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Straight From The Mouth
The Morning Mouth's March Interview with B.J. Shea
(Reprinted by permission; Copyright © 2005 Talentmasters Inc.)

Give us the BJ Story?

I bounced around a lot in the Boston area, which is where I started and where I am from. My real big break came while working in Rochester working with Brother Wease at WCMF. I learned a ton from him then went on to San Francisco, Jacksonville, Phoenix and eventually landed in Seattle where for the last five years we have been doing a midday FM talk show and taking it from nowhere to being number one in our target demo for the last year. (Demo 18-49 male and no 2 in 25-54 male.) We target men.

And you're now called "The Experience?"

It's the BJ Shea Experience, aired on The Buzz, in Seattle from 10am until 3pm, up against everyone there is in talk: Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Rusty Humphries and a few other local personalities people may not know.

Is there an agenda?

There is no political lean. I am the true definition I believe of a liberal. In my definition of what a liberal is, a person who is open to every possible viewpoint as long as it's a viewpoint that will serve the greater good. That to me is what a true liberal should be and I think the Democrats have forgotten its definition and have become more conservative than conservatives.

Don't you think conservative talkers have done a good job of rebranding the term liberal?

Rush Limbaugh shows exactly why talk conservative radio has been successful and Rush shows why the Democratic Party is a hard party to be affiliated with. Rush is very entertaining. He took conservative politics and made it entertaining. It was the entertainment first. So what happened is that you find a lot of great fun radio and it was coming from the conservative camp. If you are looking for high-energy liberal radio, you have to go toward shows like Brother Wease, or Howard Stern. Those are liberal shows that are high energy. They are just not always political. They are more about other things that people really care about, like workplace relationships, issues about philosophy, etc.

Where did all your listeners come from?

When I first got here, Tom Leykis was huge in the male demo. Honestly the first thing I did, I went to Tom and asked him how he did what he was doing? Tom being a generous human being told me how they did it, how they won. We made sure, using our own flare that we executed the same principals that Tom did. Tom also endorsed the show. He'd mention us on his show and we attracted a lot of people that way.

Would you say that Seattle was in the forefront of non-traditional talk?

Yeah, remember we have Bob Rivers here. And although he works for a competitor, I consider him a mentor and a great friend. He was the one who

opened the door for me in Seattle. I wouldn't be on the air here if not for him.

How would you define your brand of talk?

It's not what people would think. It is a talk show but beyond that, it is like a situation comedy. Our show is a sitcom about a guy trying to do a talk show. It wasn't always that way. I went in thinking that I would be a serious talk show host and we are going to discuss the issues, but one day my producer left for the day and they gave me a fill-in producer. The fill-in hated the show and hated me. He sabotaged the show the whole day. He's writing crap on my screen telling me how bad I am. He is intentionally putting callers on the air who say I am bad. When I went home and told my wife she laughed and thought it was hysterical. A light bulb went off in my head; if she thinks this if funny and entertaining I wonder if anyone else would?

So the next day I went back into the studio and talked with the guy. He thought I was going to be mean and hate him and I told him to do it again. Instead all the fights we had off the air and the disagreements, let's put that on the air. So the show was born. A brand new phase in my life, where I intentionally surround myself with people who want to sabotage my show. That sounds precarious. A kind of talk on the wild side. Yeah. I said lets put this on air and see if it entertains people.

I have a guy who runs the board named Top Shelf. Top Shelf is a guy who likes to drink and watch the Pittsburgh Steelers and nothing else. He will sometimes surf the net looking at the Steelers home page while we are doing the show and maybe not get the audio correctly. I tell him to do that even more. I told him to make it like he was a complete idiot even more so. The same thing with R.R. who is my producer and phone screener. He sounds like a complete stoner and I told him to take that personality to an extreme. The show is a mix of doing real talk radio but at the same time it's a joke if you are in your car because we sound like idiots who can't get it done.

