April 30, 2026 • 23 mins
As a Radio Hall of Fame inductee, best-selling author, TV personality, and producer, Charlamagne Tha God is a singular shaper of culture. He’s the co-host of iHeartRadio's The Breakfast Club morning show, driving millions of listeners daily, and he’s expanded his collaboration with iHeart to create The Black Effect Podcast Network. Live from Miami at POSSIBLE 2026, Charlamagne talks with Bob about attention, engagement, and authenticity. He shares his strategies for building trust with listeners, including how he’s evolved from being transparent to truly vulnerable on the air. Plus, hear his thoughts on brand safety, influencers, and the ever-expanding ways to meet your audience where they are.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
They're going to hear what we truly, honestly think, and
if we do make a mistake, our listeners will check us,
social media will check us, and you know, we'll correct it.
And I think all of that builds trust.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
So this is a special episode of my podcast, Math
and Magic. We talk about attention, we talk about engagement,
we talk about authenticity. Today's guest to Charlemagne the God.
He's one of the greatest at all that, so give
him a big round of applause if you will. Charlemagne's
an author, he's been a TV host, producer, founder of
(00:49):
the Lack Effect podcast network. He's huge on social major influencer,
and he's built all that on the foundation of his
famous broadcast radio morning show, The Breakfast Club. And just
to tell you how powerful that show is. I don't
know if you guys followed that. Netflix has licensed some
video podcast to aris basically TV shows on Netflix, and
(01:13):
I think one. They've done over one hundred of them
or so on the air. One podcast video podcast has
gotten forty percent of the views forty four sorry forty
guess which one that is? The breakfast club in Charlemagne,
and people ask when you tell him that, they go, well,
how could that happen? And you go, because he talks
(01:33):
about it every day on the radio. He uses his
social he demonstrates how powerful an influencer he is, and
the audience goes with him. So we're going to get
into that today and we're gonna get into how that happens.
But first I want to do you in sixty seconds,
just to give you a little context here. So you
ready to go, let's do it. Cats are dogs, dogs,
(01:54):
early rise, er, night out.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Early rise.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I do more to radio big city or small town.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I'm from Monst Corner, South Carolina, so I'm always go
small town.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I'm from a little small town too, but I'm big cities. Now.
They converted me East coast to West coast. East coast
protein or carbs protein, sweeter, savory, ooh sweet. Introvert or extrovert.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Introvert for real, extrovert for performance.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Let me get you in trouble jay Z or Kendrick Lamar,
jay Z. Comedy or drama.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
I can't say drama y dramedy. We'll tell okay, it's.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
About to get harder. Favorite all time ever music artist.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
Oh, Jesus chrazy. That's a broad question. Jay Z probably Jessee.
Favorite book are you their goddess? Mean Margaret by Juli Blue.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Favorite place to visit? Angula, So I like call it
Angula secret talent.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
I don't really have many talents. Secret talent.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I don't know. I don't think you have any secrets left,
do you?
Speaker 4 (02:53):
That's even better?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
All right, let's jump in. Let's get to some of
the topics of interest to the marketers here. Influence. Everybody's
got a view of what they are, how to use
some in your mind? You do it? What are they?
And how should marketers think about influencers?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, an influencer is somebody who can speak about something,
could be doing something more importantly, I think actually using
something and make you want to use it as well.
You know, I think that, you know, marketers think influencers
are the people who have millions of followers, or the
big celebrity are the big comedian. In reality, man, it
(03:31):
might be somebody on social media with ten thousand followers,
five thousand followers, but they may just be showing me
something cool or showing me something that I've never seen before,
and therefore I'm like, you know what, I wouldn't mind,
you know, picking up that product, are using that product.
So influencer doesn't necessarily mean numbers.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
It just means impact.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
And I think nowadays, you know, anybody can be an influencer.
I think that we've looked at numbers and we're kind
of like skewed by numbers a little bit, because, man,
we think one hundred people isn't a lot of people.
