August 21, 2025 • 13 mins
Billy Costa Has Been A Voice Boston Wakes Up With - And He’s Sharing His Story
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, that was a long time ago, but.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I think I was pretty much drafted out of school.
I was going to Emerson and I was a nightclub
DJ at the time, and a lot of the radio
people would come into the club and I got to
know them.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
And at the time, the program director at.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Kiss was Sonny Joe White and legend by the way,
and he would hang out at the club. And then
I came in long story short, and they hired me
kind of on a part time basis, and it was
in the afternoon to do entertainment reports. And my first
job in the radio was alongside one of the biggest
(00:39):
legends in the history of Boston radio, Dale Dormant, Uncle Dale,
and I just couldn't believe that I was sitting there
working on the same show with Dale Dormant and I
was just drafted out of school.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So that's how I remember my first experience at the microphone.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Ah Okay, there are a lot of them, but one
I always go back to just because it was such
a unique experience. I used to cover the awards shows
a lot and travel around and broadcast back from wherever
I was, and I got invited to broadcast from the
(01:15):
World premiere of the movie Pearl Harbor with Ben Affleck
and Ben and I had gotten to know each other
over the years, and so I'm broadcasting back to the
Morning Show from the deck of an aircraft carrier in
the middle of Pearl Harbor, and Ben Affleck and I
(01:35):
are just sitting there and we spent an hour just
talking and broadcasting back to the city. That's definitely one
of the standout moments for me. I'm gonna have to
mention Sunny Joe White again. I was out in Los
Angeles broadcasting from the Grammy Awards, and you know, they
have the after parties, you know, the celebrity pack to
after parties at the Grammy Awards. So after the Grammys,
(01:58):
Sunny Joe brought me with him to an after party
and it was a packed ballroom and you know, beautiful food,
beautiful drink, beautiful people, and all of a sudden, the
crowd was parting like the Red Sea and walking toward us.
And I'm standing there with Sonny Joe. Was Michael Jackson,
(02:22):
and Michael Jackson was crossing the ballroom floor because he
heard Sonny Joe White was in the room and he
wanted to come over and meet Sonny Joe White, and
Sonny Joe then introduced me as his entertainment director, and
I got an impromptu interview with Michael Jackson, which you know,
(02:42):
let's face it is just unforgettable and it so happens.
Because of that, we were invited to a breakfast with
the record label the next morning, and here we are
at a table sharing eggs with Michael Jackson. You asked,
And there's the story.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
That's kind of more recent.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
iHeart recently, I don't know, last couple of years or
so institute of what we call the Talkback Mike, and
it allows people to just randomly, spontaneously just send in
a talkback message and in the morning show, it's just
allowed us to develop this repertoire so to speak with
(03:21):
the listeners where we really get to know them. And
it gets funnier like every month, because now the talkbackers
are naming themselves, giving themselves nicknames, and they know everything
about us, and now we know everything about them. So
I think the Talkback Mike really really really has enhanced
the relationship with the listener.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I'm a big fan of it, hands down.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
We were live on the radio the morning of nine
to eleven and Matt Siegel and I were on the show,
and I happen to go back into my office.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I always had the TVs on in.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
The office, and I saw the first plane hit the
tower in New York and couldn't make sense of it.
I'm like, well, that's odd because it's a beautiful day,
the sun is out, it's clear skies, perfect conditions, and
a jetliner just crashed into a tower in New York City.
(04:19):
And then minutes later came the second plane, and I
knew something was up. And it's so funny because just
recently a woman came up to me on the street
and said, I'll never forget the morning you and Matt
Siegel were on the air nine to eleven. I literally
walked into the studio and I still get really emotional,
(04:41):
and I said the words America is under attack, and
I will never forget that moment. In fact, Maddie and
I stayed on the air, I think for eight or
nine hours that day, just taking calls and letting listeners
express themselves and tell their stories, some of whom were
local and had connections to passengers on board those planes.
