We kept wondering: Why are Ron & Don (KIROFM m-f, 3-7p) the highest-rated talk hosts in Seattle?
They are after all, really stoopid. Don O'Neill plays a crude, agrammatical Tom Smothers to Ron Upshaw's dithering, ever-explaining Dickie. They rarely do real issues; they dally usually in crime stories and celebrity gossip.
After listening for a week or two, we think we get it.
1. They're apolitical. They rarely get into the frey. Unless politics hit Page 6, (like the Weiner story) they stay away from political.
2. There's no outrage... maybe Don rants a little against the occasional child molester, or dog neglecter, but for the most part, it's even-tempered, if a bit goony.
3. They're really well-produced. Not just pieces of YouTube audio, no sniping at celebrities and politicians, no sneers and peels of fake laughter like Dori who precedes them.Thank producer Jason Stein, a 2009 import from LA's megatalker KFI who brought this show from near extinction to #2 in the PM drive market. They get one of those crime stories the rest of us resisted clicking on and then tell the whole story. With Don doing color, Ron narrates it chronologically with all the details and audio they can scrape up. It's good radio, easy to get hooked into, a guilty pleasure if you avoided falling for the headline in the first place.
3. They're not mean. We're not nearly as nice as these guys; we've slaughtered and field dressed them many, many times. Couldn't help it: The musclebound frat-boy schtick is hard to digest if you're towering public intellectuals such as ourselves. But we gotta say it: As Dori Monson gets meaner, R & D seem to get more benign. They can be counted upon to dispense benefits-of-doubts, a sense of fairness, and usually the jokes are on them. While they flogged the Weiner story mercilessly, after Weiner's first apology, Don said Weiner owed no more than that to his constituents, and he stuck to that. By the end of the media run, they were portraying Weiner as a sympathetic, if not pathetic, character.
4. They don't skirt the race line, or pick political incorrectness fights. This is hallowed ground for news talk radio of the Rush Limbaugh school, and R & D simply don't play on that field.
5. They're lovable. This doesn't mean we love them, what it does mean is that they show empathy, vulnerability, and other traits that might endear them as human beings to listeners. This is unlike talkers like Dori Monson, or John Curley, who cleave unto the sociopathic Rush Limbaugh model, which is the sneering personal attacks on politicians they disagree with and the savaging of the weakest among us.
6. They have Rachel Belle. If a talk show could be seen as a person, gal-pal Rachel is the part that needs a bra. They give her a great deal of latitude in the stories she does, and she's does them very professionally, and with some much-needed girlitude and hipness to the show's gestalt. Not that, in a global sense, there's all that much hipness to the R & D show, it's just that La Belle rounds out the show's personality, giving it youthiness, gender balance and a little street.
(photo: you can her her bell: Rachel Belle!)
7. They help people. Ron & Don do a butt-load of charity money-raising, especially for disaster victims in far-flung locations. While that's awfully nice of them, good works and the inevitable, accompanying self-congratulation doesn't always make for great radio, but it certainly generates a lot of good will, which is better than, say, bad will. At the moment, Ron and Rachel are in Japan delivering what they describe as "1.4 million dollars worth of stuff from the Ron and Don Nation" to an orphanage in quake/tsunami-wracked Japan.
We're wondering if the Ron & Don Show is the sound of the next generation of talk radio: no viciousness, no partisanship, no substance. While we probably won't be trading our ATC in on R & D all that often, we get why these guys are beating everyone else in town. Are they changing the talk radio demographic? That is the question, which only time can answer.
Did that honey stealing bear keep Ron from making the trip to Japan?
Posted by: excessive moderate | July 13, 2011 at 11:20 AM
Who are you, and what have you done with Michael Hood???
I actually agree with most of your points, whoever you are. If you want a respite from the daily grind of partisan politics, these guys are an interesting alternative. Not a steady diet, mind you, but a chance to temporarily escape the doom & gloom.