If one hundred people are at your front door, you
call a police.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
What the hell are all of these people at my
front door? Force?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
If you have one hundred people that you can influence
to try something or do something, then to me, you
are an influencer.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Talk about authenticity and attention, which tend to be things
that I think marketers are focused on. I want you
to pay attention, I want you to hear it, and
I want it to be authentic, mean something. How do
you think about it?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
To me, when I think about authenticity now, I think
about people who are not being performative, because I think
for the last several years we've seen a lot of
performative authenticity. And to me, authenticity is the person who
you kind of just capture doing what they do every
day in their regular life. Like you know, we get
on the radio every morning and we just do radio,
(04:49):
and then we take that radio program and it's consumed
on various platforms. But what we're actually doing every day
is just mourning radio. Like we're not going there trying
to sell you anything. We're not trying to be performative
in any way, shape or form. And I think that's
why we become a habit for people, because folks know that, hey,
they're being authentic. They can call it and tell us
to shut up. I had a woman call in and
(05:11):
tell me to shut up this morning. She literally said
to me, shut up. You talk every day five days
a week.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Now is my turn.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And I was like, you know what, You're right, And that,
to me is the authentic connection that you have with
your listeners when you're just showing up to do whatever
it is your job is as opposed to turning on
the phone and saying.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Hey, look at me.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
You know, this is what I want to show you today,
this is what I'm trying to push down.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Your throat today. Just nah, just show up and be
who you are.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
You know, it's interesting there are a stat that backs
that up the average consumer watches about forty TV networks
in a month. They listen to too radio stations. They
don't wake up in the morning and say, who am
I gona listen to this morning. If they've been listening
to you for years, they're gonna be listening to you
for another bunch of years, sixteen years now on the
radio for the breakfast club, and you're their choice. They
(05:59):
get up in the morning and there you are. And
by the way, it may start on Alexa and wind
up in the car radio, but they move through all
the devices, but they're staying with you all morning.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And I think people don't even understand that concept, right,
Like how to become a habit. Most of these podcasts
that people love now have been around for well over
a decade, so they've become habits to people's want.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Of our biggest is stuff you should know well in
the earliest podcasts. Let's jump to podcasting. You know, there
are some people that think if Netflix in general terms
is really TV on demand, then podcasting is really radio
and demand. I mean, it's interesting that we're the number
one podcast company and we've always thought about it as
(06:38):
an adjacent business very similar to radio. We go deep
instead of broad. But we take one topic and go
deep with the podcast. MPR is very big also a
radio company and podcasting as well. And by the way,
I will tell you fifteen years ago when we were
looking at podcasting, I go ask nothing, and they kept
watching and watching, it kept growing and growing and growing.
I finally go, we got to get into this to
(07:00):
make it hours. You were very early, I mean you
were like podcast brain. How do you think about podcasting
and how does it relate to radio and to your
social which, by the way, I'll mentioned if you a
huge social following as well.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I think podcasting, I think the screaming platforms, they're all
fruit off the tree of radio. And you know, I
started off as a radio personality. But I've always said
to myself, you have to meet people where they are.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Like, you know, back in the day, they say if
you build it, they will come.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, that used to be true maybe twenty years ago,
but now you have to build it and you have
to meet people.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Where they are.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So I was born in nineteen hundred and seventy eight, right,
so I predate even the Internet. So I remember when
the Internet first came around and we had this content
that we were creating on radio, so we started distributing
it via the Internet. And then YouTube came around, so
we started taking that content and putting it out on YouTube.
And then there became all of the social media platforms,
(07:55):
and you would take your radio content and put it
on the social media platforms.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
Same thing applies now.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Podcasting is just fruit off the tree of radio. If
you're in the radio business or if you're in the
television business, but you have to take that content you're
doing on those traditional platforms and put them out via
podcast because, like you know, Bob said, it's like radio
on demand, the same way you can go home and
turn on Netflix and watch whatever show it is you
want to watch. It's the same thing with your favorite
(08:21):
radio program. You might not catch us in the morning,
but you might leave here and say, yo, let me
see what the breakfast club is talking about, and do
us on it one o'clock in the afternoon. So radio
is the grandfather of it all. Even if you look
at all of the platforms that exist now, they're all
like offshoots of radio in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Well, it's interesting. It surprises people. I think maybe in
this room too, they're more broadcast radio listeners today than
there were twenty years ago. This is not a business
that's been a run out of business by technology. It's
a business action that's expanded Now. We can not only
get it on badcasts. Ready to get you on podcasting,
We can get you on the radio app. We can
(08:56):
get you on Alexa, et cetera, et cetera. Number one
use by the way Lexus broadcast radio and even.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Across the country. What's the statistics. Ninety percent of the
country still listens to the radio.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Absolutely, they're there day in and day out. It's interesting.
Audio is about a third of the media day, and
radio is about two thirds of audio. Podcasting is about
twenty percent. Podcasting is now bigger than the streaming music services.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
And you know, even with advertisers, right, like radio gives
you so much bang for your buck because, like I said,
we can be consumed in so many different forms. You
got radio, then we come out of the podcast, then
we're on social media with the clips, then we're on YouTube,
breakfast club, now we're on Netflix. That's just like one
pie slice five different weeks.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
We've talked about a little bit, but you've built this
big radio podcasting, influencer, social and clearly at the heart
of it is engagement and trust. How do you build that.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Through time and getting it right, but also when you
get it wrong, admitting that you got it wrong, not
acting like you're above your listeners. Because I never feel
like we are, like we're in business because of the
people that listen to us every morning. Like I literally
when I get on the air every day, I said,
thank you God for besting me with another day of life,
and thank you for another day to serve our beautiful listeners.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
I really feel like that.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I really feel like every time I get on that microphone,
I am a public servant and I'm near to serve
the needs of my listeners. And I think I've been
doing radio for twenty eight years, Breakfast Club for fifteen
sixteen now, so we have become a habit for people,
and people know whether we get it right, whether we
get it wrong, they know that they're going to hear
what we truly, honestly think. And if we do make
(10:47):
a mistake, like I said, our listeners will check us,
social media will check us, and you know we'll correct it.
