March 27, 2022 • 39 mins
This week on "Create. Build. Manage." I talk with Kevin McCullough, host of Radio Night Live, about his personal story – how he got started in radio, his career in media, and some fun stories of his journey along the way!
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(00:10):
Welcome to create, build, managethe entrepreneurs toolbox. Here's your host,
Scott Miller and my guest tonight hassyndicated radio talk show host, political and
culture commentator, bestselling author, andhe writes for they syndicated column at townhall
dot com. Kevin McCullough, Welcometo the show. Hey Scott, it's
(00:32):
great to see you. Thanks forhaving me. Absolutely, people who watch
biz TV, no doubt or usedto seeing you on Saturday nights and now
we got you on Sunday night.So there you go. We got you
on a different night. So Iappreciate your time because what I really want
to do this hour is get achance to get to know you. People
watch you all the time on bizTV, they listen to you on biz
(00:54):
talk radio. You've been at thisfor a while. Where did you get
your starting media well, believe itor not, in the Dallas Fort Worth
area. When I was growing upas a young pup, I used to
play around in my bedroom with allthis electronic equipment. My grandmother was what
we called a first adapter. Shewould always go out and get the latest
(01:15):
cassette deck or reel to real player, or a track machine or whatever.
It was that she thought she couldn'tlive without and kind of drove my grandfather
a little bit nuts on how muchmoney she was spending on this electronic back
in the early seventies. And Iwould frequently just be so enamored with all
of these devices that I just askedher if I could play with them,
(01:36):
or have them, or take themfor myself, And she ended up buying
me a lot of stuff over time, And when I was about eight years
old, I began constructing different configurationsin my bedroom. At about eleven years
old, I had a full blownaudio production studio that I had hardwired into
the input of a CB radio.People that don't know what those are.
(02:00):
These these are radios that you know, Ham operators you talk to each other
a few blocks away from each otherwith, and my grandfather had had several
of them. He got rid ofone and it had a magnetic antenna.
So I figured out I could runa wire out my window up to the
rain gut or on the top ofmy house and put the antenna up there
and actually have a small radio stationoperating. And I operated with complete impunity
(02:23):
of any FCC penalties for a longperiod of time. I had fake Laker
play by play games that I woulddo the play by play for and use
walkie talkies with microphones to make thesound of the Pact arena cheering. I
would do things like repeat back backwhen it was not politically incorrect to do
so, I would. I wouldrecount entire Bill Cosby sketches from memory.
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We would do a top ten musiccount. Now, they were all kinds of
things you could do once you hadyour own radio station. And then that
came to a crashing hall one daywhen the Fort Worth Police Department knocked on
my or and said, are youoperating some sort of broadcast device from here?
And they said yes. And mygrandfather, who lived next door to
(03:08):
me, the one that had givenme the radio, saw and he was
a former cop himself. He cameover to see what was going on,
and Uh, turned out you're notsupposed to do that at all, but
you're really not supposed to do iton the channel that the police department at
that point in time was using everyafternoon in their patrol work. So just
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to tip kids, don't don't don'tbroadcast pirate radio on CBS around police cars.
It's it doesn't end up well,so you had a captivated audience,
you had you had law enforcement.I've probably had the biggest audience on all
of CB radio in America at thattime. You could have you could have
landed a sponsor, you know,something to you had you had your demographic
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and even realize that that is thatis right awesome? So what was that
was my That was my like jumpingin with both feet into the world of
communications and from there went from internshipsto part time jobs to eventually getting on
in the Dallas area with a stationthat was then owned by the First Baptist
Church of Dallas Kecbiyeh worked there parttime all the way up until I left
(04:15):
from high school to go to college. I went to a theological school in
Chicago named the Bible Institute, gota journalism in theology kind of co major,
got on with their network, didsome freelance work and some of the
other stations in the markets as Iwas able to, and then Salem Communications
came and courted me about thirteen yearsafter I arrived in Chicago, and I
(04:40):
got into the world of talk radio, and that's where I really found what
my passion was. And that's whatwe've been doing ever since there you go
by the way, you and Ihave the common We both had our stint
at KCBI Radio there in Dallas,So Carlo swer Mark Middleton, all the
good guys back then. Yeah,Criswell Broadcasting Institute. I think, is
(05:00):
what's it? What the case CBIstood for? So I'm going back to
that story because I just think that'shilarious what went through your mind. I'm
trying to picture this young Kevin mcculaugh, who I would imagine you were a
good kid, right, you didn'tget much trouble. I didn't know I'd
done anything wrong, and now you'refacing with the police department. I bet
your part that time. The onlything that went through my head was not
(05:24):
did I break any laws? Itwas what is the possibility? And I
learned later that it's good to startcounting not only what the possibility is,
but also what the consequences might be. So we've we've gained maturity in the
fifties something years since then. Soyou know, it's interesting because when you
mentioned you went to went to college, you got your broadcasting, but you
(05:45):
did it kind of with the theologybackground. Did you think you were going
to do faith based. I mean, certainly Salem has a faith based element
to it, but did you thinkyou would be in faith based radio when
you when you went to college.That was kind of the radio that I
came up through. Criswell owned astation in Weatherford as well, and having
grown up in the Fort Worth areamy junior year of high school into my
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senior year for the whenever sports weredone in the spring, and I played
baseball, but that ended, youknow, around the time the school year
did, and then in through thesummer and into the fall, I would
go after school to Weatherford to workafternoon drive for their Weatherford station. I
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remember the call letters Kade. Andthen on the weekends I would hold down
my gig at KCBI in initially Dallasand then they moved to Arlington during that
period of time and kind of workedsix days a week at trying to get
better at what I did, sothat it was a faith based operation.
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Moody obviously is a theological school.I thought it would just be helpful for
me to have a theological background,being born again Christian, and somebody wants
to let my faith have some sortof impact on the world around them,
and it certainly helped shape the worldviewby which then I also shaped my political
opinions. And my first book waskind of all about whether or not you
(07:17):
observe that there's an existence of Godor not, and what difference that makes,
and how we treat each others,to treat one another's people. And
I found that it has been thefoundation that I've needed to really kind of
discern what's going on in the universearound me, in the world of news,
even in Ukraine or Russia, orinflation or pandemic or any the rest
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of it, because there is amoral component to everything that happened. So
I think it gave me that.And I've also just always been involved in
my local church and tried to helpin different ways as asked. We lead
a small community group in the churchwe attend now, so it helps me
in those regards as well. Solet's talk about your political so much,
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bid, But when politics first becomeimportant to you, because you mentioned that
radio station you created, your kid, you're doing Lakers games, you're doing
you know, your top countdown,but you weren't doing talk radio. You
weren't talking about the Fort Worth CityCouncil or anything like that. So when
did that start. Was it incollege that he started to kind of get
again? It was kind of alayer of awakening. So I remember when
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I was about six or seven,my parents volunteered for a Republican who was
running for the state House, whoselast name was Bradshaw, and I can't
remember what his first name was,but we were we were all in on
helping candidate Bradshaw try to get electedto the Texas State Assembly. And that
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would include some nights where we wouldgo over in stuff ballots or do phone
balloting and polling and so forth.And I remember one night we were there
and everybody was kind of gathered aroundthe table and the issue of abortion came
up. And there are a lotof people that want to make a lot
of confusing assumptions about what abortion meansor doesn't mean, but people that are
(09:05):
not confused about this or children.And I remember sitting at the other end
of the table, and I remembersomeone talking about how mister Bradshaw's opponent was
very pro choice, you know,kind of a Richard's style of Texas Democrat.