(05:03):
So absolutely, absolutely the standout moment, the toughest moment. Ah, Well,
this was an oops moment that actually turned into like
kind of a good thing for me. We were doing
our Kiss concert and we were broadcasting from backstage, and
you know, I would do the broadcast from backstage. I
(05:25):
would do the interviews with the artists in between their
performances and it would all be live. And Britney Spears
was one of the performers that year, and so we're
waiting in the tent for Britney to come in. And
prior to the Kiss concert that year, there was a
big story all over media talking about Britney Spears and
(05:46):
whether she had gotten a la boo job for lack
of a better phrase. And I went to the record
label person who was handling Brittany that day and I
got to know her name was Denise, and I said, listen,
this story is everywhere. It's a big buzz story. Do
you think it's okay if I bring it up? And
(06:07):
then you know, Brittany will have a chance to just
set the record straight. And Denise says to me, absolutely,
you know, if anybody's going to do it, I trust
you to do it and to ask the question, which
I did. And then the next morning I got a
call from my boss, who got a call from the
record label because the record label was perceiving it like
(06:28):
I had ambushed Brittany. No, I got the clearance from
the record person that was with Brittany that day. Okay, again,
it was Los Angeles. It was I think the American
Music Awards, and Bobby Brown was there, and he's from
Boston and I'd gotten to know Bobby Brown over the
years and at the time, he was with Whitney Houston
(06:51):
and they had a trailer backstage at the Shrine Auditorium
in Los Angeles, and Bobby brought me into the trailer.
At the time, Whitney, I think, was doing her rehearsal
on stage inside the Shrine. So in the in the
middle of the interview with Bobby, which was gonna be
(07:12):
great for the morning show, Whitney walked into the trailer
and it was just a moment like she was, I guess,
surprised that someone else was in the trailer and it
was her trailer, and like she immediately ordered Bobby to
dismiss me, like, you know, could you ask him to leave?
So I guess if I wanted to redo an interview,
(07:35):
it would be a sit down with Bobby and and
and the late Whitney Houston in the trailer together.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
But clearly that wasn't happening.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I know, I can speak for our morning show here
in Boston. I don't think a lot of people see
the amount of work that goes into a show every day.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I mean, first of all, the only and least the
show in the.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Morning is is live. Every single minute of the show
is live. But we get in and we'll spend two
two and a half hours before the show just prepping
or as they call show prep. You know, we're just
gathering all the different stories from all the different areas,
the topics and whatever, and figuring out what would be
best where and you know, where to put this piece first,
(08:23):
is that piece? And what's going to be funny here
and what works? And it's just a lot of work.
And we haven't even turned the microphones on yet. And
I don't think a lot of people, you know, I mean,
they're not in the business. I don't think they get
how much work. And don't get me wrong, we love
the work, but how much work goes into a daily
(08:43):
morning show four hours of live radio.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
So maybe that.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Could be one of the misconceptions, you know, in the course,
I mean over the years, you know, you're always interchanging
or dropping segments, changing segments. The one thing we've always
had and we still have and and I think it
really has a huge following, is what we call the
Entertainment Report, and we do it twice a morning because
(09:11):
it's been in that demand over the years. And what
we try to do is dissect and put together, you know,
a combination of everything that's going on in the entertainment world,
and we try to find as many interview bites as
we possibly can. I guess with the Entertainment Break, like,
for instance, even this morning, we had a lot of
stuff from Malalapalooza festival in Chicago, and you know, we
(09:32):
like to think of us as taking you to Lollapalooza,
So we bring you a lot of the clips into
a lot of segments from the show, and then you know,
we couple that with a lot of other stories from
all over the entertainment world. And yeah, I think that's
the longest standing segment and still does really well for
us here.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Well.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Actually, if I had to answer that question, it'd probably
be two. I was lucky enough to broadcast from two
Olympic Games. One was in Atlanta, another was in Australia.
