Having multiple hosts does not work

[westfield60]

Last week there were some posts of people complaining that FHF kept talking over each other at KABC. I was thinking about that as I listened to John and Ken and noticed that Ken has an annoying habit of always cutting off John in mid-sentence and generally going off on a tangent. John is clearly the more entertaining and smarter of the two and the shows are the best when Ken is on vacation and John does his shows solo. I wish Ken would pipe down and let John run the show.

I guess this is similar to the criticism that Howard Stern always gets because Robin interrupts way too much. Likewise the pairing of Suits and Kennedy didn't recently work out, Mika and Joe Scarbourough have that problem too. John and Jeff are the same. I don't understand why they needed a co-host for Handel's afternoon show. Does that woman contribute anything? So I am convinced that having more than one hosts really doesn't work. Each one is trying to upstage the other and usually it is the dumber of the two that does it more often as in Ken's case.

The stronger hosts on Radio are clearly the solo hosts, like Tom Leykis and Rush Limbaugh.

 

[karpaccio]

I beg to differ. In my experience, two hosts works marvelously. You just have to pair them the right way.

 

[michael hagerty]

It really does depend on the pairing and/or casting and always has.

Looking back, I think Charlie Tuna and Robert W. Morgan were much stronger without sidekicks (with the exception of Morgan, Marv Howard and John McIlhenny at KMPC, where Marv and John knew what their roles were and played them perfectly), but Lohman and Barkley at KFI were superb...as, in talk, were Ken and Bob at KABC. Rick Dees' style of comedy needed immediate on-air feedback, so playing off Liz "Rugburn" Fulton and having Julie doing voices helped enormously.

Despite how the team is billed, there needs to be an understanding of whether it's an equal partnership, and if so, the chemistry and timing has to be absolutely perfect. If not, it needs to be clearly stated who is #1 in the duo or team and the support role #2 (and 3) play. They then need to rein in the egos and stay out of #1's way. When they don't, it's a train wreck.

Even with the above, I think certain talents (Rush, Leykis, Hannity, Dr. Laura) would be ill-served by adding another voice.

 

[RBB05]

depends on the stule of the show. Pontificators work better alone...they need more time to espouse....entertainment driven shows can easily have multiple hosts...see KROQ's morning show....they just need to know their role.

 

[LKellerIII]

I've never had a problem with two hosts - except on the rare occasions that their voices are very similar. That's confusing because you can't tell who's talking. Believe it or not, that has happened from time to time.