And I remember literally gasping out loudand say, why should that creep
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be in office? And that waslike six seven years old, and so
like, I didn't always focus onit or think about it. But late
in college, probably my junior intomy senior year, I was already doing
a lot of writing, and Ibegan to kind of start utilizing talk radio
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in the Chicago area more on myown. Started having started realizing that this
foundation that I had of worldview andbelief and everything else really did have strong
opinions about some of this stuff.So I started writing op eds before anybody
would even publish them. I justhang them on my cubicle and at the
radio station, just outside the door, on the on the bulletin board,
to just be there with a thumbtack. And I got some encouragement, some
(10:11):
feedback, and they said, youknow, you should. You've got a
gift here, you should try toferret it out. So I thought,
okay, why not. And thenext few stops on the road, let
me explore that even more. Thekind of fun part of it is that
because I came up through production andmusic radio, I have a completely different
ear for how I think great talkradio should be produced. And so as
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I've trained producers through the years,and I've asked them to kind of elevate
the sound and presentation. We wantedto be slick, cool, hip,
everything that you get on an FMmusic station, but when it gets into
the talk, we want that tobe cool and witty and clever as well.
So it's ken kind of never inthe truest sense of radio. I'm
up against a hard break, butI want to pick up the story where
(10:56):
where we left off. This isKevin McColo will be back right after this.
Who doesn't mean this hour with Kevinmccola. You could see him Saturday
(11:18):
nights right here on biz TV.He's the host of Radio Night Live.
Kevin, how long have we knowneach other? Now it's been it's been
a couple of a couple of years, right, been a second or two?
Um, well, I think thatwhen you were at Family Nets.
Um, you came to me whenI was in between my stops at Salem.
(11:41):
So yeah, I want to saythat was probably fifteen years ago.
Yeah, I was December. Sohere's the conversation to kind of set the
stage of how Kevin and I met. Um, I was at Family Nets
so I had the channel and Seriousis Christian talk channel, and we were
(12:01):
just purchased by a new investment group. So we were in the process of
moving the studios from Avalanta. Ironicallywe housed it at Ksebi and Arlington.
We were just talking about them onthat last segments where we house and I
needed a morning show and I neededto fill a morning show like quickly because
the new owners did not take themorning show I had. So I had
(12:24):
a two hour hole on the scheduleand I'm trying to think I think it
was it was Stu Epperson, theSun Junior connected us and I was like,
I need he goes. You gotto talk to Kevin. So literally
our first conversation is Hi, Kevin, let me cut to the chase.
I have two hours. And Ithink I even said I can't pay you.
(12:46):
Would you do it? I thinkthat's how it started off. Course
that relationship grew from there and youbecame became part of the staff at Family
Net. But it was such anurgent thing and man, you saved me
and we've been friends since. Sowell, that was that was a very
interesting chapter for me because you guysbasically built and installed the first of what
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has turned into three different television studiosthat that we've had, and in fact,
the one that I'm coming to youfrom now has some of the very
cameras that we used in that firststudio, Like the one I'm looking at
you through right now is the onethat was camera a in the studio that
we built during the family in thatday. So yeah, lots of great
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memories and I'm I've been very thankfulfor the relationship Scott. We've We've done
a lot together and I've always feltlike we've made a difference in the world
around us, which is what it'sall about. Well. Yeah, and
by the way, Kevin is notand I don't want to shed a light
too much, but he's not yourtypical on air talent. Another fun story
is we had a conference in NewYork for small businesses. Man, I'm
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texting Kevin. I'm like, hey, I'm going to be in New York
at this booth. Kevin, youcame down and worked the booth with me.
I mean, who does that?You rolled up your sleeves as me
and Kevin, Like I forgot therewas supposed to be someone there representing it
that didn't show up and end upbeing the head of the network and one
of our top talents work in thebooth. That day, but we gotta
do you do. You do whatyou have to do. So going back
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to when you got into talk radio, who wasn't they give you that first
break that said, maybe maybe you'rebetter off behind the mind given your opinion.
Who was at Well? It wasinteresting because when I was at the
Moody station in Chicago, because oftheir nonprofit kind of status, they're kind
of like not desirous of opinion,especially that which kind of wanders beyond like
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biblical framework. It caused a lotof controversy, a lot of things that
just don't work out. So whenthe Salem job came to jump to the
Salem station in that market, youknow it was I was I was going
back into producing for another talent.At that time. I wasn't super happy
about that. Didn't want to beoff Mike, enjoyed being on the mic.
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But I think I got to thepoint where I learned a lot more
that I still didn't realize. Ididn't know in what producing a great show
looks like. And then when thattalent moved on, which was not long
In fact, I will tell youthe day that I was given the talk
show in Chicago was September tenth,two thousand and one, and on the
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morning of September the eleventh, whichwas a Tuesday, I awakened, turned
on my television, was watching thenews as always, heard about the first
plane that had hit the towers,and then watched as the second plane hit
and got a call from the stationand they basically said, come in,
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we need you to be on theyear basically all day. So I put
in about a twelve hour day onmy second day of having the show,
and that really cemented within my mindthe need and the importance for accurate information
to be given to people in realtime when they may be truly scared or
(16:21):
worried about the events of the worldgoing on around them. And I'll tell
you to this day, Scott,and it sometimes happens on Saturday nights when
we have when we have a momentwhere the world is breaking down or something
is going wrong and it is happeningin real time. Are those are still
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the moments that I have the mostadrenaline on the air in terms of feeling
like I am exactly where I'm supposedto be doing what I'm supposed to be
doing, because I think, forsome reason, I just have this kind
of calm spirit in the midst ofthe fiery storm that I think is able
to help people grasp the facts thatthey need and make use of that information
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in a way that is not sensationalized, but it does give them a context
to understand how serious it is.And that's and that's really I don't know
if I never did anything else.I think that having been on the air
those handful of times when those typesof events have happened, it's always come
back to me and that you knowthat I was a healing agent in people's
lives in a very tough moment oftrauma, and I've always been very,
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very deeply humbled and grateful to havebeen there. But talk about baptism by
fire. I know what you're talkingabout. I was news director at a
local radio station when that happened.That that day will never be forgotten by
any of us. But I'm curiousyour calm on air during the event.
What's it like when you get offthe air. Is that kind of when
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when that moment hits you? BecauseI know, for me, nine to
eleven, I'm working hard and thenI get home that night and it just
like it just sort of crashed atthat moment. I think that I probably
slept for about twelve hours that night, which I usually just find six,
So there was a little bit ofexhaustion that's set in and emotionally. But
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I think that, just like everybodyelse, I was an observer to the
events of what was happening, andI don't try to shield that from my
viewers or listeners. I think oneof the things that I can give to
them is a sense of relatability becauseI am not anything better than or outside
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of where they are. I livelife just like they do. And you
were talking about why I'm kind ofa different kind of talent. The talk
radio industry kind of knows that too. I'm always out with my salespeople,
I'm always out with station reps.I want to try to connect people.
I want to try to be ofhelp to people as best I can,
and when it comes to on airstuff, I feel like my job is
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to tell them the story as itis true, and then try to make
some degree of what to make ofit and why it's important breaking news,
what it means, and why itmatters. It's kind of like my brand,
and I think that that is thegift that I can give them,
and I'm hopeful that it helps themmake sense of what's going on around them.
Got about fifty seconds. I'm curious, because you are one of the
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hardest working people in the media business. Who instilled that to you? Was
it somebody? Oh, that's easy. My grandfather, my former Police Department,
former Navy veteran traveling salesman. Grandfatherwould always say to me, Kevin,
if you don't have time to dothe job right the first time,
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when will you find time to doit over again. So there's a little
bit of work ethic they got sewninto my roots because of that. That
just seems like they need to behanging up on a placer somewhere. Still
hear his voice in my head everyday. Wisdom, wisdom, indeed from
from your grandfather. We're visiting thishour with Kevin mccolaugh. He is the
host of a radio night Live thatyou can see right here on biz TV
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on Saturday nights as well as hereon biz Talk Radio. Stick around.