And I think all of that builds trust. Like I
hate people who approach the microphone like they're perfect and
they're experts at everything.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
I'm not an expert at nothing.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I got some experiences and I'm here to share my experiences,
and I think that is life, right, Like we're all
on this journey called life, and we're all here sharing
a different human experience every day. And that's the key, right,
being a human and sharing your human experience every day.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
That's how you build trust. That's how you become a habit.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
You mentioned you're from a small rural community. I don't
even think I call it a town, your cornfields or
whatever around there, going on a dirt road. Did that
give you unique insights?
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Oh? Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
My mother was an English teacher, so she always growing up,
would encourage me to read a lot, right, and she
would always tell me to read things that don't pertain
to me. And then you know, we also had the
booket program, so you had to read full books to
get a free pizza. That's how I even got into
Judy Bloom and Beverly Clearly and all of that stuff
like that, right, Because you know, I'm a young black
man growing up on a dirt road and Mon's going
to South Carolina I go in the library and I
(11:55):
see this book with all these little white girls on
the cover, little white boys on the cover. I'm like, well,
they're nothing like me. Read it and see.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
What's going on. And so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
It just taught me to dream in a different way
between music and literature. It just really taught me I
could transcend my circumstances no matter where I'm at. And
you know, when you grow up in a small town,
you have more. I'm not saying you don't have morals
when you grow up in a big town, but you
have a different set of morals and values and integrity.
And you see people and you say hi, and you
(12:24):
speak and your grandma will give you that wisdom like
man as will take you where money won't. And that's
what I've just carried with me everywhere I go. And
I just think it's something about growing up in those
small towns that translates everywhere.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
You know, do you think the small town parented you?
The community parented you?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
But still to this day, like literally to this day,
I can go home because you know, I do a
lot of community work back home, and it's just like
those people don't look at me as you know, Charlotte
Mane like there go, that's Lenard, and they'll put their
arm around me and tell me that they're proud of me.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
They'll tell me what they don't like.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
That's my community, that's my village that continues to raise
me to this day.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
How often do you go back?
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Oh a lot, I said. I do a lot of
charity work down there.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I'm on like the board of the International African American
Museum in Charleston. My parents are there, my in laws
are their all, my cousin's family, everybody like I'm in
South Carolina quite often. Plus my wife is an alumni
of the University of South Carolina game Cock so we
go down there for football, basketball games, everything for some
game Cocks in the houses.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Okay, I like the applause. This is a nice touch. Heare.
You've got all these multiple platforms. How do you navigate them?
How do they all work together? And how do you
think about the messages you want to send through them? Oh?
Speaker 4 (13:37):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You have to be intentional, you know, Like I said,
I'm not an expert at anything. I just have some
experiences and I know the things that I want to
share with people, and I also believe that audiences nowadays,
they're not as complex as people think they are. Like
I said, we're all just human sharing a human experience.
So if I get on the radio and I'm having
a conversation about, you know, going the therapy on Fridays,
(14:01):
or I'm talking to people about anxiety, I may deal
with our bouser depression. I don't care what race you are,
what your sexuality is, what your gender is. You can
connect with that in some way, shape or form. If
I'm telling you about a restaurant that I ate at,
you know you'll be able to connect with that in
some way, shape or form. So you ask, how are
you able to navigate all of that? I'm really just
(14:22):
being me and you got to have a great team
that can distribute all of that content, you know, to
where it needs to go.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
I really don't overthink it in that way.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Like I don't wake up and be like, oh my god,
we're on Netflix, Oh my god, we're gonna be on YouTube,
Oh my god, I got to put out the podcast.
I just wake up on me and I let the
digital team handle the rest.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
You're talking about the authenticity and the reality. One of
the things we do with the radio, which these folks
may not know, is that unlike in my days and
TV your days. In TV, it's not scripted, it's not
a narrative. It's about keeping people company. We are a companion.
Imagine you're writing the work with somebody as they're a
(15:01):
car pol buddy. What would you talk about? How do
you talk about it? And I think one of the
hardest things for somebody coming up in the radio business
and something you've mastered is being yourself. People actually don't
want to share their well, I don't really want to
say that to everybody. If you're really going to build
a relationship, you have to. At what point did you
sort of realize I've got to sort of expose myself
(15:23):
if I'm going to be able and honest to god
relationship with these people as opposed to, as you say,
a performative relationship.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I think when I first started radio way back when
in Charleston, South Carolina, one of the things I said
that benefited me was I didn't have any formal experience
in radio, Like I didn't.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
Go to college and do college radio.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
I literally was fresh off the diror road onto the microphone.
So nobody had taught me how to do radio yet,
so I was just getting on there having a conversation,
and that's kind of what has stayed with me, you know, throughout.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
And so I've always been pretty transparent.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
I think that I didn't start actually getting vulnerable till
probably ten years ago, because I started going to therapy
in like two thousand and sixteen.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
And so I think it's a.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Difference between being transparent but actually being vulnerable with your audience,
you know, letting your audience know, like I said, the
anxiety you might be dealing with it about the depression.
And it's funny you talk about when you show up
and you want to be your true, authentic self. I
think you can get caught up in being a character. Sure,
if you've been doing it long enough. If you've been
(16:34):
doing it long enough and you start seeing headlines. I
remember there was always the Charlamagne is the hip hop
Howard Stern, and I'm like, oh, so what does that mean?