Posted by: Radio Queen | July 13, 2011 at 12:44 PM
I see what you mean, they keep a conversation level on parr with the listeners. Something they have really developed over the years.
Posted by: Mike Barer | July 13, 2011 at 12:56 PM
We're through the looking glass here, people!
Seriously, I think Tom Leykis started out the same way and that it was one of the reasons he became so popular. It was nice to get away from all the politics, the bitching and moaning about real hard core news issues and just hear someone talk about stupid stuff for a while.
Of course over the years Leykis got meaner and more banal, but he was always fun. If these guys keep it light maybe they will last.
Posted by: Fatso | July 13, 2011 at 12:57 PM
April Fool's again already?
Gotta grudgingly agree with the commentary above. R&D are a lot easier to listen to than Dori's Noon-3pm Bitch Fest (apparantly he's just pissed off at EVERYTHING these days). And while I found her a bit annoying at first (and in the midst of R&D's schtick, that's no mean feat) I have come to enjoy the Rachel Belle bits of the show.
Posted by: Mysterion | July 13, 2011 at 02:41 PM
It's heartwarming to see you write in a reasoned and positive vein. Perhaps you should find more stories that allow you to do this. Keep it up.
Posted by: Old man in young man's body | July 13, 2011 at 03:03 PM
BLATHER!! DOH! They've been on for what, 5 years!!! I loved them from the start when Katrina blew them into The Jet City. I listen to them everyday. It's called POPULISM, dude! And, yes, it is the rage. Not phony "Populist" crap like screechy Amy Goodman or Thom Hartman or Drudge or FOX criminal enterprises. It's the Ron & Don Nation, a clubhouse, a place to hang your hat. You should listen more often; they're much better than you give them (finally) credit for.
Posted by: WILD BILL | July 13, 2011 at 03:28 PM
I was thinking the same thing, that this would be a refreshing change of pace for drive time radio. Entertainment. What a concept?
They are entertaining and easy to take even when I disagree with them. Their takes come across as sincere instead of calculated manipulation of the audience. And when they go over the top, it's doesn't have the hatred and bile of said DM whose limited agenda will include illegal immigrants, playing races against each other, Islam is evil, boobies, Ron Sims, and anything else he can feel uppity about. Yes, I listen to DM because he can spin a good story, but at least with R&D, I don't feel like I need to take a shower afterwards. ;)
Posted by: tomW | July 13, 2011 at 04:19 PM
Yep! It's the kind of POPULISM that brought us eight years of Ronnie (he was a great storyteller) and frat-boy Bush. Thanks Wild Bill.
Having said that, I like them once in a while. But Amy Goodman, Sirota: now they're everyday folk for me. Kind of like Kronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, MacNeil and Lehrer used to be on TV. When TV included analysis and the back story.
Still, I agree they're easy listening.
Posted by: joanie | July 13, 2011 at 04:27 PM
Ron's Barney Rubble laugh is bad enough...
Don is as bad as a forced radio voice can be unless it's a parody.
I don't care how many puppy kissing, kitten petting fund raisers they do.
They're awful.
Posted by: Rat_Bastard | July 13, 2011 at 05:31 PM
Except, Joanie, that I'm a late 40's born n bred Seattle boy, Democrat with a big D who voted for Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, and (ALAS) Gore and Kerry. The PBS news hour still does great stuff every day in their full hour. By Populism I guess I mean anti highbrow. Seattle proper, as of late, has sadly gotten pretentious and highbrow (see also Richy Rich; I understand Dori's frustrations on the subject). Ron and Don's show celebrates the Schlub without apology. Sticking one's nose up is bad for your posture....
Posted by: WILD BILL | July 13, 2011 at 05:47 PM
Not sticking my nose up . . . just looking out for those of us on the long slide down. BTW, Bill, I'm no Democrat. I'm an independent who will vote for the most progressive candidate on the ticket.
Anti-highbrow? What does that mean? I've attended a lot of operas but my family was lower-class self-employed hard-working people. I'm beginning to think tea party is anti-high brow. I hope you're not one of them.