That was exciting, I mean just to be at the
Olympic Games, but also to have unlimited access to the
Olympic Games and to be broadcasting all of it. I
(10:15):
mean I had my own broadcast station, and to be
broadcasting all the way back home from the Olympic Games
and meeting and speaking with and talking with the athletes.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
That would definitely be one of them.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
And more recently, if I can, I had the opportunity
to broadcast live from Africa and I plan on reliving
that come October of this year. So yeah, those would
be two of them for sure. Well, you know, it's
funny because you know, I do a lot of TV
(10:47):
in New England as well as radio, and the one
thing that I've always loved about radio is the spontaneity.
You know, especially if it's a live show, anything can happen,
and relationship with the audience and with the listeners is
very spontaneous because the show is always moving and people
are always sending talk packs, or they're calling in, or
(11:08):
they're sending us dms and they want us to help
out or respond to their problems, and I guess, if anything,
it would be the spontaneity of radio. Oh God, describing
radio in twenty twenty five. There's so much more technology
(11:31):
now that's at our disposal that helps with creating a
show incredibly, incredibly well.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
And I think the biggest change.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I mean, you know, you're looking at a person who
started in radio before there were laptops, before there were desktops,
before there were cell phones. But to have all of
that at our disposal, and to be doing it for
a company like iHeart, which is one of the largest
in the world. Me, that's radio in twenty twenty five.
It's the ability to use all of the various technologies
(12:07):
and to do it with iHeart, which takes you all
over the world.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
To me, that's it.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I guess, the enormous size of iHeart. In fact, this
just happened the other day, and it happens so many
times when you know, we have comedians or actors or
recording stars coming onto the show, and you know, so
often one of the first things they say is, oh
my god, I can't believe we come on here. Whenever
we do something for ihearnt we get so much fan
(12:33):
reaction we get, you know, so much support, and I mean,
I don't think I'd want to do this anywhere, but
iHeart and just the fact that we can do our
little radio show and people cannot only listen all over
the world. You're listening to me in Peru, what or
Portugal or the Azores, and and they can send us
(12:56):
talkbacks and say, yeah, I just wanted you to know,
you know, jogging the beach here in Nice, France, but
I'm listening to you guys. I'm sorry. That's that's still
pretty cool. And it's because we work at iHeart that
we get to live no
Well, that was a long time ago, but.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I think I was pretty much drafted out of school.
I was going to Emerson and I was a nightclub
DJ at the time, and a lot of the radio
people would come into the club and I got to
know them.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
And at the time, the program director at.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Kiss was Sonny Joe White and legend by the way,
and he would hang out at the club. And then
I came in long story short, and they hired me
kind of on a part time basis, and it was
in the afternoon to do entertainment reports. And my first
job in the radio was alongside one of the biggest
(00:39):
legends in the history of Boston radio, Dale Dormant, Uncle Dale,
and I just couldn't believe that I was sitting there
working on the same show with Dale Dormant and I
was just drafted out of school.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So that's how I remember my first experience at the microphone.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Ah Okay, there are a lot of them, but one
I always go back to just because it was such
a unique experience. I used to cover the awards shows
a lot and travel around and broadcast back from wherever
I was, and I got invited to broadcast from the
(01:15):
World premiere of the movie Pearl Harbor with Ben Affleck
and Ben and I had gotten to know each other
over the years, and so I'm broadcasting back to the
Morning Show from the deck of an aircraft carrier in
the middle of Pearl Harbor, and Ben Affleck and I
(01:35):
are just sitting there and we spent an hour just
talking and broadcasting back to the city. That's definitely one
of the standout moments for me. I'm gonna have to
mention Sunny Joe White again. I was out in Los
Angeles broadcasting from the Grammy Awards, and you know, they
have the after parties, you know, the celebrity pack to
after parties at the Grammy Awards. So after the Grammys,
(01:58):
Sunny Joe brought me with him to an after party
and it was a packed ballroom and you know, beautiful food,
beautiful drink, beautiful people, and all of a sudden, the
crowd was parting like the Red Sea and walking toward us.