Oh, we're going to dive alittle bit deeper. Coming up next,
this is Create, Build and Managewith Kevin mccolla Right here on Create,
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Build and Manage Kevin, you haveworked with Salem for a long time,
on again, off again, andif I'm not mistaken, I think you
met the missus Kevin McCollough while workingin one of your stops. Is that
correct? I did? I did. It was it was an interesting time
period. I was in Chicago nineto eleven. Had just happened. She
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was working for the corporate office inCamario, California, and had taken a
job that was kind of left bysurprise. They had had a person there
that had been involved with the kindof the administrative aspect of the company,
and they were primarily responsible for settingup these big conferences that Salem would would
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do for their talk hosts on anannual basis. They would fly all of
their hosts, local and national outto one place. They did them in
DC a few times, they didthem in Southern California a few times,
other places a handful of times,and it would be like a three day
jaunt of graduate level learning for thehosts on the top issues as kind of
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identified by the editorial board for theyear. And so if we were dealing
with something really in depth like intelligentdesign versus evolution or something like that,
we would have people that were deeplysteeped in this way, way smarter than
us, but able to also helpus understand the major concepts so that we
could break it down and have intelligentdiscussion about it. When we had them
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in DC, we had private meetingswith the Senate Majority and Minority leader,
depending on who was in the officeat the time, the Speaker of the
House, other access m I don'tthink we had a vice president in any
of those. I was in othermeetings where a vice president was in attendance,
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but she was. She took thejob that was vacated by that person
and had to kind of pick upthe planning for one of them, kind
of mid mid plan, like theperson had just ghosted the company, just
had gone like just moved to Ohioovernight, and so she kind of was
like baptism by fire for that.And I met her at that conference and
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I knew when I was in theregistration line that I was going to marry
her. I said, this girlis amazing, and she is what I'm
looking for and I don't even knowit yet, And I asked her,
I asked her for coffee. Beforethe end of the weekend, we went
out I got her phone number.We then exchanged long distance nightly Remember where
there nightly free sell It's to startat the seven PM I do ye would
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would? We would talk on ourcell phones until they basically the batteries gave
out, which they lasted like thirtyminutes back then, and we would use
we would use up our minutes talkingfrom Chicago to southern California. But I
married her, and that was justthe beginning of the story. I now
have an eleven year old, anine year old, seven year old.
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We relocated to the New York arearight after we got married, and it
has just been a wild and fantasticride. And love doing As much as
I love doing media and being ableto influence and make opinions, I love
spending time with those guys more thananything else on planet Earth. It feeds
my soul and I want to makememories with them so that they have them
in store for, you know,for all of their lives. A couple
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of thoughts one, how much doesit help having a life partner who understands
your industry because it is crazy hoursometimes. I mean, you're up on
Saturday night hosting a live show andyou know Fox news will call you at
a drop it a pen drop.Sometimes you have to go do a hit
on a on a hot topic.So one, how much does it help
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you having that live partner? Andthen my second follow up question is did
your worldview change when you started towhen you became a father as you looked
at things on your shows. Thoseare both great questions because I don't think
that for people who are typically rightof center, parenthood changes them in their
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worldview. If you are if youare a liberal or a progressive, you
are usually those things when you areyoung, and usually before you receive your
first paycheck. When you when youbegin to see how much money the government
takes right out of what you earned. When you look at that paycheck,
you suddenly get slapped with a realitythat wait a minute, this isn't exactly
what I thought life was going tobe, and that opens the world to
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a whole different set of discussions aboutthings. But as to the first question,
I think it's vital that I'm marriedto someone who understands the business as
much as I do, because thereare a lot of people in our industry
who have chewed through a lot ofmarriages and there are times when It is
an unpopular thing for me to tella vice president of our company or a
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client or other things that I can'tmake something. I try not to do
that. That's one of the reasonswhy I try to be so helpful in
all other aspects. But I reallythink that what my brand is about is
about kind of living out that worldviewin a way that simple people watching from
the outside can say, Hey,that's possible. It is real people can
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do that. And I want marriagesto be better. I want families to
be stronger. I want parents tohave two parents in the household so that
as they grow up they understand whatlife at its best can be. And
that doesn't make me a goody twoshoes and it doesn't make me better than
anybody. It's just something that I'vebeen very privileged to have, and I
treat it with deep gratitude because Isee in the world around us how easy
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it is for some of that stuffto just be taken away, and I
don't want that to happen. Soyeah, I'm truly grateful and it does
make a huge difference. And becauseshe does understand the industry, she's been
the best friend I could possibly havein terms of fulfilling my life mission.
That's awesome. We'll be sure toget that clip and send it to her.
(26:27):
Now, what about your kids ifthey came to you one day,
Kevin said, I want to fallon your footsteps and be in media.
What would you say to them?Well, as we were talking about the
studios being built and rebuilt in thelast segment, I'm coming to you from
a studio that is housed inside myliving establishment, and it's kind of the
whole west wing of the house wherethat we've taken over for this. But
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my eleven year old and nine yearold both are very creative and very technological.
And my eleven year old is alreadyasking if he can help video direct
or answer phones or do other thingson Saturday nights. We're on past his
bedtime, so he's not been allowedto even consider it yet. But I
would be thrilled if they wanted toget into the creative arts, if they
wanted to do something along those lines, if they wanted to be a person
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that is in the sway of publicopinion and really kind of a decision maker,
I think they would do a goodjob. We are already talking about
worldview issues around the dinner table almostevery night. All of my kids go
to public school. We're not oneof these homeschool families that hides from the
rest of society. We're trying tolive out what we believe. It comes
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with its own kind of sets ofburdens. And I don't have anything against
home schooling. I was homeschooled fora period of about four years when I
was growing up. But I believethat these kids are strong in personality,
very good thinkers, They're very analytical, and I want them to basically change
the world by thinking and solving problems. And if they do that, they're
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going to leave the world a betterplace than what they found. And that's
the goal of all the people beingin the mccallouse. There. You go,
that's awesome. You have a familybusiness, you're a business owner,
and so I want to kind ofdive into that. It's great transition.
Uh. You know, we're abusiness network. We got a lot of
business owners that watch what do youknow today that you wish you knew when
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you first started your business. Don'tlet ambition blind you and stay within your
lane. There's a there's a certaindegree when I was much younger and we
were we were growing that I wantedto launch the biggest syndication network in America,
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and I was determined to do it. Kind of got in over my
head upside down financially on a lotof things, and it took a long
time to work my way out ofthat hole. I think that ambition always
needs to be kind of bridled withreality, and you need to understand that
that ambition is good and it canbe something that drives you forward and propels
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you to accomplish things that you couldn'thave accomplished otherwise. But doing it within
the parameters of what makes sense andis wise is kind of the bigger value
of that equation. And you're goingto end up with a lot of hurt
and pain if you try to shortcutthe process. There's just things you got
to learn by doing it a certainway, and that's not to take people's
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dreams away from them. Look,if you're watching tonight and you're saying,
but I think that I can dothis, hey go for it. But
use as much wisdom in the processas possible, because you'll avoid mistakes that
others have made. And I don'tthink that that can be a bad thing.
It's sort of that balance, right, that balance between wanting to have
that ambition but having a family thatyou have to take care of as well.
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I struggle with that as an entrepreneur. You know that, how risk
averse do you have to be andstill grow a business. It's a challenge
we all kind of face. Veryinteresting and and you're business, by the
way, it does. We gotabout sixty seconds. But beyond just your
content. You you mentioned you coachother people, You're helping them. You
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guys also do some production. Talka little bit about the different services that
your business. Well, we've doneeverything from major motion picture contribution to talk
radio on a daily basis. Butthe place that we have really exploded in
the last year is our podcast network. And I continue to be amazed at
how people use on demand audio.And if you go to the Kevin McCullough
(30:29):
universe of SoundCloud, Apple, Spotify, Amazon, any of those places,
you will find about twenty five differenthosted podcasts that we make available and we
are we are on fire. Infact, it is in some ways been
more profitable in twenty twenty two thanmy actual broadcast works. Wow, that
is a very hard pill for meto swallow, but I am. I'm
willing to say whatever needs to bedone. So that's awesome. Kevin.