Anyway, people seem to like a change from politics so with respoect to Rat Bastard who loves his Dori, I'm with the rest of you really.
Posted by: joanie | July 13, 2011 at 06:27 PM
BTW, Schultz and Matthews beat Fox News over the last couple of nights in the 25-54 demographic. Now that's something to celebrate.
Posted by: joanie | July 13, 2011 at 06:37 PM
R & D are politically incorrect and do not heart Obama and the liberal progressives, unlike the Joanies, Sparkles, Coils and their clones here, but this blog has diversity too. I can appreciate the fact that they call a spade a spade and are populists at heart, when they discuss something pithy.
I don't see any discernable difference between Democratic leadership, progressive and neo-marxist. They all drink from the same trough - don't give a shit about the country going in debt - it rates behind ways to get more pigs to feed at the trough and in general they are control freaks. They are out to dentigrate anyone with a different political ideology, because their good book directs them to do so - quite charming. Comrade Karl would be proud.
Posted by: KS blathering for the halibut | July 13, 2011 at 07:23 PM
Looks like KS got General Jerry Boykin’s propaganda video. It’s being passed around in tea bagger circles.
Posted by: excessive moderate | July 13, 2011 at 07:50 PM
Ron and Don would be a step up for him.
Posted by: I heart R&D | July 13, 2011 at 07:54 PM
Who is Jerry Boykin ? I have original ideas which are supported by evidence you don't want to see. So why not stop hiding behind your hypocrisy and just admit you are a neo-marxist ?
Posted by: KS blathering for the halibut | July 13, 2011 at 09:36 PM
You are SO last century...
Posted by: The Glenn Beck Comedy Tour | July 14, 2011 at 12:43 AM
Gonna go out on a limb here and say the the Bob Rivers Show on KJR-FM is the best locally produced talk show on the air these days. They cover a wide range of topics, aren't afraid to spend a lot of time on something if it is interesting (like the brain scientist they had on the other morning) rather than trying to cram it into a set time format. And it's pretty laid back (not a lot of yelling or ranting) and good natured.
Posted by: Mysterion | July 14, 2011 at 08:37 AM
After all the criticism pilled onto R&D from BW, I'm surprised by this post---a little. There's been a draught of content and since BW has been unable to make any impact on KIRO's programming, now they suddenly like the afternoon show. But I would like to address each point:
1. "They're apolitical." Dumb as both of them are, they know it would be suicide to alienate one half of their audience. However, it could spice things up if each of them took a different political stand. But they would rather talk about things in pop culture and political culture--although both of them are 20 years too old to know about the hip things of today.
2. "There's no outrage" - No REAL outrage. There's a ton of faux outrage to make it sound like they really care about something.
3. "They're really well-produced." Well, maybe NOW they are because they have chewed and spit out several producers over the year because they have (or one of them has) a very big problem with women. Yes, Don, the one that was married for 3 days and got divorced. They have left female producers is tears and humiliated and you'll notice that one or both of them haven been on vacation (suspension) from time to time.
4. "They're not mean." Um, ask their co-workers and the newsroom.
5. "They're lovable." What?
6. "They have Rachel Belle." Belle doesn't deliver really anything except some of the most moronic production pieces in the history of radio. She's not really the sharpest Crayon in the box---hence her return to KIRO.
7. "They help people." They certainly have you fooled. The total saccarin-sweet sentimate they emote to policemen and firefights (i.e. "Wrap our arms around them")....BARF! They are so DESPERATE to be liked, they will stoop to any kind of promotion. You know, the Japanese can take care of their own, you know? They don't need two radio talk-jocks dumping a bunch of garbage and expect to be worshipped like gods.
Posted by: JimF | July 14, 2011 at 12:38 PM
I love it when Dori comes here and posts under a different name....lolol
Posted by: sparky | July 14, 2011 at 12:46 PM
I'm glad this blog has come around. I've always thought (I think) that R&D were talented radio hosts, and that this blog was just upset that political talk was being replaced by generic FM drive-time shock jocks (sans shock). People have to come to terms with the fact that not everyone likes the same flavor of talk radio as themselves, and that in all likelihood, they aren't even in the target demo.
