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Announcer: The David Pakman Show at www.DavidPakman.com.
David Pakman: Welcome to the show, David Pakman here. Louis's vacation continues in Turkey.
Who knows at this point how many times he's been sick, how many times he's been to bathhouses,
it's unclear. A lot of... the jury is still out on Louis's trip, but instead of Darryl
Roberts, today we have Monte Belmonte here from WHMP and WRSI. The big question is why
does your first name sound so much like your last name? I got a few emails on that.
Monte Belmonte: Ah, well, it's fake.
Monte: It's a fake. My real name is Chris Belmonte; everybody started calling me Monte.
I used to work at a country music station, sounded kind of like a country disc jockey
name, Monte Belmonte.
David: Oh, I see. And you kept it.
Monte: It stuck, yeah.
David: But legally it's not your name?
Monte: Legally not my name. Although, shameless plug for me and my friend John Hodgman, who
has a book, he named a wine Monte Belmonte in his new book. It's a fake wine.
David: After you.
Monte: Yeah.
David: That's incredible.
Monte: Yeah, see? They wouldn't have named it Chris Belmonte.
David: So you, like many radio people, get up incredibly early, right?
Monte: I do.
David: What time?
Monte: Between 2:00 and 2:30.
David: am?
Monte: am.
David: And then you're at work at...
Monte: Between 3:00 and 3:30.
David: That's unbelievable. That's really unbelievable. I, you know, I've had conversations
about doing morning radio with people. I know nothing about the radio industry, I'm only
tangentially involved, as, you know, I'm not really allowed into that industry, people
have kept me out pretty successfully, so everything I know has been gleaned from just tangential
experiences with the radio industry, and it sounds like the morning radio lifestyle can
be difficult because of the schedule.
Monte: If you like hearing voices and feel like you need coffee consistently on an IV
drip to survive, it's your bag of chips.
David: I don't drink coffee at all.
Monte: You don't want to do morning radio. Tea?
David: I drink tea.
Monte: All right, well, then maybe...
David: Decaf. Decaf, usually.
Monte: No, definitely not.
David: I think my lack of caffeine consumption almost single-handedly excludes me from the
potential of morning radio.
Monte: Unless you're a morning person by nature, and no one is. Your circadian rhythms just
don't want you to get up that early.
David: So you do both music programming, but also you're involved on the talk side, which
is WHMP.
Monte: Yes, where we proudly air The David Pakman Show.
David: Right.
Monte: Both of the week's shows every Saturday.
David: Right.
Monte: Yes, so I'm the program director there, and I co-host a talk show that you've sat
in on, every morning at 9:00.
David: Right. Is working in commercial radio as bad as people make it out to be?
Monte: I would say working with most commercial radio is bad... as bad as it could be.
David: Yeah.
Monte: Where I happen to work is great, because we have a lot of flexibility and control of
the music programming, and pretty much complete flexibility and control of the talk programming,
so...
David: I think one of the main complaints I hear is just there's absolutely no loyalty,
it doesn't matter what training you have, what experience you have, what degree you
have, any guy, the golden-voiced homeless man comes in off of the street, you're out
of a job.
Monte: Yeah. [Laughs]
David: As a general thing, there's just zero loyalty in radio.
Monte: There's a lot of truth to that.
David: Yeah.
Monte: But we live in a great area where there's a lot of local loyalty to what we do, and
the localized programming that goes along with.
David: Right. That's good. I think you're saying all the right things, if this were
to ever be reviewed or anything like that.
Monte: Thank you. Don't fire me.
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