John and Ken - History

History

John Kobylt, a native of Saddle Brook, New Jersey, came into the radio business as a sportswriter, after dropping out of Seton Hall University. Ken Chiampou, a native of Brentwood, New York, was an accountant, graduating from the University at Buffalo. Both worked in the Elmira-Corning market in New York state in the late 1980s; Kobylt as a disc jockey at WENY and Chiampou at cross-town rival WELM.

Kobylt and Chiampou first worked together in 1988 for a radio station in Atlantic City, New Jersey. According to Kobylt, the show was named "The Odd Couple" by a producer who was the "stupidest man on two legs". Kobylt became program director of WOND. One of their earliest bits was while they hosted mornings at 103.7 WMGM. They started a food drive for rival 95.1 WAYV morning DJ, Russ Monroe after he was fired only a week before Christmas. After calling WAYV live on the air to see if they'd like to donate, they were hung up on.

In 1990, the duo was offered afternoon drive on the then brand new, New Jersey 101.5 (WKXW-FM) in the state capitol of Trenton, New Jersey. They gained national notoriety for heavily criticizing then New Jersey governor Jim Florio for passing the largest state tax hike in United States history immediately after taking office. During this period, their ratings quadrupled to 600,000 listeners. Kobylt criticized Florio for reneging on his promise to not raise taxes. A caller, postal worker John Budzash, then suggested the idea of Hands Across New Jersey, a protest that would symbolically cut the state in half. When other callers noted that blocking traffic was illegal, the movement turned into a rally in front of the State House in Trenton.

A State Police officer told Budzash, who reported to the crowd from onstage, that approximately 65,000 people attended the event while another 100,000 people were turned away due to lack of parking and crowded conditions. It was the largest rally ever held in New Jersey. Kobylt and Chiampou both attended the rally and spoke passionately about Hands Across New Jersey, better government, lower taxes and encouraging people to stand up and fight back for a better New Jersey. Florio lost reelection and John and Ken's listenership quadrupled during this period.

Kobylt and Chiampou also campaigned feverishly for the abolition of tolls on the New Jersey Turnpike citing that cutting much of the government waste could make continued maintenance funding of this highway possible. They also lobbied for the opening of HOV lanes to regular traffic.

The pair left WKXW in late 1992, to move to KFI to do their afternoon drive time spot, replacing former Los Angeles Police Department chief Daryl Gates. The hosts began national syndication in 1997, which displeased management at Cox Communications, the then-owners of the station. At its peak, 125 stations carried the program. On March 19, 1999, The John and Ken Show was taken off the air at KFI, allegedly by a vice president in Atlanta due to the syndication issue. Officially, the spat was referred to as a "contract dispute". In addition, the hosts themselves were more comfortable with dealing with state and local issues.

Kobylt and Chiampou were replaced by syndicated consumer advocate Clark Howard from 3 pm to 4 pm followed by Karel and Andrew, the first openly gay couple in weekday talk radio in the country. Kobylt and Chiampou publicly referred to them as "Siegfried and Roy", and constantly berated the quality of the show and the lowered ratings the new show had compared to their show. On July 1, 1999, The John and Ken Show was reborn as a morning drive talk show on crosstown competitor KABC. The morning show was short-lived as they kept their afternoon show style and brought it to the mornings. Kobylt and Chiampou also had various stunts, one of which got them in trouble and forced them into attending diversity training, which they later said they resented taking, and disliked the Disney management toning down their banter. Due to low ratings and mutual dissatisfaction between the station and the hosts, KABC dropped the show on October 20, 2000.

The John and Ken Show returned to KFI on May 2, 2001, and the hosts regaled listeners with the behind-the-scene problems at KABC before returning to their normal topics. Since then they have remained as a live program; however, some interviews are pre-recorded and replayed between hours, and at times Kobylt or Chiampou will broadcast from their home studio.

On January 14, 2006, a new version of the show entitled John and Ken: Saturdays began. The show has been repeated on the weekend from time to time, however, J&K: Saturdays covers new material that was otherwise omitted during the week. The hosts did not actually show up to the studio live on Saturday but taped the Saturday edition during the week as time permits. J&K Saturdays was syndicated to other stations. The Saturday show was cancelled in September 2009 due to an expansion in their weekday time slot from the cancellation of Dr. Laura Schlessinger's program. With the hiring of Bill Carroll in February 2010, the program reverted to its 3 p.m.-7 p.m. slot.

On March 4, 2006, Kobylt and Chiampou won the Radio & Records News/Talk Local Personality of the Year award, sharing the honor with KGO radio host Ronn Owens. Chiampou accepted the award on behalf of the pair and on stage thanked Antonio Villaraigosa, Stanley Tookie Williams, David Dreier, L.A. Archbishop Cardinal Roger Mahony, Robert Blake, Michael D. Brown, and Armando Garcia for providing the material that made the program possible. They were also nominated for the 2006 National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Award.

On September 10, 2009, The John and Ken Show started simulcasting the 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. portion of the show on San Francisco, California's KNEW (AM)-910. In the opening of the 3 p.m. hour, Kobylt welcomed the new listeners to the show, and promised the old listeners that the format would not change, despite the newly expanded audience. In July 2010, the program was replaced with John Gibson.

Kobylt is married to the former Deborah Zara and has three sons. Chiampou is single and has no children.