So that's what y'all want? Y'all want something like that,
y'all want more of that. I didn't even stop to think, well,
what part of Howard Stern do they like? You know
that they think I present to them and so that's whack.
(16:55):
For a moment, I was being a second rate version
of somebody else instead of being a first rate version
of myself.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
And I think that's kind.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Of one of the things that actually led me to
start going to therape because I felt like I was
losing myself a little bit and I had to, you know,
like really remember why I got into this and to
get radio, I had to remember who I was as
a human being and as a person. And I think
that kind of like really really brought me back to
center and allowed me to.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Be more vulnerable with my audience.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
And I think that helps you to grow and evolve
as a personality more than anything AI.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
The research says, we just did a big study called
the Human Consumer, trying to get an understanding of sort
of a white paper on the consumer and technology. Seventy
percent of people said they use AI, over ninety percent
wile they're media from humans. I think it was twenty seventeen,
about seventy five percent of people said human connections were
the most important thing to them today. That numbers over
(17:51):
ninety percent. We have at iHeart, you're part of it.
We have got a promise that we're guaranteed human both
on podcasting and radio. We're never going to present AI
pretending to be a human. We're not going to play
artists that are really AI. No room for him on
our air. We're not gonna have a AI version of
Charlott Ninge the God.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
You promise, I promise.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
So what's going on with AI and what's its role
and how do we use it?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
It's scary that we even have to have the guaranteed
human thing, right. I think that we're about to experience
what I'm gonna call the Great Disconnect, because I feel
like there's gonna be so many people who start disconnecting
from social media, who start disconnecting from YouTube because I
don't know about y'all. I can't live the rest of
my life looking at my phone asking is this real?
Speaker 4 (18:37):
Is this real? Is this real?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
You send something to somebody and they're like, is this real?
I don't want to live my life like that. I
want to be able to look somebody in the eye,
shake their hand and know that this is a you know,
actual human that I'm talking to. And if we live
in a world where everybody's already so easily manipulated, right,
you can easily brainwash people. You can already program them
to think what you want to think from humans. Imagine
(18:59):
if you take the artificial intelligence and now you got
them pushing that type of rhetoric on people and pushing
that type of misinformation on people like that is very
scary to me.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
I'm sure that there's gonna be a lot of ways
that AI is going to be beneficial to our society,
but I don't know.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Okay, let's go to brands. A lot of people in
this room or marketers and have their brands. They're worried
about how do they ensure they are trusted and authentic
in the age of AI.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Well, brands just got to worry about having great product
because great product always sells itself. Brands want to connect
with different personalities, different shows. I think brands have to
start trusting the audience. We have all of these conversations
about brand safety. I'm one of those people that feels
like brand safety is subjective because if you have a
(19:46):
product and you want to get it in front of
this audience, but you're saying to yourself, oh, this.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Show is two edgy, or this show is too.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Controversial, you're literally telling the millions of people who watch
that show en to that show that they don't know
what they're talking about. So if those millions of people
aren't concerned about the edginess or the controversialness of the show,
then I don't think you should be either, because all
you should care about is your product getting in front
of as many eyeballs as possible. And once again, like
(20:17):
I said, you know, what's safe is subjective. I keep
referencing Judy Blooms, She's on my mind this morning, but
it's like there was a time with Judy Bloom. No,
right now, Judy's Blooms books are considered controversial. Judy Bloom
how was forever controversial? Guys how is blubber controversial?
Speaker 4 (20:31):
But there's some people who feel like that.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
So it's just like, to me, brand safety is just subjective,
and you should just want to get your product in
front of as many people as possible.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Trust the audience that they know what they're talking about.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
You have some of the biggest names in music on
your show again and again and again. A lot of
people here use music, and I think they're finding that
they've love sports because it's live, there's a community. They
like radio because it's live and a community, and music
is the heart of a lot of that. How should
they think about using the music artists? What advice would
you give them?
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I still feel like, you know, musicians are some of
the biggest influences.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Every day we're putting on a song.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
I don't think that there's a day that goes by
that I don't listen to at least one record, Like
I'm choosing to go on one of these music screaming platforms
and listen to a record. Don't think about the record
sales being down, to the screams being down, or you know,
the live shows not selling like they once did. Those
artists still connect with people. There's certain people that can
(21:38):
walk out on this stage right now and everybody will
pull out their phones like, oh my god, like you know,
right now to this day. So you still have to
look at to me musicians as being some of the biggest,
if not the biggest influencers out there.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
We had thirty seconds. Work life balance or work life integration?
How do you handle it?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
I don't think there's such thing as work life balance,
Like there's going to be something that suffer, you know,
if I choose family, which I am going to do
nine times out of ten, work's going to suffer. If
I choose work, then I'm probably gonna end up missing something.
I got four daughters from seventeen, ten, seven, and four,
so they're all their ages vary, so they all got
(22:15):
different things that they're doing. So I don't think there
is such thing as work life balance. Something is going
to have to be sacrificed.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Sadly, Charlayne, thank you. You are a unicorn. Great talent,
but equally great entrepreneur.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is created and hosted by Bob Pittman. The Math
and Magic team is Ali Perry, Jessica Crincicic, and Dylan Hoyer.
