Radio talk show hosts almost always suck at podcasts. (At least, at first. With practice, they can get better.) You’d think the two mediums would neatly overlap, and a top-tier radio host would be an instant dynamo at podcasts, but they’re vastly different formats.
And they require vastly different skillsets.
In traditional talk radio, you’re competing against the dial: If you’re dull for even 30 seconds, you risk losing your audience, because they’ll simply switch to another station. It’s why talk show hosts are trained to speak so energetically, forcefully, and passionately.
They’re trying to keep and capture the attention of everyone in the car — including the passengers in the backseat: Don’t you dare touch that dial!
The podcast format doesn’t work like that. Loud, aggressive voices alienate listeners; the same bombastic schtick comes across as phony and performative.
Instead, today’s top podcasts are ultra-conversational: The audience feels as if they’re sharing a table with the host and guest, eavesdropping on a fascinating, personal discussion. The tonal differences are glaring.
But other than the tonal shift, yeah, podcasting is the new home of the next-gen shock-jocks. It’s the exact same shtick as it was during the halcyon days of Howard Stern, Don Imus, the Greaseman, Mancow, Opie and Anthony, Don and Mike, and Bubba the Love Sponge: You build an audience by pushing the envelope.
The only difference is, different things “shock” us in 2025.
Howard Stern made a living by saying outrageous things about sex, bodily fluids, religion, and bathroom habits. During the 1980s and 1990s, that was enough to shock and/or titillate.
Part of the fun was their cat-and-mouse game with the FCC and station managers: Shock jocks got great ratings, but there was always a shortage of sponsors who’d want their brands to be affiliated with that kind of crass, off-color content. So station managers would beg them to tone it down — which, of course, made ‘em do the opposite.
Stern and his shock jock cohorts tried to find the sweet spot of avoiding fines (and getting booted off the air), while still being as outrageous as possible.
But with the internet, there’s no longer a cat-and-mouse game. If you wanna go on YouTube, X, or Rumble and talk about sex, pooping, peeing, or anything else, nobody’s gonna stop you. You can talk about every single sex act in the Kama Sutra if you want!
Sex isn’t shocking anymore — which is why today’s digital shock jocks no longer talk about it.
But you know what is shocking? Conspiracies. White supremacy. Charlie Kirk’s family and friends murdering him. Erika Kirk being a fraud. Israel committing genocide. The French president’s wife being a dude in drag. JD Vance being a race traitor. Demons attacking your tummy when nobody’s looking. Gay neocons lusting for World War III. Secret cabals of Jews running the world. The CIA/Mossad orchestrating pedophilia rings. Rewriting World War II, so Churchill was the bad guy and Hitler was the hero.
In the glory days of radio, landing your own talk show was a daunting task. In each city, there was just a handful of job openings. Plus, you had to deal with sponsors, the station manager, and the FCC. Even the top shock jocks had to weigh their words carefully.
Every shock jock knew the story about the downfall of the Greaseman: You’re always one dumb joke away from being unemployable.
It kept shock jocks in line.
None of those barriers exist today. If you wanna be a political shock jock, all you need is an internet connection. You can’t get fired; worst case scenario is, you’d get a video demonetized on one platform (but probably not on all the others). And most importantly, the economics are completely different: Instead of dealing with killjoy sponsors and/or station managers, the name of the game is getting clicks.
Period. Clicks, clicks, clicks.
Do that and you’ll be rich!
It’s something we discussed yesterday, when we compared and contrasted the Four Ages of conservative media:
[Traditional a.m.] talk-radio hosts [made] a living by building an emotional bond with their audience. There’s an intimacy to radio — a unique sense of really, truly knowing the soul of the host — that’s markedly different than television.
Radio feels like a one-on-one relationship. TV feels like a performance.
Even today, years after he died, millions of conservatives still love Rush Limbaugh. The bond he built survived his death.
Nothing will ever break it.
We don’t feel the same way about Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson, or any of the other TV hosts. There was something special about the format, the man — and especially his medium.
But podcasters and influencers just need clicks.