(30:52):
Do you have time to stick aroundfor one more segment? Oh yeah,
for you, Scott, anything awesome. It's Kevin McCollough and we're going to
talk a little bit more about thework to Kevin's newing. Look at his
website as well. You are watchingor listening to Create, Build and Manage.
(31:33):
Welcome back to Create, Build andManage. I'm Scott Miller. We're
visiting this hour with Kevin mccolla,who understands the power of media and not
every business owner does, which iswhy we wrote this book here, Media
Matters, How to Leverage the Mediato Grow your Business. It's available now
if you go to Media mattersbook dotcom. There's a couple of links for
(31:55):
you where you can order it.We have a couple versions for you.
If you want the kindle version,or if you want the actual hard copy,
you can get it at Amazon,or you can get it at Barnes
and Nobles or wherever you like topick up books. Again, Media Matters
How to Leverage the Media to Growyour Business. Visiting with Kevin mccolla and
Kevin. We were mentioning at theend of that last segment, a lot
(32:16):
of work that you do. You'veworked with some big names. I don't
know if you want to name dropany but you've introduced media a couple of
big names over the years. Yeah. I think one of the kind of
unexpected things of my career is thenumber of people that have been wildly successful
in things that they've done that I'vehad the chance to work with and even
(32:38):
coach and kind of nurture as talentand everyone from Hollywood actors to billionaires literally
that have crafted runs for a publicoffice here in New York City. I've
had the chance to work with themup close and to help them get better
at what they do by way ofwhatever media it is that they are doing,
(33:00):
whether it's a full blown show orthey just want to get better at
the media opportunities that come their way. It's been a lot of fun,
and I don't know if it's okayto name drop with all the people that
I've worked with. I've been veryproud of my association with people like the
actres Stephen Baldwin, who I workedwith for nine years, the billionaire here
(33:22):
in New York who's the most belovedcitizen of New York City. John Katzimatidas
sees a real estate and energy magnet, also runs a chain of grocery stores
that people love here in the city, but just about everything in between.
And you know, I'm pleased tocount a lot of really cool people as
friends. Mike Glendell of My Pillowand doctor Douglas Howard of Balance of Nature,
(33:45):
and a bunch of other people thathave crossed my path in any way
that I can help their life andwork and calling get a little bit better
at what they're doing. I'm alwaysmore than happy to do it. And
it's just been a real fun ride. That's media. You know, we
talked about the book one day.I want to write a book on the
on the crazy story of media,because you meet interesting folks and you find
(34:07):
out they're just they're just people,right, and they're just like you and
me. Very cool. So whatis what's on your bucket list? What
have you not done that you loveto accomplish? Oh? Wow, set
the world straight. We've we've we'vegot so much work. I mean,
forget about bucket list stuff. We'vegot so much work to do to help
(34:30):
the country get back to just adecent and healthy place, um, economically
and in terms of culturally and whatwe're dealing with UM. And I'm I'm
so kind of riveted by the pressingneed of what is going on in the
world around me. I don't knowthat I have a lot of things that
(34:51):
I sit around going aw some dayif I if I could do that,
it'd be kind of cool. Um, there are things I could probably think
of, but I am so resolutelymotivated on trying to make a difference in
each broadcast that we do, eachpodcast that we post, every media hit
that I have a chance to bewith, whether it's you or you know,
(35:13):
there's a lot of over the topnetworks that are coming across now.
I can't believe how many news channelsthere are that are just delivered via like
Roku and Apple and all those typesof things that's really expanded. But also
like a Newsmax and Fox News andCNN and other places where I have a
chance to occasionally stick my toe onthe water. I want to make a
difference when I have a chance.And I guess if there was kind of
(35:35):
one secret that I try to giveall of those people that I coach,
it's always use the other person's platformto get the message across that you most
desperately want them to know. There'sgoing to be an opportunity for you to
answer their question and give them whatthey're looking for in terms of the substance
that they're at. But if youreally want to impact the world, make
(35:57):
it happen every time you have thechance. And I try to live that
out. So that's I guess it'snot a very good answer to you.
No, No, that's a greatanswer. It's a great answer. But
my follow up to that is,could we ever see a Congressman Kevin McCollough
Senator Kevin Mill. A lot ofpeople have asked about that. I've been
invited to run in the district thatI live in. It was a solid
(36:21):
Republican district that went Democrat three cyclesago, and I get a couple of
phone calls every two months saying wouldyou consider I think, right now at
a microphone and doing what I'm doing, I have a chance to impact a
far bigger part of the picture thanif I was just one of four hundred
and thirty five people casting votes.And I would rather I would rather have
the biggest impact possible, for themost good possible, for as long as
(36:45):
possible. There you go. AlthoughI think you would probably disrupt the halls
of Congress showed up, you tryto do so in a winsome way.
There you go. Anybody you're mentoring, anybody you're working with. You know
you don't have the same names,but that is that part of what you
do now young people. Yeah,there's always there's always people crossing my path.
(37:06):
And um, what's kind of coolis I've been at it so long
now a lot of the people thatI've formerly worked with are mentoring people.
Um. And even here within myown company, we've got we've got folks
that are constantly bringing in new peoplethat are helping them get better at what
they do. And as a dad, really the most important mentoring project I
(37:27):
have is shaping the hearts and mindsof those three little ones that reside within
the same house. Um. AndI feel like i'm kind of you know
when when you're in this kind ofwork from home environment, I feel like
I'm kind of on detail every day, like I'm tested every single time something
doesn't go my way. There aretwo sets, three sets of eyes watching
me going home. How did hehandle that? Um, so it's yeah,
(37:50):
parenting is mentoring m but they andthey that would be the biggest satisfaction
of all to see them turn out. Well, Listen, you were working
at home before working at home wascool, that's true. This wasn't a
pandemic thing for you. You Yeah, we had already moved in about a
year before the pandemic hit. Allright, we got about ninety seconds I
wanted we mentioned your SoundCloud side.I want to show that for if you
(38:14):
want to check out to Kevin mccolla'smaterial, you can. You can go
there. You can also follow oncloud dot com, backslash KMC Radio.
And as I said, there's thatwe were. We were housing something like
I think a total of about fortypodcasts, but about twenty eight to thirty
two of those are pretty active andupdated each week or each day. And
(38:37):
we crossed the two million listener marksomewhere in December, and I think we're
on track to have about four millionlisteners by the end of twenty twenty two.
So we're just going to keep atit and keep growing and try to
make the world a better place asa result. Kevin for someone who's watching
or listening and they want to reachout to you and maybe have a conversation
or get to know you even more. What's the best way they can get
(38:59):
a hold of Kevin mc sure.The easiest way to get a hold of
me. My email address is KMCradio at gmail dot com and I don't
turn down and I'm the only onethat has access to that address, and
I read everything that gets read fromthat account, So always glad to do
that KMC Radio at gmail dot com. And if they want to follow me
on social that's also a very easyway to do. I was banned from
(39:21):
Twitter the same day the President Trumpwas, so you can't get me on
Twitter anymore, but you can't getme on Instagram and on Instagram. I'm
just at KMC Radio Kevin McCollough toconnect with you there. Thank you so
much for your time this hour.I really appreciate you. You got it.
Thanks Scott, absolutely, this hasbeen great building manage. I'm Scott Miller.
