What Happened to Talk Radio Star Tom Leykis? He's Alive and Thriving on Internet Radio.
Burbank, CA (PRWEB) March 31, 2014 -- For 21 years, he was one of Southern California's most listened-to radio personalities and a star of syndicated radio. Suddenly, in February 2009, as a result of a format change at his home station, KLSX in Los Angeles, Tom Leykis went from having hundreds of thousands of fans to radio silence overnight.
To this day, many Leykis fans believe that he simply disappeared for good.
What many of them don't know is that, at the end of his five-year play-or-pay contract with CBS Radio in April 2012, Leykis re-emerged with a daily call-in show that can be heard on every kind of device...except a radio.
"After three years of paid vacation, I was reborn," says Leykis. "I spent 37 months reinventing myself and my content. In fact, I decided to completely reinvent the wheel." The show can now be heard weekdays at 3 PM Pacific at blowmeuptom.com and on the TuneIn app for smartphones and tablets.
This Wednesday, April 2nd, Leykis celebrates his second anniversary in business with a 3-hour call-in show accompanied in studio by listener Noah Tool of Orange County, CA, who placed the winning bid of $5,500 for the opportunity in an eBay auction. The following night, Leykis marks the event with a listener party at Hollywood's Bardot nightclub.
In 2010, instead of hitting the beach, Leykis created his own production company, The New Normal LLC. His plan was to take control of his own distribution and the quality of his content using emerging internet technology to send out his daily show "without traditional radio transmitters or satellite dishes," he says.
Leykis, who operates from his own New Normal Studios in Burbank, says, "I am not in this business to cobble together multiple failing businesses into one great big failing business. I am here to create something completely new and different."
"This fiscal year will show us with a profit and we're doing it our own way," says Leykis. The top two radio broadcasting companies in America are drowning in debt. So making a profit in 2014 is a major statement."
--30--
The New Normal LLC, based in Burbank, CA, produces The Tom Leykis Show, and The Gary & Dino Show, as well as their respective websites. New Normal Music LLC, also owned by Tom Leykis, produces music formats New Normal Rock and Pure Pop Hits, and presents oldies-formatted Great Big Radio as well.
Gary Zabransky, The New Normal LLC, http://www.blowmeuptom.com, +1 (818) 476-5454, [email protected]
Share this article