Virality for its own sake is the secret to their success. It ain’t about emotional bonds or long-term credibility; it’s all about the clicks, baby.
So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that political shock jocks — including Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and Nick Fuentes — keep saying and doing increasingly stupid things: The economics of their industry incentivizes it.
And we’re NOT going to talk them out of it. As Upton Sinclair wrote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
The die is cast and we’re not going back.
Of all the conspiracy theories that Tucker and Candace are so doggedly investigating, you’ll NEVER see ‘em pursue this one: “Are the world’s top political influencers promoting bat[feces] crazy lies and garbage because it’s profitable to do so?”
(Nah, they’re more concerned with Mrs. Macron’s crotch.)
That’s the bad news: If you think this political shock jock nonsense is bad now, it’s gonna get WAY worse in 2026. The shock jock business depends on escalation. You’ve gotta keep raising the stakes.
Which is why we’ve got nowhere to go… but further down in the gutter.
Fortunately, there’s good news, too.
In the aforementioned article about the Four Ages of conservative media, I included a clip from the 1997 Howard Stern biopic, Private Parts:
Ratings Expert: The average radio listener listens for 18 minutes. The average Howard Stern fan listens for — are you ready for this — an average of 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Kenny “Pig Vomit” Rushton: How can that be?
Ratings Expert: Answer most commonly given: I want to see what he’ll say next.
Kenny “Pig Vomit” Rushton: All right. Okay, fine, but what about the people who hate Stern?
Ratings Expert: Good point. The average Stern hater listens for an average of two-and-a-half hours a day.
Kenny “Pig Vomit” Rushton: Look, but if they hate him, why do they listen?
Ratings Expert: Most common answer: I want to see what he’ll say next.
In the comments, a reader named David Lang said something that bears repeating:
there is a mistaken belief that viewers == people who agree and can be directed
in the article, stern haters watched 2.5 hours, do you think that this made them agree with stern?
He’s exactly right.
We make correlations based on our experiences: We always compare something new to something old.
It’s why we used to call the World Wide Web an “information superhighway.” Back in the 1990s, that was our frame of reference.
When conservatives see influencers such as Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes talk about politics, our frame of reference is past talk show hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh. And so we assume they’re all in the same category.
But they’re not.
Rush Limbaugh was the ultimate talk radio warrior: He built an unbreakable emotional connection with his audience, and dedicated his life to promoting conservative principles. Sure, he used schtick and humor, but he used them to promote conservatism.
Conservatism was his north star.
We listened to Rush because we admired and respected him — plus, he was a helluva entertainer to boot.
Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes are political shock jocks. Their only goal is clicks and controversy.
For them, it’s virality or bust. That’s their key to making money.
And today, lots of people watch Tucker and Candace the same reason they hate-watched Howard Stern in the 1980s: They wanna see what bat[feces] crazy thing they say next.
We call them “influencers” — but the opposite is actually true: They’re doing more entertaining than influencing.
They’re the equivalent of the old MTV show Jackass, where crazy people did crazy stunts, shocking audiences with outrageous pranks and/or physical harm.
Lots of people watched. (Believe it or not, in addition to their hit TV show, the Jackass franchise made nine movies!) But they didn’t watch because they respected or admired the on-air talent.
Instead, they watched to marvel at their stupidity!
So that’s the good news: Even though today’s political shock jocks get millions of clicks and have lots of “fans,” they don’t have the influence of someone such as Rush Limbaugh. In fact, they don’t have nearly the influence that their audience-size would suggest.
That’s because their “fans” are watching for a different reason.
Alas, we’re not done with the bad news quite yet. One final caveat to keep in mind: Jackass was sued because some people are really frickin’ stupid.
Despite their disclaimer that Jackass “features stunts performed by professionals and/or total idiots … MTV insists that neither you or any of your dumb little buddies attempt the dangerous crap in this show,” some idiots attempted ‘em anyway.
And a portion of Carlson/Owens/Fuentes’ audience will take their bat[feces] message just as literally, too.
One Last Thing: The Democrats are on the ropes, but make no mistake: The donkeys are still dangerous. We need your help to succeed!
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