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10 Questions with ... Pete Mundo
January 15, 2019
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. I'd still highly recommend it for any young broadcaster. To get the opportunity to do daily newscasts, sportscasts, broadcast high school football, basketball and baseball, while also anchoring tornado coverage, you can't pay for that type of experience or those reps. But you need to have a willingness to get out of your comfort zone and embrace your new community and not try to impart your values on them. You're on their turf. But for me, that was easy, since my beliefs and values were mostly synonymous with theirs
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BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
After graduating from Villanova University and interning at ESPN Radio (Philadelphia), I worked at WEER radio on Long Island and at ESPN Radio in the Lehigh Valley. That was followed by a news/sports position in Woodward, Oklahoma, which ended as the news and sports director. I then ventured to New York City where I spent five years freelancing as an anchor and host at CBS Sports Radio, Fox News Radio, WFAN, WCBS 880, Sports Illustrated and Bloomberg Radio. In April, I took a position as the Morning Show Host and Assistant Program Director at KCMO Talk Radio in Kansas City.
1. You started your media journey at Villanova's WXVU; what attracted you to radio in the first place? Why radio?
I grew up listening to Mike and the Mad Dog in New York City and thought it was the coolest job ever. The theatre of the mind and one-on-one experience of radio that doesn’t exist in other mediums was always fascinating to me. Growing up, a friend and I would call sports talk shows, sometimes with good points and question, and sometimes not so much. However, I never intended to work in the business.
When I started radio at Villanova, it was just a hobby. I was a Finance major, but at freshman orientation, I stumbled upon the guys at WXVU radio. I hosted my own one-hour sports show and got to call a bunch of basketball games, which was fun. But I did not know anyone in the radio industry, plus the financial sector was exciting, an aptitude of mine, and is a highly-regarded program at Villanova. However, my junior year coincided with the 2008 financial crisis and I couldn’t find an internship or job outside of selling insurance. That’s when the talk radio hobby started becoming a career and I thought, “Why not actually try to give this thing a shot?” I often joke I’m probably one of the few people who benefited in some way from the financial crisis.
2. One of the things that some newcomers to radio find daunting but you embraced is the need, sometimes, to go far away and to very small markets to get critical experience. In your case, you went all the way from the urban east coast to Woodward, Oklahoma. What was the adjustment like to an environment very different from what you'd experienced before? What would your advice be to aspiring broadcasters about whether to go small-market first and how to make that adjustment?
I was 22 and I was leaving a serious girlfriend (who is now my wife, so it worked out!) to go halfway across the country where I was still 2+ hours from the closest airport. It wasn’t easy, but I was very fortunate to have a fantastic group of people to work for and the community of Woodward was incredibly embracing. You won’t find any nicer people than in that part of the country. My goal was to enter the new environment with humility, a willingness to work long hours, while learning and improving my craft. My now-wife joined me eight months after I moved and we made lifelong friends who we still visit and keep in close contact with.
I’d still highly recommend it for any young broadcaster. To get the opportunity to do daily newscasts, sportscasts, broadcast high school football, basketball and baseball, while also anchoring tornado coverage, you can’t pay for that type of experience or those reps. But you need to have a willingness to get out of your comfort zone and embrace your new community and not try to impart your values on them. You’re on their turf. But for me, that was easy, since my beliefs and values were mostly synonymous with theirs.
3. You did a lot of sports work in the early days, and now you're talking news and politics. How did that change come about? Was that always in the career plan or did it happen in some other way?
I’ll never forget hosting an overnight fill-in show on CBS Sports Radio in the summer of 2015 and having a caller ask me something about the Philadelphia Eagles. My first thought that came to mind, “Boy, I really don’t care.” (I did not actually say that on air!). That’s kind of when it hit me. I pictured myself at 45 years old with kids running around, and thought, was I going to be caring about offseason moves of every NFL or NBA team? No, I wasn’t. But I sure was going to care about my local, statewide and national news scene. I also felt like my career had stagnated, even though I was only in my late 20’s. I was filling on local and national networks in New York, but it wasn’t really leading into anything of substance.
So, I was always a news junkie. I still have an “No Spin Zone” (The O’Reilly Factor) tee shirt my parents got me in my early teens. At Villanova, I was a member of the College Republicans and over the last few years I’d notice myself preferring to listen to Rush Limbaugh over Colin Cowherd.
I also was just trying to play a numbers game. In addition to my passions changing, what gave me better odds to further my career and stand out: being a then-late 20s conservative talk show host or a late-20s sports talk show host? The answer is pretty obvious.
In the fall of 2015, a friend, Jared Max, helped set me up with some fill-in work for Fox News Headlines 24/7, which was just launching. They needed a sports anchor. I was able to help, but I’d have to leave one of my other freelance jobs to do it, because there was a conflict of interest. I told them I’d happily leave if they’d let me fill-in on their Fox News Radio talk shows. They listened to some of my sports tapes and were willing to let me fill in on their news talk shows. After Alan Colmes passed away in the winter of 2017, I spent much of that year helping the network fill in a couple times per week, which got me more comfortable doing news talk shows on a regular basis.
4. It's interesting that, in KCMO's recent addition of Ben Shapiro, your station now bookends the daytime hours with two Millennial conservative hosts. Now that you're an APD as well as a host, where do you see the next wave of talk hosts coming from? Will they work their way up the market ranks as you did, will they be coming from podcasting like Ben did, will they be YouTube stars first... what will that next wave of hosts be like, and where will they come from?
For local shows, I still see working up the market ranks as being very effective. Being able to enter new cities, learn the markets and become a part of community, and hopefully for many make it a long-term home, is an underappreciated skill that takes a certain willingness as well. That’s a trait unto itself, and there is value that if you’re looking for a local show.