Welcome to create, build, managethe entrepreneurs toolbox. Here's your host,
Scott Miller and my guest tonight hassyndicated radio talk show host, political and
culture commentator, bestselling author, andhe writes for they syndicated column at townhall
dot com. Kevin McCullough, Welcometo the show. Hey Scott, it's
(00:32):
great to see you. Thanks forhaving me. Absolutely, people who watch
biz TV, no doubt or usedto seeing you on Saturday nights and now
we got you on Sunday night.So there you go. We got you
on a different night. So Iappreciate your time because what I really want
to do this hour is get achance to get to know you. People
watch you all the time on bizTV, they listen to you on biz
(00:54):
talk radio. You've been at thisfor a while. Where did you get
your starting media well, believe itor not, in the Dallas Fort Worth
area. When I was growing upas a young pup, I used to
play around in my bedroom with allthis electronic equipment. My grandmother was what
we called a first adapter. Shewould always go out and get the latest
(01:15):
cassette deck or reel to real player, or a track machine or whatever.
It was that she thought she couldn'tlive without and kind of drove my grandfather
a little bit nuts on how muchmoney she was spending on this electronic back
in the early seventies. And Iwould frequently just be so enamored with all
of these devices that I just askedher if I could play with them,
(01:36):
or have them, or take themfor myself, And she ended up buying
me a lot of stuff over time, And when I was about eight years
old, I began constructing different configurationsin my bedroom. At about eleven years
old, I had a full blownaudio production studio that I had hardwired into
the input of a CB radio.People that don't know what those are.
(02:00):
These these are radios that you know, Ham operators you talk to each other
a few blocks away from each otherwith, and my grandfather had had several
of them. He got rid ofone and it had a magnetic antenna.
So I figured out I could runa wire out my window up to the
rain gut or on the top ofmy house and put the antenna up there
and actually have a small radio stationoperating. And I operated with complete impunity
(02:23):
of any FCC penalties for a longperiod of time. I had fake Laker
play by play games that I woulddo the play by play for and use
walkie talkies with microphones to make thesound of the Pact arena cheering. I
would do things like repeat back backwhen it was not politically incorrect to do
so, I would. I wouldrecount entire Bill Cosby sketches from memory.
(02:47):
We would do a top ten musiccount. Now, they were all kinds of
things you could do once you hadyour own radio station. And then that
came to a crashing hall one daywhen the Fort Worth Police Department knocked on
my or and said, are youoperating some sort of broadcast device from here?
And they said yes. And mygrandfather, who lived next door to
(03:08):
me, the one that had givenme the radio, saw and he was
a former cop himself. He cameover to see what was going on,
and Uh, turned out you're notsupposed to do that at all, but
you're really not supposed to do iton the channel that the police department at
that point in time was using everyafternoon in their patrol work. So just
(03:29):
to tip kids, don't don't don'tbroadcast pirate radio on CBS around police cars.
It's it doesn't end up well,so you had a captivated audience,
you had you had law enforcement.I've probably had the biggest audience on all
of CB radio in America at thattime. You could have you could have
landed a sponsor, you know,something to you had you had your demographic
(03:50):
and even realize that that is thatis right awesome? So what was that
was my That was my like jumpingin with both feet into the world of
communications and from there went from internshipsto part time jobs to eventually getting on
in the Dallas area with a stationthat was then owned by the First Baptist
Church of Dallas Kecbiyeh worked there parttime all the way up until I left
(04:15):
from high school to go to college. I went to a theological school in
Chicago named the Bible Institute, gota journalism in theology kind of co major,
got on with their network, didsome freelance work and some of the
other stations in the markets as Iwas able to, and then Salem Communications
came and courted me about thirteen yearsafter I arrived in Chicago, and I
(04:40):
got into the world of talk radio, and that's where I really found what
my passion was. And that's whatwe've been doing ever since there you go
by the way, you and Ihave the common We both had our stint
at KCBI Radio there in Dallas,So Carlo swer Mark Middleton, all the
good guys back then. Yeah,Criswell Broadcasting Institute. I think, is
(05:00):
what's it? What the case CBIstood for? So I'm going back to
that story because I just think that'shilarious what went through your mind. I'm
trying to picture this young Kevin mcculaugh, who I would imagine you were a
good kid, right, you didn'tget much trouble. I didn't know I'd
done anything wrong, and now you'refacing with the police department. I bet
your part that time. The onlything that went through my head was not
(05:24):
did I break any laws? Itwas what is the possibility? And I
learned later that it's good to startcounting not only what the possibility is,
but also what the consequences might be. So we've we've gained maturity in the
fifties something years since then. Soyou know, it's interesting because when you
mentioned you went to went to college, you got your broadcasting, but you
(05:45):
did it kind of with the theologybackground. Did you think you were going
to do faith based. I mean, certainly Salem has a faith based element
to it, but did you thinkyou would be in faith based radio when
you when you went to college.That was kind of the radio that I
came up through. Criswell owned astation in Weatherford as well, and having
grown up in the Fort Worth areamy junior year of high school into my
(06:11):
senior year for the whenever sports weredone in the spring, and I played
baseball, but that ended, youknow, around the time the school year
did, and then in through thesummer and into the fall, I would
go after school to Weatherford to workafternoon drive for their Weatherford station. I
(06:33):
remember the call letters Kade. Andthen on the weekends I would hold down
my gig at KCBI in initially Dallasand then they moved to Arlington during that
period of time and kind of workedsix days a week at trying to get
better at what I did, sothat it was a faith based operation.
(06:54):
Moody obviously is a theological school.I thought it would just be helpful for
me to have a theological background,being born again Christian, and somebody wants
to let my faith have some sortof impact on the world around them,
and it certainly helped shape the worldviewby which then I also shaped my political
opinions. And my first book waskind of all about whether or not you
(07:17):
observe that there's an existence of Godor not, and what difference that makes,
and how we treat each others,to treat one another's people. And
I found that it has been thefoundation that I've needed to really kind of
discern what's going on in the universearound me, in the world of news,
even in Ukraine or Russia, orinflation or pandemic or any the rest
(07:38):
of it, because there is amoral component to everything that happened. So
I think it gave me that.And I've also just always been involved in
my local church and tried to helpin different ways as asked. We lead
a small community group in the churchwe attend now, so it helps me
in those regards as well. Solet's talk about your political so much,
(07:58):
bid, But when politics first becomeimportant to you, because you mentioned that
radio station you created, your kid, you're doing Lakers games, you're doing
you know, your top countdown,but you weren't doing talk radio. You
weren't talking about the Fort Worth CityCouncil or anything like that. So when
did that start. Was it incollege that he started to kind of get
again? It was kind of alayer of awakening. So I remember when
(08:20):
I was about six or seven,my parents volunteered for a Republican who was
running for the state House, whoselast name was Bradshaw, and I can't
remember what his first name was,but we were we were all in on
helping candidate Bradshaw try to get electedto the Texas State Assembly. And that
(08:43):
would include some nights where we wouldgo over in stuff ballots or do phone
balloting and polling and so forth.And I remember one night we were there
and everybody was kind of gathered aroundthe table and the issue of abortion came
up. And there are a lotof people that want to make a lot
of confusing assumptions about what abortion meansor doesn't mean, but people that are
(09:05):
not confused about this or children.And I remember sitting at the other end
of the table, and I remembersomeone talking about how mister Bradshaw's opponent was
very pro choice, you know,kind of a Richard's style of Texas Democrat.
And I remember literally gasping out loudand say, why should that creep
(09:28):
be in office? And that waslike six seven years old, and so
like, I didn't always focus onit or think about it. But late
in college, probably my junior intomy senior year, I was already doing
a lot of writing, and Ibegan to kind of start utilizing talk radio
(09:48):
in the Chicago area more on myown. Started having started realizing that this
foundation that I had of worldview andbelief and everything else really did have strong
opinions about some of this stuff.So I started writing op eds before anybody
would even publish them. I justhang them on my cubicle and at the
radio station, just outside the door, on the on the bulletin board,
to just be there with a thumbtack. And I got some encouragement, some
(10:11):
feedback, and they said, youknow, you should. You've got a
gift here, you should try toferret it out. So I thought,
okay, why not. And thenext few stops on the road, let
me explore that even more. Thekind of fun part of it is that
because I came up through production andmusic radio, I have a completely different
ear for how I think great talkradio should be produced. And so as
(10:33):
I've trained producers through the years,and I've asked them to kind of elevate
the sound and presentation. We wantedto be slick, cool, hip,
everything that you get on an FMmusic station, but when it gets into
the talk, we want that tobe cool and witty and clever as well.