And I'm standing there with Sonny Joe. Was Michael Jackson,
(02:22):
and Michael Jackson was crossing the ballroom floor because he
heard Sonny Joe White was in the room and he
wanted to come over and meet Sonny Joe White, and
Sonny Joe then introduced me as his entertainment director, and
I got an impromptu interview with Michael Jackson, which you know,
(02:42):
let's face it is just unforgettable and it so happens.
Because of that, we were invited to a breakfast with
the record label the next morning, and here we are
at a table sharing eggs with Michael Jackson. You asked,
And there's the story.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
That's kind of more recent.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
iHeart recently, I don't know, last couple of years or
so institute of what we call the Talkback Mike, and
it allows people to just randomly, spontaneously just send in
a talkback message and in the morning show, it's just
allowed us to develop this repertoire so to speak with
(03:21):
the listeners where we really get to know them. And
it gets funnier like every month, because now the talkbackers
are naming themselves, giving themselves nicknames, and they know everything
about us, and now we know everything about them. So
I think the Talkback Mike really really really has enhanced
the relationship with the listener.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I'm a big fan of it, hands down.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
We were live on the radio the morning of nine
to eleven and Matt Siegel and I were on the show,
and I happen to go back into my office.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I always had the TVs on in.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
The office, and I saw the first plane hit the
tower in New York and couldn't make sense of it.
I'm like, well, that's odd because it's a beautiful day,
the sun is out, it's clear skies, perfect conditions, and
a jetliner just crashed into a tower in New York City.
(04:19):
And then minutes later came the second plane, and I
knew something was up. And it's so funny because just
recently a woman came up to me on the street
and said, I'll never forget the morning you and Matt
Siegel were on the air nine to eleven. I literally
walked into the studio and I still get really emotional,
(04:41):
and I said the words America is under attack, and
I will never forget that moment. In fact, Maddie and
I stayed on the air, I think for eight or
nine hours that day, just taking calls and letting listeners
express themselves and tell their stories, some of whom were
local and had connections to passengers on board those planes.
(05:03):
So absolutely, absolutely the standout moment, the toughest moment. Ah, Well,
this was an oops moment that actually turned into like
kind of a good thing for me. We were doing
our Kiss concert and we were broadcasting from backstage, and
you know, I would do the broadcast from backstage. I
(05:25):
would do the interviews with the artists in between their
performances and it would all be live. And Britney Spears
was one of the performers that year, and so we're
waiting in the tent for Britney to come in. And
prior to the Kiss concert that year, there was a
big story all over media talking about Britney Spears and
(05:46):
whether she had gotten a la boo job for lack
of a better phrase. And I went to the record
label person who was handling Brittany that day and I
got to know her name was Denise, and I said, listen,
this story is everywhere. It's a big buzz story. Do
you think it's okay if I bring it up? And
(06:07):
then you know, Brittany will have a chance to just
set the record straight. And Denise says to me, absolutely,
you know, if anybody's going to do it, I trust
you to do it and to ask the question, which
I did. And then the next morning I got a
call from my boss, who got a call from the
record label because the record label was perceiving it like
(06:28):
I had ambushed Brittany. No, I got the clearance from
the record person that was with Brittany that day. Okay, again,
it was Los Angeles. It was I think the American
Music Awards, and Bobby Brown was there, and he's from
Boston and I'd gotten to know Bobby Brown over the
years and at the time, he was with Whitney Houston
(06:51):
and they had a trailer backstage at the Shrine Auditorium
in Los Angeles, and Bobby brought me into the trailer.
At the time, Whitney, I think, was doing her rehearsal
on stage inside the Shrine. So in the in the
middle of the interview with Bobby, which was gonna be
(07:12):
great for the morning show, Whitney walked into the trailer
and it was just a moment like she was, I guess,
surprised that someone else was in the trailer and it
was her trailer, and like she immediately ordered Bobby to
dismiss me, like, you know, could you ask him to leave?