Special thanks to Sidney Rosenblum for booking and wrangling our
wonderful talent, which is no small feat.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Until next time,
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
They're going to hear what we truly, honestly think, and
if we do make a mistake, our listeners will check us,
social media will check us, and you know, we'll correct it.
And I think all of that builds trust.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
So this is a special episode of my podcast, Math
and Magic. We talk about attention, we talk about engagement,
we talk about authenticity. Today's guest to Charlemagne the God.
He's one of the greatest at all that, so give
him a big round of applause if you will. Charlemagne's
an author, he's been a TV host, producer, founder of
(00:49):
the Lack Effect podcast network. He's huge on social major influencer,
and he's built all that on the foundation of his
famous broadcast radio morning show, The Breakfast Club. And just
to tell you how powerful that show is. I don't
know if you guys followed that. Netflix has licensed some
video podcast to aris basically TV shows on Netflix, and
(01:13):
I think one. They've done over one hundred of them
or so on the air. One podcast video podcast has
gotten forty percent of the views forty four sorry forty
guess which one that is? The breakfast club in Charlemagne,
and people ask when you tell him that, they go, well,
how could that happen? And you go, because he talks
(01:33):
about it every day on the radio. He uses his
social he demonstrates how powerful an influencer he is, and
the audience goes with him. So we're going to get
into that today and we're gonna get into how that happens.
But first I want to do you in sixty seconds,
just to give you a little context here. So you
ready to go, let's do it. Cats are dogs, dogs,
(01:54):
early rise, er, night out.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Early rise.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I do more to radio big city or small town.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I'm from Monst Corner, South Carolina, so I'm always go
small town.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I'm from a little small town too, but I'm big cities. Now.
They converted me East coast to West coast. East coast
protein or carbs protein, sweeter, savory, ooh sweet. Introvert or extrovert.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Introvert for real, extrovert for performance.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Let me get you in trouble jay Z or Kendrick Lamar,
jay Z. Comedy or drama.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
I can't say drama y dramedy. We'll tell okay, it's.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
About to get harder. Favorite all time ever music artist.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
Oh, Jesus chrazy. That's a broad question. Jay Z probably Jessee.
Favorite book are you their goddess? Mean Margaret by Juli Blue.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Favorite place to visit? Angula, So I like call it
Angula secret talent.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
I don't really have many talents. Secret talent.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I don't know. I don't think you have any secrets left,
do you?
Speaker 4 (02:53):
That's even better?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
All right, let's jump in. Let's get to some of
the topics of interest to the marketers here. Influence. Everybody's
got a view of what they are, how to use
some in your mind? You do it? What are they?
And how should marketers think about influencers?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, an influencer is somebody who can speak about something,
could be doing something more importantly, I think actually using
something and make you want to use it as well.
You know, I think that, you know, marketers think influencers
are the people who have millions of followers, or the
big celebrity are the big comedian. In reality, man, it
(03:31):
might be somebody on social media with ten thousand followers,
five thousand followers, but they may just be showing me
something cool or showing me something that I've never seen before,
and therefore I'm like, you know what, I wouldn't mind,
you know, picking up that product, are using that product.
So influencer doesn't necessarily mean numbers.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
It just means impact.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
And I think nowadays, you know, anybody can be an influencer.
I think that we've looked at numbers and we're kind
of like skewed by numbers a little bit, because, man,
we think one hundred people isn't a lot of people.
If one hundred people are at your front door, you
call a police.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
What the hell are all of these people at my
front door? Force?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
If you have one hundred people that you can influence
to try something or do something, then to me, you
are an influencer.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Talk about authenticity and attention, which tend to be things
that I think marketers are focused on. I want you
to pay attention, I want you to hear it, and
I want it to be authentic, mean something. How do
you think about it?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
To me, when I think about authenticity now, I think
about people who are not being performative, because I think
for the last several years we've seen a lot of
performative authenticity. And to me, authenticity is the person who
you kind of just capture doing what they do every
day in their regular life. Like you know, we get
on the radio every morning and we just do radio,
(04:49):
and then we take that radio program and it's consumed
on various platforms. But what we're actually doing every day
is just mourning radio. Like we're not going there trying
to sell you anything. We're not trying to be performative
in any way, shape or form. And I think that's
why we become a habit for people, because folks know that, hey,
they're being authentic. They can call it and tell us
to shut up. I had a woman call in and
(05:11):
tell me to shut up this morning. She literally said
to me, shut up. You talk every day five days
a week.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Now is my turn.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And I was like, you know what, You're right, And that,
to me is the authentic connection that you have with
your listeners when you're just showing up to do whatever
it is your job is as opposed to turning on
the phone and saying.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Hey, look at me.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
You know, this is what I want to show you today,
this is what I'm trying to push down.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Your throat today. Just nah, just show up and be
who you are.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
You know, it's interesting there are a stat that backs
that up the average consumer watches about forty TV networks
in a month. They listen to too radio stations. They
don't wake up in the morning and say, who am
I gona listen to this morning. If they've been listening
to you for years, they're gonna be listening to you
for another bunch of years, sixteen years now on the
radio for the breakfast club, and you're their choice. They
(05:59):
get up in the morning and there you are. And
by the way, it may start on Alexa and wind
up in the car radio, but they move through all
the devices, but they're staying with you all morning.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And I think people don't even understand that concept, right,
Like how to become a habit. Most of these podcasts
that people love now have been around for well over
a decade, so they've become habits to people's want.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Of our biggest is stuff you should know well in
the earliest podcasts. Let's jump to podcasting. You know, there
are some people that think if Netflix in general terms
is really TV on demand, then podcasting is really radio
and demand. I mean, it's interesting that we're the number
one podcast company and we've always thought about it as
(06:38):
an adjacent business very similar to radio. We go deep
instead of broad. But we take one topic and go
deep with the podcast. MPR is very big also a
radio company and podcasting as well. And by the way,
I will tell you fifteen years ago when we were
looking at podcasting, I go ask nothing, and they kept
watching and watching, it kept growing and growing and growing.