So it's ken kind of never inthe truest sense of radio. I'm
up against a hard break, butI want to pick up the story where
(10:56):
where we left off. This isKevin McColo will be back right after this.
Who doesn't mean this hour with Kevinmccola. You could see him Saturday
(11:18):
nights right here on biz TV.He's the host of Radio Night Live.
Kevin, how long have we knowneach other? Now it's been it's been
a couple of a couple of years, right, been a second or two?
Um, well, I think thatwhen you were at Family Nets.
Um, you came to me whenI was in between my stops at Salem.
(11:41):
So yeah, I want to saythat was probably fifteen years ago.
Yeah, I was December. Sohere's the conversation to kind of set the
stage of how Kevin and I met. Um, I was at Family Nets
so I had the channel and Seriousis Christian talk channel, and we were
(12:01):
just purchased by a new investment group. So we were in the process of
moving the studios from Avalanta. Ironicallywe housed it at Ksebi and Arlington.
We were just talking about them onthat last segments where we house and I
needed a morning show and I neededto fill a morning show like quickly because
the new owners did not take themorning show I had. So I had
(12:24):
a two hour hole on the scheduleand I'm trying to think I think it
was it was Stu Epperson, theSun Junior connected us and I was like,
I need he goes. You gotto talk to Kevin. So literally
our first conversation is Hi, Kevin, let me cut to the chase.
I have two hours. And Ithink I even said I can't pay you.
(12:46):
Would you do it? I thinkthat's how it started off. Course
that relationship grew from there and youbecame became part of the staff at Family
Net. But it was such anurgent thing and man, you saved me
and we've been friends since. Sowell, that was that was a very
interesting chapter for me because you guysbasically built and installed the first of what
(13:09):
has turned into three different television studiosthat that we've had, and in fact,
the one that I'm coming to youfrom now has some of the very
cameras that we used in that firststudio, Like the one I'm looking at
you through right now is the onethat was camera a in the studio that
we built during the family in thatday. So yeah, lots of great
(13:30):
memories and I'm I've been very thankfulfor the relationship Scott. We've We've done
a lot together and I've always feltlike we've made a difference in the world
around us, which is what it'sall about. Well. Yeah, and
by the way, Kevin is notand I don't want to shed a light
too much, but he's not yourtypical on air talent. Another fun story
is we had a conference in NewYork for small businesses. Man, I'm
(13:54):
texting Kevin. I'm like, hey, I'm going to be in New York
at this booth. Kevin, youcame down and worked the booth with me.
I mean, who does that?You rolled up your sleeves as me
and Kevin, Like I forgot therewas supposed to be someone there representing it
that didn't show up and end upbeing the head of the network and one
of our top talents work in thebooth. That day, but we gotta
do you do. You do whatyou have to do. So going back
(14:16):
to when you got into talk radio, who wasn't they give you that first
break that said, maybe maybe you'rebetter off behind the mind given your opinion.
Who was at Well? It wasinteresting because when I was at the
Moody station in Chicago, because oftheir nonprofit kind of status, they're kind
of like not desirous of opinion,especially that which kind of wanders beyond like
(14:41):
biblical framework. It caused a lotof controversy, a lot of things that
just don't work out. So whenthe Salem job came to jump to the
Salem station in that market, youknow it was I was I was going
back into producing for another talent.At that time. I wasn't super happy
about that. Didn't want to beoff Mike, enjoyed being on the mic.
(15:07):
But I think I got to thepoint where I learned a lot more
that I still didn't realize. Ididn't know in what producing a great show
looks like. And then when thattalent moved on, which was not long
In fact, I will tell youthe day that I was given the talk
show in Chicago was September tenth,two thousand and one, and on the
(15:33):
morning of September the eleventh, whichwas a Tuesday, I awakened, turned
on my television, was watching thenews as always, heard about the first
plane that had hit the towers,and then watched as the second plane hit
and got a call from the stationand they basically said, come in,
(15:58):
we need you to be on theyear basically all day. So I put
in about a twelve hour day onmy second day of having the show,
and that really cemented within my mindthe need and the importance for accurate information
to be given to people in realtime when they may be truly scared or
(16:21):
worried about the events of the worldgoing on around them. And I'll tell
you to this day, Scott,and it sometimes happens on Saturday nights when
we have when we have a momentwhere the world is breaking down or something
is going wrong and it is happeningin real time. Are those are still
(16:41):
the moments that I have the mostadrenaline on the air in terms of feeling
like I am exactly where I'm supposedto be doing what I'm supposed to be
doing, because I think, forsome reason, I just have this kind
of calm spirit in the midst ofthe fiery storm that I think is able
to help people grasp the facts thatthey need and make use of that information
(17:02):
in a way that is not sensationalized, but it does give them a context
to understand how serious it is.And that's and that's really I don't know
if I never did anything else.I think that having been on the air
those handful of times when those typesof events have happened, it's always come
back to me and that you knowthat I was a healing agent in people's
lives in a very tough moment oftrauma, and I've always been very,
(17:23):
very deeply humbled and grateful to havebeen there. But talk about baptism by
fire. I know what you're talkingabout. I was news director at a
local radio station when that happened.That that day will never be forgotten by
any of us. But I'm curiousyour calm on air during the event.
What's it like when you get offthe air. Is that kind of when
(17:45):
when that moment hits you? BecauseI know, for me, nine to
eleven, I'm working hard and thenI get home that night and it just
like it just sort of crashed atthat moment. I think that I probably
slept for about twelve hours that night, which I usually just find six,
So there was a little bit ofexhaustion that's set in and emotionally. But
(18:06):
I think that, just like everybodyelse, I was an observer to the
events of what was happening, andI don't try to shield that from my
viewers or listeners. I think oneof the things that I can give to
them is a sense of relatability becauseI am not anything better than or outside
(18:26):
of where they are. I livelife just like they do. And you
were talking about why I'm kind ofa different kind of talent. The talk
radio industry kind of knows that too. I'm always out with my salespeople,
I'm always out with station reps.I want to try to connect people.
I want to try to be ofhelp to people as best I can,
and when it comes to on airstuff, I feel like my job is
(18:48):
to tell them the story as itis true, and then try to make
some degree of what to make ofit and why it's important breaking news,
what it means, and why itmatters. It's kind of like my brand,
and I think that that is thegift that I can give them,
and I'm hopeful that it helps themmake sense of what's going on around them.
Got about fifty seconds. I'm curious, because you are one of the
(19:11):
hardest working people in the media business. Who instilled that to you? Was
it somebody? Oh, that's easy. My grandfather, my former Police Department,
former Navy veteran traveling salesman. Grandfatherwould always say to me, Kevin,
if you don't have time to dothe job right the first time,
(19:33):
when will you find time to doit over again. So there's a little
bit of work ethic they got sewninto my roots because of that. That
just seems like they need to behanging up on a placer somewhere. Still
hear his voice in my head everyday. Wisdom, wisdom, indeed from
from your grandfather. We're visiting thishour with Kevin mccolaugh. He is the
host of a radio night Live thatyou can see right here on biz TV
(19:56):
on Saturday nights as well as hereon biz Talk Radio. Stick around.
