DelGiorno returns to Tulsa radio

UPDATE 2023/11/20: Michael DelGiorno posted on his Facebook page: "Many have asked, so here's the specifics: "Your Morning Show" is now on iHeart app and Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC in Nashville. Starting Monday, December 4th on 1300 The Patriot in Tulsa. And, starting on Monday, January 8th on NewsRadio 1000 KTOK in Oklahoma City. More markets coming!"

iHeartMedia has announced that talk radio host Michael DelGiorno will return to the Tulsa airwaves in the near future. DelGiorno will be on KAKC 1300 The Patriot in Tulsa, KTOK Newsradio 1000 in Oklahoma City, and WLAC 1510/98.3 in Nashville. DelGiorno will begin broadcasting on WLAC on Monday, November 6, from 5 am to 8 am. Oklahoma City and Tulsa will "follow later" according to a RadioInsight story.

DelGiorno spent 17 years in the Tulsa market, serving as an afternoon host and program director at KRMG and operations manager for Clear Channel's Tulsa radio stations and KTBZ 1430 morning host. In 2002, DelGiorno turned legendary 50,000-watt country station KVOO, then owned by Journal Broadcast Group, into Talk Radio 1170 KFAQ, starting out in an afternoon talk slot, then moving to mornings for most of his five-year stay. He gave me the opportunity for a weekly guest slot that started with discussion of the Vision 2025 tax and grew to include local politics generally. In 2007, Cumulus Media hired DelGiorno as afternoon host at WWTN in Nashville, and he continued in that timeslot through March 2023.

After leaving WWTN, DelGiorno launched the 1850 Main Street podcast with David Zanotti, which will continue alongside the new morning show. As described about midway through the initial episode, 1850 in the name refers to a critical year in resolving America's divisions -- "you have 10 years to solve the conflicts that led to the Civil War." Earlier in that episode, DelGiorno discusses some of the formative experiences that shaped him as a political talk show host -- his involvement in Scott Pruitt's 2001 run for Congress, the slander and media bias that killed Steve Largent's political career in the 2002 gubernatorial election.

Tulsa has been starved for local talk since the illness and death of KFAQ's Pat Campbell. Rather than fill Pat's seat in 2021, KFAQ changed call letters and changed formats to sports talk. iHeartMedia saw an opportunity, and KAKC 1300 reformatted as The Patriot, picked up a number of national shows, and added Tulsa to Lee Matthews's 5 pm to 7 pm evening drive broadcast on KTOK.

That move turned out not to be the answer that we'd hoped for Tulsa talk radio. Matthews, based in OKC, has been focused on local discussion of national and state issues, with very little time to get into Tulsa-specific issues. If Matthews was taking a day off, he didn't have a substitute fill in; the local drive slot was simply eliminated and the following national show moved 2 hours earlier to fill the gap.

Michael DelGiorno will have some catching up to do after 16 1/2 years away, but he has the benefit of nearly two decades in Tulsa and family and friends in the city.

When Michael announced his departure from KFAQ in 2007, I summed up his impact on Tulsa's political conversation at that time:

When other stations were becoming more automated and homogenized, DelGiorno gave Tulsa talk radio about local issues. When other news-talk stations were cramming local content into ever tinier segments, DelGiorno provided time to cover an issue in depth.

DelGiorno provided a bypass around local media dominated by a few narrow interests. He gave politicians and activists the chance to get their side of the story out to the public.

Michael gave me a platform that I wouldn't otherwise have had. The exposure I got on his show brought more readers to this blog and ultimately led to the opportunity to write for Urban Tulsa Weekly.

DelGiorno brought concerned Tulsans, who otherwise wouldn't have met, together as allies. He helped them see the big picture, bigger than the specific problems that awakened their interest in local government.

Michael often expressed frustration that the same old issues kept recurring, and it seemed as if no progress was made. But as someone who has lived here most of my life and who has been involved politically for twenty years, I know that things are much different, and much better, for his work at KFAQ. Important issues that used to be under the radar are now front and center in the public dialogue.

In the UTW column I wrote later that month, I noted that it was during DelGiorno's time at KFAQ that Tulsa, for the first two times ever, elected a majority of city councilors who were not endorsed by the local power-brokers. DelGiorno's morning show made it possible for councilors like Jim Mautino, Roscoe Turner, and Chris Medlock to get elected, for the issues they raised at City Hall to get fair coverage and full discussion, and, in Mautino and Medlock's case, for their ability to rally support to survive a recall election.

I wonder what a three-city, two-state simulcast will be like. I'm sure there will be significant differences with 2007 in Michael's approach to covering Tulsa, but whatever form that takes, I'm excited to have Michael DelGiorno's voice back on local Tulsa talk radio.