I finally go, we got to get into this to
(07:00):
make it hours. You were very early, I mean you
were like podcast brain. How do you think about podcasting
and how does it relate to radio and to your
social which, by the way, I'll mentioned if you a
huge social following as well.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I think podcasting, I think the screaming platforms, they're all
fruit off the tree of radio. And you know, I
started off as a radio personality. But I've always said
to myself, you have to meet people where they are.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Like, you know, back in the day, they say if
you build it, they will come.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, that used to be true maybe twenty years ago,
but now you have to build it and you have
to meet people.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Where they are.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So I was born in nineteen hundred and seventy eight, right,
so I predate even the Internet. So I remember when
the Internet first came around and we had this content
that we were creating on radio, so we started distributing
it via the Internet. And then YouTube came around, so
we started taking that content and putting it out on YouTube.
And then there became all of the social media platforms,
(07:55):
and you would take your radio content and put it
on the social media platforms.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
Same thing applies now.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Podcasting is just fruit off the tree of radio. If
you're in the radio business or if you're in the
television business, but you have to take that content you're
doing on those traditional platforms and put them out via
podcast because, like you know, Bob said, it's like radio
on demand, the same way you can go home and
turn on Netflix and watch whatever show it is you
want to watch. It's the same thing with your favorite
(08:21):
radio program. You might not catch us in the morning,
but you might leave here and say, yo, let me
see what the breakfast club is talking about, and do
us on it one o'clock in the afternoon. So radio
is the grandfather of it all. Even if you look
at all of the platforms that exist now, they're all
like offshoots of radio in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Well, it's interesting. It surprises people. I think maybe in
this room too, they're more broadcast radio listeners today than
there were twenty years ago. This is not a business
that's been a run out of business by technology. It's
a business action that's expanded Now. We can not only
get it on badcasts. Ready to get you on podcasting,
We can get you on the radio app. We can
(08:56):
get you on Alexa, et cetera, et cetera. Number one
use by the way Lexus broadcast radio and even.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Across the country. What's the statistics. Ninety percent of the
country still listens to the radio.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Absolutely, they're there day in and day out. It's interesting.
Audio is about a third of the media day, and
radio is about two thirds of audio. Podcasting is about
twenty percent. Podcasting is now bigger than the streaming music services.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
And you know, even with advertisers, right, like radio gives
you so much bang for your buck because, like I said,
we can be consumed in so many different forms. You
got radio, then we come out of the podcast, then
we're on social media with the clips, then we're on YouTube,
breakfast club, now we're on Netflix. That's just like one
pie slice five different weeks.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
We've talked about a little bit, but you've built this
big radio podcasting, influencer, social and clearly at the heart
of it is engagement and trust. How do you build that.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Through time and getting it right, but also when you
get it wrong, admitting that you got it wrong, not
acting like you're above your listeners. Because I never feel
like we are, like we're in business because of the
people that listen to us every morning. Like I literally
when I get on the air every day, I said,
thank you God for besting me with another day of life,
and thank you for another day to serve our beautiful listeners.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
I really feel like that.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I really feel like every time I get on that microphone,
I am a public servant and I'm near to serve
the needs of my listeners. And I think I've been
doing radio for twenty eight years, Breakfast Club for fifteen
sixteen now, so we have become a habit for people,
and people know whether we get it right, whether we
get it wrong, they know that they're going to hear
what we truly, honestly think. And if we do make
(10:47):
a mistake, like I said, our listeners will check us,
social media will check us, and you know we'll correct it.
And I think all of that builds trust. Like I
hate people who approach the microphone like they're perfect and
they're experts at everything.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
I'm not an expert at nothing.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I got some experiences and I'm here to share my experiences,
and I think that is life, right, Like we're all
on this journey called life, and we're all here sharing
a different human experience every day. And that's the key, right,
being a human and sharing your human experience every day.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
That's how you build trust. That's how you become a habit.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
You mentioned you're from a small rural community. I don't
even think I call it a town, your cornfields or
whatever around there, going on a dirt road. Did that
give you unique insights?
