After dipping his toes in the news/talk genre, Pittsburgh native Colin Dunlap was named the afternoon drive host at KDKA after the departure of Rick Dayton amid a round of layoffs from parent company Audacy.
Dunlap is no stranger to both the talk radio format — spending several years hosting mornings at Audacy Pittsburgh sports talk sister station 93.7 The Fan — or the Steel City, as the native Pittsburgher knows the significance a station like KDKA holds in the community.
“There’s a lot of responsibility that’s for sure,” Dunlap said. “Maybe people outside of radio don’t understand, but I do think that many people inside radio do understand that when you speak into a KDKA microphone — particularly when it’s a drivetime spot — it’s very akin to putting on a Notre Dame football uniform or wearing a Yankees uniform or a Dodgers uniform in so much as the heritage, and the lineage, and responsibility that comes with it. Especially being someone from Pittsburgh. I know that responsibility and that understanding of history is never lost on me.”
“I see KDKA as a civic trust, just as much as been elected official,” he continued. “We have identifiable quotients that mark our city that people can rely on. And I see KDKA as that for, it’s not an exaggeration to say, generations.”
Dunlap began his media career as a newspaper reporter before jumping into sports talk. And despite switching formats, he believes he has a solid foundation on what it takes to succeed in news/talk.
“Don’t be a paid actor. Be the person that got you in this position which is simply the person tasked with the responsibility and also lucky enough to be on the other side of the mic,” he said. “But very simply put … really all I am is a 47-year-old born and bred lifelong Pittsburgh guy who potentially is listening on the other side and I have much more in common — I think — with the people who are on the other side of the speakers than most people in this industry. Because nothing turns me off more in any realm of talk radio — sports talk, news/talk, whatever — than paid actors. Schtick pedalers.”
And while Colin Dunlap pledges to be his authentic self every afternoon from 2-6 PM ET, he also is cognizant that he’ll get a little more leeway with the tribal Pittsburgh audience than an out-of-town host.
“We might be the most provincial place in the world,” Dunlap joked. “They’re not going to warm to you if you’re not (from Pittsburgh), but (listeners) would absolutely use it against you the very first opportunity they’d get if you’re not. That’s the thing … If a guy comes in from another town, they’re not going to say ‘I’m not listening to him!’, but they’re ready to pounce if he doesn’t do it right.
“And one of the first pieces of ammunition they’re going to use is ‘You don’t get us. You’re not from here. Go back to where you’re from.’ Even if they disagree with me, they know they can’t use that. Call it provincial or what it is, it merits a level of respect. Right, wrong, or indifferent, that’s how Western Pennsylvanians are wired. We stick together even if we disagree.”
He added, however, that that attitude isn’t a bad thing.
“People are more apt to understand if you’re on a different side, if you’re from here and you live it. If you don’t, then they won’t even give you the time of day,” he said. “I think that’s indigenous to the Rust Belt and it’s why I think this medium has persisted probably better in the Rust Belt is it is a communal sense. If you take a nice scoop out of the country and run it from Detroit and through Toledo, and then Cleveland, and then Pittsburgh, up to Buffalo … we have a sense of a tied-in community, in good times and in bad in a sense of trust with each other.”
A hardcore news/talk listener might be dismissive of a host coming to the genre from sports, where the topics aren’t as serious and a little more fun can be hand. However, Dunlap believes there’s a natural defense against such charges.
“I found that preparedness trumps all in all of this,” he shared. “I still draw out a topic tree the same way. And I found that if you have a multi-layer discussion and multi-layered preparedness, that it’s a transferable skill. If you go into talking about the Steelers, or you go into talking about the mayor’s office, and you just have one point and no depth, then your discussion is going to suck. If you go into talking about the Steelers or the mayor’s office, and you have tangentially 14 different things that come off of your main point, you’re generally going to have a successful discussion.
“And the key to both of those is preparedness. Preparedness in depths and layers to your discussion. So from that standpoint, it’s different clay but it’s pliable the same way.”
With his Pittsburgh roots, it might be easy to diminish the importance of a legacy brand like KDKA. However, Colin Dunlap noted he’s often reminded about how important the station is to not only those in Western Pennsylvania but around the nation.
“You have people from Los Angeles, or Dallas, or Denver, or Miami, or wherever, and it always takes me aback in a way, but it doesn’t surprise me when they hear KDKA. They know what it is,” he said. “And there’s a responsibility whenever you talking to that microphone — not to diminish the merits of other stations — but when you’re talking into that microphone … that’s a big deal to me.
“I remind myself every day before I go in that all these words mean something because there’s still a portion of the listening audience — and I would hope it continues in perpetuity — that there’s a big trust variable with them because of who we are and what those four letters are.”