From the national perspective, I see more of the Ben Shapiro route happening. The digital entities have wisely started investing in podcasting, and one thing in which they’ve done a better job than radio is cross-promoting their products and pushing their other hosts through their various platforms to reach as many people as possible. As those people become national brands, it would make more sense that for a radio network to make a splash, it looks for an established national name that already has a strong digital/social media footprint.
5. You've been in K.C. since the spring; how have you made yourself part of the community since arriving? What ways are the best for a newcomer to connect with a local audience?
Listen. It’s probably the most underappreciated skill anyone can have. It’s also so easy to do, but we are sometimes innately led to believe as hosts and personalities to think we are supposed to have all the answers, because we have the microphone. I listened and learned from the people who knew the market in the building, I listened to callers bring nitty gritty details to a topic on air, that while I had done a ton of research on Topic A, B, or C, there was certainly something I could have missed. Might that tidbit change my (still very strong) opinion on said Topic? Sure! And I’m not afraid to admit it. Imagine someone coming to your hometown and pretending to know more about it than you? I came in doing as much homework as I could, and (hopefully) brought a strong, educated and interesting opinion, but knowing that I could not have the local scene locked down as well as Johnny, who’s lived on Tenth Street since 1985.
I’ve made a concerted effort to meet with local Republican leaders, both elected officials and folks behind the scenes, talk to and track down local media members, try to gain their trust, and work on finding charities to work with that are causes I believe in that also fit our audience.
6. How do you use social media in conjunction with your show and your station? Is it primarily a way to connect with listeners, show prep, a way to find and book guests, promotional, personal... how do you use Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram?
I use Facebook to keep listeners engaged on our KCMO Talk Radio page. Anything I find interesting and relevant will be posted to the page to drive conversation and get “shares”. The goal there is simple, the more shares we get, the more people in the Kansas City area are seeing the KCMO Talk Radio logo. It’s free advertising. I’ll also use it for Facebook Live. If something big breaks after the show ends, I’ll pop on there for a few minutes to interact. In a day and age when opinions, information and analysis are overwhelming and our fingertips at a moment’s notice, to expect a listener in 2019 to sit around and wait with baited breath for your take at 6 a.m. the following day is foolish. Few in the business can even claim to be that important.
Twitter will be used for that as well, along with trying to set appointment listening for guests, topics, teases, giveaways, etc. Also, Twitter is my personal way to connect with a different listeners, usually younger, in a different manner after the show ends. Instagram has remained more of a personal platform for me for friends and family, but I have dabbled in using it for more professional reasons, since everything I’m reading is insistent on Instagram’s high user engagement. It may be less effective, or a slower build, for a news talk audience, but the goal remains to get news talk to a younger generation, and Instagram is the best platform to try and accomplish that.
7. Who were and are your inspirations and influences in radio?
The aforementioned Mike and the Mad Dog. They got me hooked on the business and had that passion. Dan Patrick and Scott Van Pelt have that conversational, natural style that is so genuine. Colin Cowherd can take a mundane topic and make you, “I never thought of it that way”, without it being hot-take-ish, better than any host in sports or news. On the news talk side, Rush and Hannity were guys I listened to growing up, but even though he was primarily TV, Bill O’Reilly was always my favorite news opinion-maker. Despite his clear ideological beliefs, I always thought he always had a fair analysis and opinion of the news of the day, which is severely lacking today, regardless of political ideology. Power of personality has replaced power of beliefs on both sides of the political spectrum, which is a dangerous trend I’ve seen in news talk on radio, TV, digital, etc.
8. Of what are you most proud?
That every connection I’ve made in this industry was through my own doing. There were no family or friends with a single connection to the radio business when I started, which we all know can be a nice boost in the media industry. It’s one of the reasons I never considered it as a career, because I didn’t even know how or where to start. But as I began in the business and met industry professionals through internships and jobs, and had the opportunity to be helped by people such as BMS’ David Brody, Scott Masteller, Eric Spitz, Crys Quimby, John Sylvester and many others, along with now Donna Baker and Mike Wheeler, they all were kind enough and saw enough in me to either open a door or opportunity, big or small, which has led somewhere at some point.
9. Fill in the blank: I can't make it through the day without _______________.
Twitter. I’m not proud of it really, but it’s just a constant stream of news and information and I find myself starving for more of that news and information at all times. Whether it’s reading something, listening to a radio show or podcast, or watching TV, if I’m not absorbing some type of information, even when I’m just brushing my teeth, I feel naked and like I’m wasting my time. Now that I’m writing this out, it’s probably not really as healthy as it sounds. But it sure is enjoyable!
10. What would you say is the most important lesson you've learned in the business so far?
Personal connections are everything. I know it’s an old cliché, “It’s who you know, not what you know,” and that’s probably true in most industries, but that line couldn’t be any more accurate in our industry. For as big as the business is, it’s also incredibly small. Every job I’ve landed I can point to a specific interaction with somebody at some point that eventually led to that job lead.
For this job in Kansas City: Kevin Graham (WBAP) pointed me to the opening in January of 2018. But prior to that, I happened to be in Dallas in May of 2017 and wanted to meet Kevin since we had exchanged emails. Unfortunately, that week, I was having a tough time getting a hold of him. The day I was in town, I had David Brody call Bruce Gilbert, who also worked in the office with Kevin, who then helped me get into Kevin’s office for 15 minutes, chat and get to meet him face-to-face. I wasn’t expecting anything out of it, but I wanted to just make the connection. Did that help me come January 2018? It sure didn’t hurt!
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