So I guess if I wanted to redo an interview,
(07:35):
it would be a sit down with Bobby and and
and the late Whitney Houston in the trailer together.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
But clearly that wasn't happening.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I know, I can speak for our morning show here
in Boston. I don't think a lot of people see
the amount of work that goes into a show every day.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I mean, first of all, the only and least the
show in the.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Morning is is live. Every single minute of the show
is live. But we get in and we'll spend two
two and a half hours before the show just prepping
or as they call show prep. You know, we're just
gathering all the different stories from all the different areas,
the topics and whatever, and figuring out what would be
best where and you know, where to put this piece first,
(08:23):
is that piece? And what's going to be funny here
and what works? And it's just a lot of work.
And we haven't even turned the microphones on yet. And
I don't think a lot of people, you know, I mean,
they're not in the business. I don't think they get
how much work. And don't get me wrong, we love
the work, but how much work goes into a daily
(08:43):
morning show four hours of live radio.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
So maybe that.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Could be one of the misconceptions, you know, in the course,
I mean over the years, you know, you're always interchanging
or dropping segments, changing segments. The one thing we've always
had and we still have and and I think it
really has a huge following, is what we call the
Entertainment Report, and we do it twice a morning because
(09:11):
it's been in that demand over the years. And what
we try to do is dissect and put together, you know,
a combination of everything that's going on in the entertainment world,
and we try to find as many interview bites as
we possibly can. I guess with the Entertainment Break, like,
for instance, even this morning, we had a lot of
stuff from Malalapalooza festival in Chicago, and you know, we
(09:32):
like to think of us as taking you to Lollapalooza,
So we bring you a lot of the clips into
a lot of segments from the show, and then you know,
we couple that with a lot of other stories from
all over the entertainment world. And yeah, I think that's
the longest standing segment and still does really well for
us here.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Well.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Actually, if I had to answer that question, it'd probably
be two. I was lucky enough to broadcast from two
Olympic Games. One was in Atlanta, another was in Australia.
That was exciting, I mean just to be at the
Olympic Games, but also to have unlimited access to the
Olympic Games and to be broadcasting all of it. I
(10:15):
mean I had my own broadcast station, and to be
broadcasting all the way back home from the Olympic Games
and meeting and speaking with and talking with the athletes.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
That would definitely be one of them.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
And more recently, if I can, I had the opportunity
to broadcast live from Africa and I plan on reliving
that come October of this year. So yeah, those would
be two of them for sure. Well, you know, it's
funny because you know, I do a lot of TV
(10:47):
in New England as well as radio, and the one
thing that I've always loved about radio is the spontaneity.
You know, especially if it's a live show, anything can happen,
and relationship with the audience and with the listeners is
very spontaneous because the show is always moving and people
are always sending talk packs, or they're calling in, or
(11:08):
they're sending us dms and they want us to help
out or respond to their problems, and I guess, if anything,
it would be the spontaneity of radio. Oh God, describing
radio in twenty twenty five. There's so much more technology
(11:31):
now that's at our disposal that helps with creating a
show incredibly, incredibly well.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
And I think the biggest change.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I mean, you know, you're looking at a person who
started in radio before there were laptops, before there were desktops,
before there were cell phones. But to have all of
that at our disposal, and to be doing it for
a company like iHeart, which is one of the largest
in the world. Me, that's radio in twenty twenty five.
It's the ability to use all of the various technologies
(12:07):
and to do it with iHeart, which takes you all
over the world.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
To me, that's it.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I guess, the enormous size of iHeart. In fact, this
just happened the other day, and it happens so many
times when you know, we have comedians or actors or
recording stars coming onto the show, and you know, so
often one of the first things they say is, oh
my god, I can't believe we come on here. Whenever
we do something for ihearnt we get so much fan
(12:33):
reaction we get, you know, so much support, and I mean,
I don't think I'd want to do this anywhere, but
iHeart and just the fact that we can do our
little radio show and people cannot only listen all over
the world. You're listening to me in Peru, what or
Portugal or the Azores, and and they can send us
(12:56):
talkbacks and say, yeah, I just wanted you to know,
you know, jogging the beach here in Nice, France, but
I'm listening to you guys. I'm sorry. That's that's still
pretty cool. And it's because we work at iHeart that
we get to live no
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