Oh, we're going to dive alittle bit deeper. Coming up next,
this is Create, Build and Managewith Kevin mccolla Right here on Create,
(20:25):
Build and Manage Kevin, you haveworked with Salem for a long time,
on again, off again, andif I'm not mistaken, I think you
met the missus Kevin McCollough while workingin one of your stops. Is that
correct? I did? I did. It was it was an interesting time
period. I was in Chicago nineto eleven. Had just happened. She
(20:49):
was working for the corporate office inCamario, California, and had taken a
job that was kind of left bysurprise. They had had a person there
that had been involved with the kindof the administrative aspect of the company,
and they were primarily responsible for settingup these big conferences that Salem would would
(21:11):
do for their talk hosts on anannual basis. They would fly all of
their hosts, local and national outto one place. They did them in
DC a few times, they didthem in Southern California a few times,
other places a handful of times,and it would be like a three day
jaunt of graduate level learning for thehosts on the top issues as kind of
(21:33):
identified by the editorial board for theyear. And so if we were dealing
with something really in depth like intelligentdesign versus evolution or something like that,
we would have people that were deeplysteeped in this way, way smarter than
us, but able to also helpus understand the major concepts so that we
could break it down and have intelligentdiscussion about it. When we had them
(21:56):
in DC, we had private meetingswith the Senate Majority and Minority leader,
depending on who was in the officeat the time, the Speaker of the
House, other access m I don'tthink we had a vice president in any
of those. I was in othermeetings where a vice president was in attendance,
(22:18):
but she was. She took thejob that was vacated by that person
and had to kind of pick upthe planning for one of them, kind
of mid mid plan, like theperson had just ghosted the company, just
had gone like just moved to Ohioovernight, and so she kind of was
like baptism by fire for that.And I met her at that conference and
(22:38):
I knew when I was in theregistration line that I was going to marry
her. I said, this girlis amazing, and she is what I'm
looking for and I don't even knowit yet, And I asked her,
I asked her for coffee. Beforethe end of the weekend, we went
out I got her phone number.We then exchanged long distance nightly Remember where
there nightly free sell It's to startat the seven PM I do ye would
(23:02):
would? We would talk on ourcell phones until they basically the batteries gave
out, which they lasted like thirtyminutes back then, and we would use
we would use up our minutes talkingfrom Chicago to southern California. But I
married her, and that was justthe beginning of the story. I now
have an eleven year old, anine year old, seven year old.
(23:22):
We relocated to the New York arearight after we got married, and it
has just been a wild and fantasticride. And love doing As much as
I love doing media and being ableto influence and make opinions, I love
spending time with those guys more thananything else on planet Earth. It feeds
my soul and I want to makememories with them so that they have them
in store for, you know,for all of their lives. A couple
(23:45):
of thoughts one, how much doesit help having a life partner who understands
your industry because it is crazy hoursometimes. I mean, you're up on
Saturday night hosting a live show andyou know Fox news will call you at
a drop it a pen drop.Sometimes you have to go do a hit
on a on a hot topic.So one, how much does it help
(24:08):
you having that live partner? Andthen my second follow up question is did
your worldview change when you started towhen you became a father as you looked
at things on your shows. Thoseare both great questions because I don't think
that for people who are typically rightof center, parenthood changes them in their
(24:29):
worldview. If you are if youare a liberal or a progressive, you
are usually those things when you areyoung, and usually before you receive your
first paycheck. When you when youbegin to see how much money the government
takes right out of what you earned. When you look at that paycheck,
you suddenly get slapped with a realitythat wait a minute, this isn't exactly
what I thought life was going tobe, and that opens the world to
(24:52):
a whole different set of discussions aboutthings. But as to the first question,
I think it's vital that I'm marriedto someone who understands the business as
much as I do, because thereare a lot of people in our industry
who have chewed through a lot ofmarriages and there are times when It is
an unpopular thing for me to tella vice president of our company or a
(25:18):
client or other things that I can'tmake something. I try not to do
that. That's one of the reasonswhy I try to be so helpful in
all other aspects. But I reallythink that what my brand is about is
about kind of living out that worldviewin a way that simple people watching from
the outside can say, Hey,that's possible. It is real people can
(25:41):
do that. And I want marriagesto be better. I want families to
be stronger. I want parents tohave two parents in the household so that
as they grow up they understand whatlife at its best can be. And
that doesn't make me a goody twoshoes and it doesn't make me better than
anybody. It's just something that I'vebeen very privileged to have, and I
treat it with deep gratitude because Isee in the world around us how easy
(26:06):
it is for some of that stuffto just be taken away, and I
don't want that to happen. Soyeah, I'm truly grateful and it does
make a huge difference. And becauseshe does understand the industry, she's been
the best friend I could possibly havein terms of fulfilling my life mission.
That's awesome. We'll be sure toget that clip and send it to her.
(26:27):
Now, what about your kids ifthey came to you one day,
Kevin said, I want to fallon your footsteps and be in media.
What would you say to them?Well, as we were talking about the
studios being built and rebuilt in thelast segment, I'm coming to you from
a studio that is housed inside myliving establishment, and it's kind of the
whole west wing of the house wherethat we've taken over for this. But
(26:49):
my eleven year old and nine yearold both are very creative and very technological.
And my eleven year old is alreadyasking if he can help video direct
or answer phones or do other thingson Saturday nights. We're on past his
bedtime, so he's not been allowedto even consider it yet. But I
would be thrilled if they wanted toget into the creative arts, if they
wanted to do something along those lines, if they wanted to be a person
(27:12):
that is in the sway of publicopinion and really kind of a decision maker,
I think they would do a goodjob. We are already talking about
worldview issues around the dinner table almostevery night. All of my kids go
to public school. We're not oneof these homeschool families that hides from the
rest of society. We're trying tolive out what we believe. It comes
(27:33):
with its own kind of sets ofburdens. And I don't have anything against
home schooling. I was homeschooled fora period of about four years when I
was growing up. But I believethat these kids are strong in personality,
very good thinkers, They're very analytical, and I want them to basically change
the world by thinking and solving problems. And if they do that, they're
(27:55):
going to leave the world a betterplace than what they found. And that's
the goal of all the people beingin the mccallouse. There. You go,
that's awesome. You have a familybusiness, you're a business owner,
and so I want to kind ofdive into that. It's great transition.
Uh. You know, we're abusiness network. We got a lot of
business owners that watch what do youknow today that you wish you knew when
(28:17):
you first started your business. Don'tlet ambition blind you and stay within your
lane. There's a there's a certaindegree when I was much younger and we
were we were growing that I wantedto launch the biggest syndication network in America,
(28:37):
and I was determined to do it. Kind of got in over my
head upside down financially on a lotof things, and it took a long
time to work my way out ofthat hole. I think that ambition always
needs to be kind of bridled withreality, and you need to understand that
that ambition is good and it canbe something that drives you forward and propels
(28:59):
you to accomplish things that you couldn'thave accomplished otherwise. But doing it within
the parameters of what makes sense andis wise is kind of the bigger value
of that equation. And you're goingto end up with a lot of hurt
and pain if you try to shortcutthe process. There's just things you got
to learn by doing it a certainway, and that's not to take people's
(29:23):
dreams away from them. Look,if you're watching tonight and you're saying,
but I think that I can dothis, hey go for it. But
use as much wisdom in the processas possible, because you'll avoid mistakes that
others have made. And I don'tthink that that can be a bad thing.
It's sort of that balance, right, that balance between wanting to have
that ambition but having a family thatyou have to take care of as well.