My only problem with R&D is the fake disagreements, where one or the other does a poor job of pretending they're in opposition something they obviously agree on. I wasn't listening, but I'm betting one was sympathetic of Anthony Weiner while the other thought he received his just deserts. I have no idea which side they really come down on, but... what does it matter?
Posted by: Andrew | July 14, 2011 at 01:12 PM
If R&D want to really help someone, how about doing something for these kids?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43755732/ns/world_news-africa/
But of course they won't. God, what a tragedy.
Posted by: JimF | July 14, 2011 at 01:33 PM
How do you know so much about the behind the scenes goings on at KIRO JimF?
Posted by: excessive moderate | July 14, 2011 at 01:52 PM
BREAKING: Fisher Plaza on the selling block for $142M -
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2015609400_fisher15.html
Posted by: JimF | July 14, 2011 at 03:08 PM
@excessive moderate: How does BW know so much about the inner-workings at KIRO?
Posted by: JimF | July 14, 2011 at 03:38 PM
Do tell...
Posted by: excessive moderate | July 14, 2011 at 05:53 PM
Gonna go out on a limb here and say the the Bob Rivers Show on KJR-FM is the best locally produced talk show on the air these days. They cover a wide range of topics, aren't afraid to spend a lot of time on something if it is interesting (like the brain scientist they had on the other morning) rather than trying to cram it into a set time format. And it's pretty laid back (not a lot of yelling or ranting) and good natured.
Posted by: Mysterion | July 14, 2011 at 08:37 AM
Agreed. they steer clear of stinky politics and deal with topics that are of more use to everyday people.
They chatted with Billy Joe Cyrus this AM (although not a fan of Achy Breaky Heart), and it was generally feel good interview. They should have one of the highest ratings for that time slot - even though they are a bit scarce on the music.
Posted by: KS blathering for the halibut | July 14, 2011 at 08:08 PM
Billy Ray, KS...Please pay attention.
Posted by: excessive moderate | July 14, 2011 at 08:26 PM
I've always had this Ron and Dawwwn (circa early 90's) parody playing in my head:
We're Ron and Dawwwwwn..
A coupla moraaaaans.
who don't know jack about squat..
We're so haardd uuuup..
to be on the Ray-Dee-ohhh
We think that'll get us laaaayyd..
Well if you wanna f'up and
waaste your dayyy just listen to
Ron and Daaaaaawwwwwnnn...
bloooooooooooooowwwwwwww..
Anyone remember their goofy sports talk days and have their own parody?
Posted by: YLB | July 14, 2011 at 09:40 PM
DOH - Billy Ray Cyrus. must have been thinking of Billy Joe Hobart - sports fans...
Posted by: KS blathering for the halibut | July 14, 2011 at 09:52 PM
I listen to Ron and Don for a single reason - traffic every ten minutes.
Posted by: Russell Tupper | July 15, 2011 at 02:24 PM
" If a talk show could be seen as a person, gal-pal Rachel is the part that needs a bra. "
Did you just call Rachel Belle a pair of... ?
Posted by: Dubliner | July 15, 2011 at 03:12 PM
They remind me of Ryan And Ryan from a bygone era. Anyone remember that team?
Posted by: Mike Barer | July 15, 2011 at 11:35 PM
I could really do without Rachel Bell.
Posted by: trickydick | July 16, 2011 at 09:27 AM
You doesn't ring your bell or trick your (never mind)
Posted by: Mike Barer | July 16, 2011 at 01:24 PM
They are ok but come on people, its not good radio after the first hour. the 3-4- & 4-5 hours are just recaps and the 6-7 hour is a total replay of hi lites from the first three, pretty sure they have already left the station by 6pm.
Posted by: david | July 17, 2011 at 07:43 AM
Sorry meant 4-5 & 5-6
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