter what other people think. You have to stick to your vision if you believe you're creating something good.
How has your work in TV impacted your interest in radio?
For me, I guess I got lucky. When the show I ended up doing for VH1 was about to launch on TV, they were specifically looking for radio personalities in New York to be the on-air hosts. They wanted people with a good knowledge of music, who wouldn't be intimidated when interviewing big music artists. Being in radio at the time, I was already quite familiar with interviewing music artists. So I got the opportunity to interview artists on live TV, in a way that was very similar to what I did on the radio -- for example, being able to sit next to Bono and help conduct a conversation that offered good content. Because I got to move into a similar format, the segue from radio to TV was pretty easy for me.
You also spent some time on the radio with your significant other at the time. Working with someone you're emotionally invested in, on-air, can be a potentially tricky situation. How did you handle it, and would you do something like that again?
I guess it depends! I happened to be working with someone who was not just the person I was with, but a talent who I truly thought was one of the top in radio. I trusted him on-air; I trusted his work ethic and instincts. We were also very in synch when it came to our attitudes about work. When we were home, we would have animated conversations about how and what we wanted the show to be, and we were always on the same page, both from a business standpoint and creatively. Whether I'd recommend it or if I'd try it again, there's no definite answer to that. I'd say if it's someone you trust on both ends -- on the creative side and the work/business side -- there's no reason it can't be great.
What brought you back to the medium and specifically, GMA After Hours?
Just to have the opportunity to work with ABC Radio, the team they assembled and the Good Morning America brand was something I could not pass up. GMA is already the biggest morning TV brand today. I have so much respect for the talented women on that program -- Robin Roberts, Amy Robach, Lara Spencer and Ginger Zee. To have the opportunity to collaborate with those women and be a part of this brand is amazing.
You'll be working with three other co-hosts, Amy, Lara and Ginger. How do you plan on optimizing the chemistry between you?
Lara Spencer and I both worked years ago at the same local NBC station; that's going way back. But for all of us, it is the first time we're working together. We know that you can't fake chemistry or create it out of nothing because women listeners are smart and they'll pick up on that. These ladies are all relatable and funny, and we were able to relate to each other as girlfriends in a way, so as we all got together to know each other more, we've been just very lucky in that it all meshed. We get to know each other better on- and off-air, and as that develops over time, the audience comes along for the ride. I love some of the things we've already done.
One of my favorite breaks on the radio came when Amy Robach brought up bad anniversary gifts that men tend to get you. Her husband had bought her a small fountain once because she loved her garden. Unfortunately, the fountain looked like a toilet bowl. It was a strange structure with a long stone stick type of thing coming out of the top of it. It was awful. And she couldn't tell him right away that she didn't want a toilet bowl in her garden. She was in such disbelief she texted her friends pictures of it. Her description of it has us crying laughing. It was great to have a lot of laughs over that, and that she was willing to share it, especially since we were able to let everyone else listen in and offer their experiences.
Have you faced the challenge of being successful in a very male-dominant radio format?
Not in terms of this show; GMA After Hours is for women, who I believe will love listening to what we're talking about. That removes half of the challenge. When you create a show like this, which mixes lifestyle, pop culture and entertainment with great conversations between really smart women, the listeners feel like they're in the middle of four close friends talking with each other - and they're sitting in and often taking part of the conversation. We're creating something I think real women will love.
Conflict between co-hosts, usually heard in a difference of opinion on something, can make a show more compelling. Have you set any ground rules on expressing that? Do you know in advance what each other's views on a topic are before you engage in it on-air?
No ground rules; and no, I don't know in advance what each woman will say. When there are four co-hosts, there obviously are going to be differences in perspective. But when you like and get along with each other because you know a lot about each other's lives -- our families, our husbands, and who've had babies -- we all know how life is for each of us and we know how to get our points across sincerely. And when we chat about what's going on in the world, we know how to discuss these things in a constructive and respectful way.
What kind of impact does being Jennifer Lopez's sister have on you - while it certainly gave you a higher profile, have you ever been concerned about being overshadowed by her?
Again, I'm pretty lucky in that, for me, it hasn't been a problem. I went to college because I wanted to go into broadcasting and journalism - and that's all I wanted to do. Besides news, I love music, pop culture and entertainment -- I've worked in newsrooms as well as music stations. So the environments I've worked in have been pretty different from hers. Our heads are in different places, we travel in our own spaces, and we have our own goals and dreams. I always felt that as long I was doing what I truly wanted to do, that I loved my work and followed my passions, "overshadowing" wouldn't ever be an issue. And for me, that's the case. But the cool thing about being sisters is we always support each other and we both love to do family stuff.
And what of your own future goals and challenges?
I always love the idea of creating great content. No matter what it is or where I'm doing it, I relish the opportunity to make great content. One of the things I love about radio is that it's a place where you can create great content and so many people can instantly consume it. I love that I get to intimately communicate with interesting women and provide fun and informative content.
Before GMA After Hours came around, I had been a news anchor on a News radio station here in New York for several years, and during my time there I reported many news stories that were about women's and children's issues, but I also got to report on entertainment and lifestyle stories. Doing all of those kinds of stories has always been a fun thing for me. The medium I was doing it in was never the most important thing; the content was. I'm excited to be able to keep creating fun, relevant and interesting content ... and to keep doing that is all that matters.
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