(29:47):
I struggle with that as an entrepreneur. You know that, how risk
averse do you have to be andstill grow a business. It's a challenge
we all kind of face. Veryinteresting and and you're business, by the
way, it does. We gotabout sixty seconds. But beyond just your
content. You you mentioned you coachother people, You're helping them. You
(30:07):
guys also do some production. Talka little bit about the different services that
your business. Well, we've doneeverything from major motion picture contribution to talk
radio on a daily basis. Butthe place that we have really exploded in
the last year is our podcast network. And I continue to be amazed at
how people use on demand audio.And if you go to the Kevin McCullough
(30:29):
universe of SoundCloud, Apple, Spotify, Amazon, any of those places,
you will find about twenty five differenthosted podcasts that we make available and we
are we are on fire. Infact, it is in some ways been
more profitable in twenty twenty two thanmy actual broadcast works. Wow, that
is a very hard pill for meto swallow, but I am. I'm
willing to say whatever needs to bedone. So that's awesome. Kevin.
(30:52):
Do you have time to stick aroundfor one more segment? Oh yeah,
for you, Scott, anything awesome. It's Kevin McCollough and we're going to
talk a little bit more about thework to Kevin's newing. Look at his
website as well. You are watchingor listening to Create, Build and Manage.
(31:33):
Welcome back to Create, Build andManage. I'm Scott Miller. We're
visiting this hour with Kevin mccolla,who understands the power of media and not
every business owner does, which iswhy we wrote this book here, Media
Matters, How to Leverage the Mediato Grow your Business. It's available now
if you go to Media mattersbook dotcom. There's a couple of links for
(31:55):
you where you can order it.We have a couple versions for you.
If you want the kindle version,or if you want the actual hard copy,
you can get it at Amazon,or you can get it at Barnes
and Nobles or wherever you like topick up books. Again, Media Matters
How to Leverage the Media to Growyour Business. Visiting with Kevin mccolla and
Kevin. We were mentioning at theend of that last segment, a lot
(32:16):
of work that you do. You'veworked with some big names. I don't
know if you want to name dropany but you've introduced media a couple of
big names over the years. Yeah. I think one of the kind of
unexpected things of my career is thenumber of people that have been wildly successful
in things that they've done that I'vehad the chance to work with and even
(32:38):
coach and kind of nurture as talentand everyone from Hollywood actors to billionaires literally
that have crafted runs for a publicoffice here in New York City. I've
had the chance to work with themup close and to help them get better
at what they do by way ofwhatever media it is that they are doing,
(33:00):
whether it's a full blown show orthey just want to get better at
the media opportunities that come their way. It's been a lot of fun,
and I don't know if it's okayto name drop with all the people that
I've worked with. I've been veryproud of my association with people like the
actres Stephen Baldwin, who I workedwith for nine years, the billionaire here
(33:22):
in New York who's the most belovedcitizen of New York City. John Katzimatidas
sees a real estate and energy magnet, also runs a chain of grocery stores
that people love here in the city, but just about everything in between.
And you know, I'm pleased tocount a lot of really cool people as
friends. Mike Glendell of My Pillowand doctor Douglas Howard of Balance of Nature,
(33:45):
and a bunch of other people thathave crossed my path in any way
that I can help their life andwork and calling get a little bit better
at what they're doing. I'm alwaysmore than happy to do it. And
it's just been a real fun ride. That's media. You know, we
talked about the book one day.I want to write a book on the
on the crazy story of media,because you meet interesting folks and you find
(34:07):
out they're just they're just people,right, and they're just like you and
me. Very cool. So whatis what's on your bucket list? What
have you not done that you loveto accomplish? Oh? Wow, set
the world straight. We've we've we'vegot so much work. I mean,
forget about bucket list stuff. We'vegot so much work to do to help
(34:30):
the country get back to just adecent and healthy place, um, economically
and in terms of culturally and whatwe're dealing with UM. And I'm I'm
so kind of riveted by the pressingneed of what is going on in the
world around me. I don't knowthat I have a lot of things that
(34:51):
I sit around going aw some dayif I if I could do that,
it'd be kind of cool. Um, there are things I could probably think
of, but I am so resolutelymotivated on trying to make a difference in
each broadcast that we do, eachpodcast that we post, every media hit
that I have a chance to bewith, whether it's you or you know,
(35:13):
there's a lot of over the topnetworks that are coming across now.
I can't believe how many news channelsthere are that are just delivered via like
Roku and Apple and all those typesof things that's really expanded. But also
like a Newsmax and Fox News andCNN and other places where I have a
chance to occasionally stick my toe onthe water. I want to make a
difference when I have a chance.And I guess if there was kind of
(35:35):
one secret that I try to giveall of those people that I coach,
it's always use the other person's platformto get the message across that you most
desperately want them to know. There'sgoing to be an opportunity for you to
answer their question and give them whatthey're looking for in terms of the substance
that they're at. But if youreally want to impact the world, make
(35:57):
it happen every time you have thechance. And I try to live that
out. So that's I guess it'snot a very good answer to you.
No, No, that's a greatanswer. It's a great answer. But
my follow up to that is,could we ever see a Congressman Kevin McCollough
Senator Kevin Mill. A lot ofpeople have asked about that. I've been
invited to run in the district thatI live in. It was a solid
(36:21):
Republican district that went Democrat three cyclesago, and I get a couple of
phone calls every two months saying wouldyou consider I think, right now at
a microphone and doing what I'm doing, I have a chance to impact a
far bigger part of the picture thanif I was just one of four hundred
and thirty five people casting votes.And I would rather I would rather have
the biggest impact possible, for themost good possible, for as long as
(36:45):
possible. There you go. AlthoughI think you would probably disrupt the halls
of Congress showed up, you tryto do so in a winsome way.
There you go. Anybody you're mentoring, anybody you're working with. You know
you don't have the same names,but that is that part of what you
do now young people. Yeah,there's always there's always people crossing my path.
(37:06):
And um, what's kind of coolis I've been at it so long
now a lot of the people thatI've formerly worked with are mentoring people.
Um. And even here within myown company, we've got we've got folks
that are constantly bringing in new peoplethat are helping them get better at what
they do. And as a dad, really the most important mentoring project I
(37:27):
have is shaping the hearts and mindsof those three little ones that reside within
the same house. Um. AndI feel like i'm kind of you know
when when you're in this kind ofwork from home environment, I feel like
I'm kind of on detail every day, like I'm tested every single time something
doesn't go my way. There aretwo sets, three sets of eyes watching
me going home. How did hehandle that? Um, so it's yeah,
(37:50):
parenting is mentoring m but they andthey that would be the biggest satisfaction
of all to see them turn out. Well, Listen, you were working
at home before working at home wascool, that's true. This wasn't a
pandemic thing for you. You Yeah, we had already moved in about a
year before the pandemic hit. Allright, we got about ninety seconds I
wanted we mentioned your SoundCloud side.I want to show that for if you
(38:14):
want to check out to Kevin mccolla'smaterial, you can. You can go
there. You can also follow oncloud dot com, backslash KMC Radio.
And as I said, there's thatwe were. We were housing something like
I think a total of about fortypodcasts, but about twenty eight to thirty
two of those are pretty active andupdated each week or each day. And
(38:37):
we crossed the two million listener marksomewhere in December, and I think we're
on track to have about four millionlisteners by the end of twenty twenty two.
So we're just going to keep atit and keep growing and try to
make the world a better place asa result. Kevin for someone who's watching
or listening and they want to reachout to you and maybe have a conversation
or get to know you even more. What's the best way they can get
(38:59):
a hold of Kevin mc sure.The easiest way to get a hold of
me. My email address is KMCradio at gmail dot com and I don't
turn down and I'm the only onethat has access to that address, and
I read everything that gets read fromthat account, So always glad to do
that KMC Radio at gmail dot com. And if they want to follow me
on social that's also a very easyway to do. I was banned from
(39:21):
Twitter the same day the President Trumpwas, so you can't get me on
Twitter anymore, but you can't getme on Instagram and on Instagram. I'm
just at KMC Radio Kevin McCollough toconnect with you there. Thank you so
much for your time this hour.I really appreciate you. You got it.
Thanks Scott, absolutely, this hasbeen great building manage. I'm Scott Miller.
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