It's not staged because that is tough to do, so I tell my guys to keep me in the dark about everything. It works well. One time we had an interview with a Playboy model, and she walks in the studio and usually I have a bio and all. One day my producer thought on his own, hey this would be funny if I don't give him any information at all. She comes in and I have nothing. It

turns out; she had a list of questions that I was not allowed to ask her for legal reasons. My producer decided that he was not going to share that with me. Instead every time I asked a question I could not ask he would break in and say oh maybe you want to go down a different road then informed me about the list of questions that I was not allowed to ask her. When I asked him where the list was he told me he lost it. He just remembered a couple of them and the one I asked last was one of them. There was one exchange where she said I could ask her a question and he comes in and says I can't and then they get into it on the air, then she gets into it with her publicist, too.

So your success is basically built on disarray?

It's built on failure. If you listen to the show I have moments of brilliance where people really think I know what's going on. The trouble is that I have these great aspirations, and like every other American, I screw up because I am surrounded by incompetence. I think that is really relatable to the average guy.

Do you think some talkers set out to save the world?

I believe on some level that is true. The really good ones know that it has to be entertaining or you won't get ratings. We don't want to hit people there and have a message in the comedy, that way kind of gets absorbs. I don't think preachy works. You have to entertain people. If they get a bit of wisdom in the end then cool and if not then they were still entertained.

We are on an FM talk station. We are definitely different from AM Talk. It is because we have gone against that pigeonhole. One guy that really educated me on that was Walter Sabo. He says you can't program an FM talker the same way you do an AM station. People tune to FM and expect it to be presented in a particular way and its not the way the AM presents product. AM is very block oriented.

Is it inevitable that most talk will shift to FM?

The listeners are getting older and older. We have two stations in Seattle, which are Classic Alternative, a funny term in itself. I think you'll see more of the spoken-word non-political format on FM. That's a given.

How is your prep different from the non-traditional talk personality?

We have a great personality in our company, Dave Ross, who is one of the best talk show hosts in the country. He goes through the papers and reads the wire services and it's his job to be informed about what's going on from a political standpoint. I still consider my prep to be the same as if I were on a morning music station. I try covering all my bases from politics to pop culture. We do a lot of show prep. It takes a lot of show prep to make the show sound like there is no show prep. R.R. will call me today and give me six topics, I will pick at least four that I like.

Sorry, this is a subject that won't go away: If you could spend five minutes with the FCC what would you ask?

I would ask them why is it that we can't find out what is wrong and what is right until we make a mistake? Why is it that we cannot be pro-active? It's like someone telling you there's a speed limit on the road you need to obey, but we are not going to tell you what it is. You can ask them, Is it 35? And they say, Sorry we can't tell you.

In five years, where do you see the state of music radio?

Irrelevant to me as it has been in my entire career. I never got in this business to do music radio. I got into this business because I heard a high profile personality in Boston. I never listened to that station because of music but because of Charles Laquidera, Ken Shelton, Mark Parenteau. They were engaging personalities. That is when I realized this is what I wanted to do for a living. I never ever cared about music.

Loaded question, where do you see talk?

Lots more of it. How is Howard Stern going to fill three channels of original programming? He's not going to do it on his own. I am sure that some of that 500 million that he is going to be paid will go to the talent being recruited.

You've been a regular for many years at Morning Show Boot Camp. What's been the best thing you've ever brought back?

Every year there is something I get that changes my life. Motivational speaker Les Brown stands out. His presentation had a huge impact on me. Tim Sanders and his philosophy on how to be successful in the 21st century business was fantastic. There are really so many. To be able to sit with people that are like you. Boot Camp is one place that you can go and we are not competitors anymore, but brothers and sisters.

And finally, on the cover, which is R.R. and Top Shelf?

Guy in the jersey is R.R. (Double R) The guy behind me is Top Shelf.

Read previous Morning Mouth interviews.

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