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Oh? Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
My mother was an English teacher, so she always growing up,
would encourage me to read a lot, right, and she
would always tell me to read things that don't pertain
to me. And then you know, we also had the
booket program, so you had to read full books to
get a free pizza. That's how I even got into
Judy Bloom and Beverly Clearly and all of that stuff
like that, right, Because you know, I'm a young black
man growing up on a dirt road and Mon's going
to South Carolina I go in the library and I
(11:55):
see this book with all these little white girls on
the cover, little white boys on the cover. I'm like, well,
they're nothing like me. Read it and see.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
What's going on. And so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
It just taught me to dream in a different way
between music and literature. It just really taught me I
could transcend my circumstances no matter where I'm at. And
you know, when you grow up in a small town,
you have more. I'm not saying you don't have morals
when you grow up in a big town, but you
have a different set of morals and values and integrity.
And you see people and you say hi, and you
(12:24):
speak and your grandma will give you that wisdom like
man as will take you where money won't. And that's
what I've just carried with me everywhere I go. And
I just think it's something about growing up in those
small towns that translates everywhere.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
You know, do you think the small town parented you?
The community parented you?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
But still to this day, like literally to this day,
I can go home because you know, I do a
lot of community work back home, and it's just like
those people don't look at me as you know, Charlotte
Mane like there go, that's Lenard, and they'll put their
arm around me and tell me that they're proud of me.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
They'll tell me what they don't like.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
That's my community, that's my village that continues to raise
me to this day.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
How often do you go back?
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Oh a lot, I said. I do a lot of
charity work down there.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I'm on like the board of the International African American
Museum in Charleston. My parents are there, my in laws
are their all, my cousin's family, everybody like I'm in
South Carolina quite often. Plus my wife is an alumni
of the University of South Carolina game Cock so we
go down there for football, basketball games, everything for some
game Cocks in the houses.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Okay, I like the applause. This is a nice touch. Heare.
You've got all these multiple platforms. How do you navigate them?
How do they all work together? And how do you
think about the messages you want to send through them? Oh?
Speaker 4 (13:37):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You have to be intentional, you know, Like I said,
I'm not an expert at anything. I just have some
experiences and I know the things that I want to
share with people, and I also believe that audiences nowadays,
they're not as complex as people think they are. Like
I said, we're all just human sharing a human experience.
So if I get on the radio and I'm having
a conversation about, you know, going the therapy on Fridays,
(14:01):
or I'm talking to people about anxiety, I may deal
with our bouser depression. I don't care what race you are,
what your sexuality is, what your gender is. You can
connect with that in some way, shape or form. If
I'm telling you about a restaurant that I ate at,
you know you'll be able to connect with that in
some way, shape or form. So you ask, how are
you able to navigate all of that? I'm really just
(14:22):
being me and you got to have a great team
that can distribute all of that content, you know, to
where it needs to go.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
I really don't overthink it in that way.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Like I don't wake up and be like, oh my god,
we're on Netflix, Oh my god, we're gonna be on YouTube,
Oh my god, I got to put out the podcast.
I just wake up on me and I let the
digital team handle the rest.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
You're talking about the authenticity and the reality. One of
the things we do with the radio, which these folks
may not know, is that unlike in my days and
TV your days. In TV, it's not scripted, it's not
a narrative. It's about keeping people company. We are a companion.
Imagine you're writing the work with somebody as they're a
(15:01):
car pol buddy. What would you talk about? How do
you talk about it? And I think one of the
hardest things for somebody coming up in the radio business
and something you've mastered is being yourself. People actually don't
want to share their well, I don't really want to
say that to everybody. If you're really going to build
a relationship, you have to. At what point did you
sort of realize I've got to sort of expose myself
(15:23):
if I'm going to be able and honest to god
relationship with these people as opposed to, as you say,
a performative relationship.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I think when I first started radio way back when
in Charleston, South Carolina, one of the things I said
that benefited me was I didn't have any formal experience
in radio, Like I didn't.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
Go to college and do college radio.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
I literally was fresh off the diror road onto the microphone.
So nobody had taught me how to do radio yet,
so I was just getting on there having a conversation,
and that's kind of what has stayed with me, you know, throughout.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
And so I've always been pretty transparent.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
I think that I didn't start actually getting vulnerable till
probably ten years ago, because I started going to therapy
in like two thousand and sixteen.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
And so I think it's a.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Difference between being transparent but actually being vulnerable with your audience,
you know, letting your audience know, like I said, the
anxiety you might be dealing with it about the depression.
And it's funny you talk about when you show up
and you want to be your true, authentic self. I
think you can get caught up in being a character. Sure,
if you've been doing it long enough. If you've been
(16:34):
doing it long enough and you start seeing headlines. I
remember there was always the Charlamagne is the hip hop
Howard Stern, and I'm like, oh, so what does that mean?
So that's what y'all want? Y'all want something like that,
y'all want more of that. I didn't even stop to think, well,
what part of Howard Stern do they like? You know
that they think I present to them and so that's whack.
