Meet the Personalities Podcast 001 Neil Saavedra
Neil Saavedra and Tom Smith
Neil Saavedra joins Tom Smith for the inaugural Meet the Personalities (MtP) podcast. For more than 20-years Saavedra has contributed to KFI-AM 640, the largest newstalk radio station in the United States. Although not pictured wearing one Saavedra wears many hats at KFI. He’s the host of The Fork Report, producer of, the nationally syndicated, Jesus Christ Show and KFI’s assistant program director.
Neil Saavedra can be heard on KFI-AM 640‘s The Fork Report Saturdays from 2:00 – 5:00 p.m
and The Jesus Christ Show Sundays from 6:00 – 9:00 a.m.
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***Transcript***
Recording date – January 24, 2017
Neil Saavedra: The medium of radio, whether it be a podcast, whether it be terrestrial radio, whether you stream it through your mobile phone or mobile device, the truth is, that content and intimacy is what makes it so special, that connectivity.
Tom Smith: Welcome to “Meet the Personalities,” the podcast where we sit down with radio personalities for a candid talk about their take on the business of radio. I’m your host, Tom Smith, LARadioSpecialist. And today I’m joined by Neil Saavedra, The Fork Reporter. Neil can be heard on his show, “The Fork Report,” every Saturday on KFI AM-640 right here in the Los Angeles market, and that is on from 2 to 5 every Saturday. Neil, thanks so much for joining me. This is our inaugural voyage on “Meet the Personalities.” Thanks for being my proverbial guinea pig.
Neil: I’m not really sure what a guinea pig noise is, but that’s the closest I can come up with.
Tom: That works. So, Neil, candidly, so everyone knows, we’ve worked together for quite a number of years, with a little gap in there when I sprouted wings and went into the startup world. Some of this isn’t going to be new. What was your path to your current radio position today?
Neil: I was born in LA. I was raised out in Ventura County and started radio actually, in Ventura County originally. Huge fan of KFI. And listening to KFI when I was an art director when I was designing and doing graphics and things like that, I would have KFI on. And I always loved the take of KFI, of the energy of getting the information, getting news but with a little dab of irreverence. So I was a huge fan and ended up coming to KFI as an intern for Bill Handel, as a matter of fact, our morning show host here in.
Tom: Handel?
Neil: Yeah. And so I worked with him for many a month for free, and later ended up becoming, you know, a member of the staff around here, both on-air and off. And just loved so much of it and being around it all the time that it’s been…you know, I’ve been inseparable from it ever since.
If you enjoyed this podcast with Neil Saavedra, be sure to check out the rest of our podcasts here.