The power of the podcast.
Last week, Adam Carolla’s popular radio show was abruptly cancelled when station KLSX in California decided to completely switch formats and switch from an FM talk station to top 40. For those not familiar with Adam Carolla, he co-hosted “The Man Show” on Comedy Central for a number of years, and recently had a stint on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars. Still no recollection? Well, rest assured that his radio show was extremely popular and un-deniably hilarious. In fact, “The Adam Carolla Show” was the #1 morning talk show in a number of large markets, but in yet another sign that terrestrial radio is on the way out, CBS decided to ax the show anyways simply because its always cheaper to play music than it is to pay a radio personality.
Carolla, though, took the news in stride and quickly decided to enter the podcasting world. While his former radio show had previously been available as a podcast on iTunes, it was mostly for users who lived in markets where his radio show wasn’t broadcast, or for users who couldn’t catch it live. So when news of his dismissal hit, Carolla decided to start podcasting on his own, and on February 24th, the first podcast went live on iTunes.
Surprisingly, (or not, if you’re a fan), fans of Carolla responded en masse and within one day of becoming available, the first episode of “The Adam Carolla Podcast” was downloaded over 250,000 times and quickly became the #1 most popular podcast on iTunes, edging out podcasts such as “Real Time with Bill Maher” and NPR’s always popular “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!”
You can check out the podcasts over here.
Get it on!
February 27th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Don’t forget, he also hosted Loveline on MTV. I thought that was where most people knew him from.
February 27th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Ah, The Man Show, Kimmel and Corolla, with their intro of well endowed females jumping on trampolines causing their bosoms to jiggle. Classic TV!
February 27th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
CBS didn’t fire Carolla. He opted out of his contract when they changed the format of the station so he could focus on his upcoming tv show. He could have easily been the number one morning show in LA, but decided he could get more attention by walking away from it. It has worked, for the moment.
If you listened to the show in its last weeks, at no time does he say he was fired. He couldn’t have gotten away with it, if he wanted to keep his tv show on CBS.
Adam Carolla will be the new Jay Thomas. Does anybody remember Jay Thomas?
February 27th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Hey radioman, Carolla didn’t opt out of his contract. CBS changed the format of the radio station to top 40 so there was no job for any of the personalities there. Carolla is still receiving a paycheck from CBS because he is still under contract. It has nothing to do with his pilot tv show.
Carolla in no way will be like Jay Thomas. His podcast became the number 1 download on iTunes in 1 day.
Get it straight tard.
February 27th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
hmmmm, i would say losing your #1 syndicated radio show to top40 radio in Los Angeles (where there are hundreds of top 40 stations) is getting fired.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Actually Carolla has not been fired. He mentioned in his last show that he is technically under contract with CBS until October. So he’s still getting paid…
February 27th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Yes, that’s called getting a severance package.
March 1st, 2009 at 9:04 pm
well i haven’t heard him say the word “fired” but he has talked quite a bit (both on his morning show and his new podcast) about getting “s-canned” – tomae-to/tomah-to – his show was cancelled, he was forced to do something else and it wasn’t his idea – but he sounds pretty fired up about the podcast and it seems like a great, great thing so far! i think most of them have been about 40-45 minutes – uninterrupted, no commercials – seems perfect for a workout or commute or any kind of wind-down. hope it is everything he wants it to be.
March 2nd, 2009 at 4:09 am
christ enough with semantics…..people are trying to say that he wasnt fired in the sense that a person gets axed for poor showing in work…..every talk personality was out of a job when the station switched formats………not fired but if you want to argue that there’s no point because everyone agrees that he doesnt work for the radio station any longer….and the point clarifying that he did not opt out of his contract for the pilot gig is also correct
March 2nd, 2009 at 4:09 am
and no it’s not a severance package