(16:55):
For a moment, I was being a second rate version
of somebody else instead of being a first rate version
of myself.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
And I think that's kind.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Of one of the things that actually led me to
start going to therape because I felt like I was
losing myself a little bit and I had to, you know,
like really remember why I got into this and to
get radio, I had to remember who I was as
a human being and as a person. And I think
that kind of like really really brought me back to
center and allowed me to.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Be more vulnerable with my audience.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
And I think that helps you to grow and evolve
as a personality more than anything AI.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
The research says, we just did a big study called
the Human Consumer, trying to get an understanding of sort
of a white paper on the consumer and technology. Seventy
percent of people said they use AI, over ninety percent
wile they're media from humans. I think it was twenty seventeen,
about seventy five percent of people said human connections were
the most important thing to them today. That numbers over
(17:51):
ninety percent. We have at iHeart, you're part of it.
We have got a promise that we're guaranteed human both
on podcasting and radio. We're never going to present AI
pretending to be a human. We're not going to play
artists that are really AI. No room for him on
our air. We're not gonna have a AI version of
Charlott Ninge the God.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
You promise, I promise.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
So what's going on with AI and what's its role
and how do we use it?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
It's scary that we even have to have the guaranteed
human thing, right. I think that we're about to experience
what I'm gonna call the Great Disconnect, because I feel
like there's gonna be so many people who start disconnecting
from social media, who start disconnecting from YouTube because I
don't know about y'all. I can't live the rest of
my life looking at my phone asking is this real?
Speaker 4 (18:37):
Is this real? Is this real?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
You send something to somebody and they're like, is this real?
I don't want to live my life like that. I
want to be able to look somebody in the eye,
shake their hand and know that this is a you know,
actual human that I'm talking to. And if we live
in a world where everybody's already so easily manipulated, right,
you can easily brainwash people. You can already program them
to think what you want to think from humans. Imagine
(18:59):
if you take the artificial intelligence and now you got
them pushing that type of rhetoric on people and pushing
that type of misinformation on people like that is very
scary to me.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
I'm sure that there's gonna be a lot of ways
that AI is going to be beneficial to our society,
but I don't know.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Okay, let's go to brands. A lot of people in
this room or marketers and have their brands. They're worried
about how do they ensure they are trusted and authentic
in the age of AI.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Well, brands just got to worry about having great product
because great product always sells itself. Brands want to connect
with different personalities, different shows. I think brands have to
start trusting the audience. We have all of these conversations
about brand safety. I'm one of those people that feels
like brand safety is subjective because if you have a
(19:46):
product and you want to get it in front of
this audience, but you're saying to yourself, oh, this.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Show is two edgy, or this show is too.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Controversial, you're literally telling the millions of people who watch
that show en to that show that they don't know
what they're talking about. So if those millions of people
aren't concerned about the edginess or the controversialness of the show,
then I don't think you should be either, because all
you should care about is your product getting in front
of as many eyeballs as possible. And once again, like
(20:17):
I said, you know, what's safe is subjective. I keep
referencing Judy Blooms, She's on my mind this morning, but
it's like there was a time with Judy Bloom. No,
right now, Judy's Blooms books are considered controversial. Judy Bloom
how was forever controversial? Guys how is blubber controversial?
Speaker 4 (20:31):
But there's some people who feel like that.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
So it's just like, to me, brand safety is just subjective,
and you should just want to get your product in
front of as many people as possible.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Trust the audience that they know what they're talking about.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
You have some of the biggest names in music on
your show again and again and again. A lot of
people here use music, and I think they're finding that
they've love sports because it's live, there's a community. They
like radio because it's live and a community, and music
is the heart of a lot of that. How should
they think about using the music artists? What advice would
you give them?
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I still feel like, you know, musicians are some of
the biggest influences.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Every day we're putting on a song.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
I don't think that there's a day that goes by
that I don't listen to at least one record, Like
I'm choosing to go on one of these music screaming platforms
and listen to a record. Don't think about the record
sales being down, to the screams being down, or you know,
the live shows not selling like they once did. Those
artists still connect with people. There's certain people that can
(21:38):
walk out on this stage right now and everybody will
pull out their phones like, oh my god, like you know,
right now to this day. So you still have to
look at to me musicians as being some of the biggest,
if not the biggest influencers out there.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
We had thirty seconds. Work life balance or work life integration?
How do you handle it?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
I don't think there's such thing as work life balance,
Like there's going to be something that suffer, you know,
if I choose family, which I am going to do
nine times out of ten, work's going to suffer. If
I choose work, then I'm probably gonna end up missing something.
I got four daughters from seventeen, ten, seven, and four,
so they're all their ages vary, so they all got
(22:15):
different things that they're doing. So I don't think there
is such thing as work life balance. Something is going
to have to be sacrificed.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Sadly, Charlayne, thank you. You are a unicorn. Great talent,
but equally great entrepreneur.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is created and hosted by Bob Pittman. The Math
and Magic team is Ali Perry, Jessica Crincicic, and Dylan Hoyer.
Special thanks to Sidney Rosenblum for booking and wrangling our
wonderful talent, which is no small feat.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Until next time,
Host
Bob Pittman
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