Check out the latest "Women In Radio" profile from one of the leading
industry publications available, Radio Digest - it's all about your
favorite talkradio show host, America's "Digital Goddess®", Kim
Komando (http://www.komando.com). She tells her story from her beginnings
in radio to her current successes, and also shares her concise opinions
about what it means to be a woman in the radio industry today compared to
nine years ago when she was just getting started in broadcasting.

Women In Radio: Kim Komando
http://www.radiodigest.com/columnfri/2000/021800_graham1.htm

By Lyssa Graham

New Jersey native Kim Komando has gone from relative radio obscurity
to host of one of Talkers Magazine's top 10 radio talk shows in just
under five years. Komando's syndicated Internet- and computer-talk
program has achieved this success through the determination and sheer
chutzpah of its host.

Now known as the "Digital Goddess," Komando left a six-figure income
in sales to broadcast a two-hour, once-a-week talk show in 1992 on
Phoenix, Ariz., station KFYI (910 AM).

"My parents, when I told them I was going into radio, they thought I
was nuts. I told them over dinner that I was going to quit and go work
for KFYI for two hours a week." Convincing them that she wasn't
nuts -- after all, it was a radio job she was taking -- Komando's
parents are no doubt pleased that she made the leap.

Five years after going from six figures to $100 a week, she's on
hundreds of stations nationwide and has authored six books, including
the best-selling "Dummies 101: Creating Web Pages." She also writes a
syndicated newspaper computer column that appears in the New York
Times, the Denver Post, the Los Angeles Times and others.

Komando graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of
Science degree in Computer Systems and worked with IBM and AT&T before
winding up with the Unisys Corporation. During her time with Unisys
she began writing her syndicated newspaper column. She has also been a
regular contributor to Popular Mechanics Magazine, USA Today, Radio
World and others.

Her computer expertise stems from a lifetime of study and practice.
Her first venture into the world of computers started at age nine.
Since then she has become what Information Week calls a "one person PC
industry."

The credit for her amazing success in talk radio goes directly to the
marketing efforts of Komando and her partner, Barry Young.

"Barry was operations manager at KFYI when I first pitched them to do
a talk show, and so Barry taught me how to do talk radio," said
Komando. "He pretty much handed me the microphone after six weeks and
said, 'Here babe.' They put me on at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night. It
was like, 'OK, how much damage could she really do?' Then the show
started taking off with KFYI and they moved me to a more decent time
slot. I think it was 4 to 6 p.m. I did the show locally for something
like three or four years."

After broadcasting locally for so long, Komando "got bored" with just
being local. She decided she either wanted to take the show national
or just quit doing it. Her feeling was that the upsurge in Internet
activity could bring in a whole new advertising revenue. Consumers
were no longer viewing computers as a hobby but more as a need.
Believing that there was a niche in talk radio that needed filling,
Komando began making moves towards syndication.

"The problem was that I didn't know anything about syndication. I
really didn't know a lot about radio, quite frankly," says Komando,
"up to and including that I really didn't know who the decision maker
was at any of these radio stations."

Armed with a total conviction in the quality of her product, Komando
set out to work the networks.

"I called up ABC and gave them the whole pitch and sent them a
package," recalls Komando. "I called up CBS and just about any other
network that was in the Radio and Records directory." The folks at ABC
said her show was too specialized a program and that it probably
wouldn't work.

"CBS was probably the best answer," says Komando. "He told me that
computers were a fad, much like the pet rock. His feeling was that the
Internet was just a bunch of geeks online doing who knows what."

After being rejected by the networks, Komando turned to Barry Young,
who was still broadcasting on KFYI. Young had earlier founded WestStar
and was creating specialty programming through the company.

"I said, OK, you've got this company, WestStar. What if we build a
studio, a talk studio and let's try it?" says Komando. "Of course, he
thought I was nuts -- but what he didn't know was how good I could be
if I wanted to market something."

Like Judy Garland saying, "I've got a barn! Let's put on a show,"
Komando convinced Young to give it a try. Komando continued her
practice of pitching any program director that would listen to her.

"I just started picking up the phone and saying, 'Hi, I'm Kim Komando
would you like to hear a tape of my show?' Again, not knowing that
other networks had people that did that for them. Our first big hit
was Seattle," says Komando.

Shortly after that, Komando picked up WTIC (1080 AM) in Hartford.

"After that, it just keep going," says Komando. "You know, I still
make the affiliate calls."

The show launched in October 1995 with three affiliates. Less than
five years later, the Kim Komando weekend show is on over 350
stations. The weekday "Kim Komando Minute" is also heard on many of
those stations.

Komando admits that there were credibility issues for her to overcome
in the beginning.

"When I first approached KFYI with the idea to do a computer show,
obviously they felt that wasn't something that maybe a woman should be
doing," says Komando. "Even today, there's an unnamed non-affiliate of
the Kim Komando show in the state of Texas who the program manager,
when asked why he wouldn't take the show, said that it just didn't
feel right to him that a woman was on the air talking about computers.
He used the analogy with me that it's kind of like if a woman was
talking about cars, it just didn't feel right to him. So, it still
exists.

"I have never approached any business, you know, whether I was working
for corporate America or for myself, that I'm a woman and I have to
work harder because I'm a woman," says Komando. "I didn't really see a
gender difference. I've never approached it that way."

She does feel there are some advantages to being a woman in radio,
though.

"The obvious one is that you're dealing with a bunch of men," Komando
says. "Not to say that you're going to play that card in a bad way. To
this day, I sit with network executives and talk about my feelings."

Komando feels that the role of women has expanded in the nine years
that she's been broadcasting. When the show first began in
syndication, Komando says she only dealt with one female program
director out of 1,200 radio stations in the database. Now she sees
more and more women in positions of power throughout the industry.

Komando's incredible success in the talk radio industry has less to do
with the fact that she's a woman than with the fact that she was
determined to make it happen. Through her own efforts and Young's
assistance, "The Kim Komando Show" enjoys tremendous success. It doesn
't end with Komando either. WestStar is aggressively pursuing other
syndication options with specialty Christmas programming, a new oldies
show and an un-named weekly talk show to debut soon.

Questions, comments, tips, or suggestions? Reach Lyssa Graham via
e-mail at lgraham@radiodigest.com. Her "Women in Radio" column appears
every Friday in RadioDigest.com.

February 18, 2000