Ben Shapiro’s podcast is apparently doing so well that it has attracted the attention of the same company that gives us the Mark Levin Show, and they are bringing his podcast to talk radio:
POLITICO – Ben Shapiro, the conservative firebrand whose clashes with liberal academia have helped him attract a huge social media following, will be taking his podcast to old-fashioned radio.
Starting on April 2, Westwood One will be syndicating the podcast, called The Ben Shapiro Show, as a one-hour program in several major markets, including New York, Washington, and Los Angeles.
The move will bring the 34-year-old Shapiro, often seen as a leading voice of young conservatives, into the same arena as the older generation of conservative talk radio standard-bearers, like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. With his 1.27 million Twitter followers and, according to Westwood One, 15 million podcast downloads per month, some observers can see Shapiro rising quickly through the ranks of conservative radio.
“He certainly has big potential and, unlike some of these other guys, he has more staying power because he has attracted a younger audience,” said Brian Rosenwald, an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania who wrote his PhD dissertation on talk radio and is currently writing a book on the topic. Although Shapiro is not an immediate threat to those type of established hosts, Rosenwald said he could prove to have staying power.
“The question has always been can you square the circle? Can you attract that young audience without repelling the older audience? Shapiro seems like a guy who’s pretty well positioned to do that,” Rosenwald said.
This is only the beginning for one of the sharpest conservative voices out there. In a few years he’ll probably be everywhere, as well he should. Shapiro is exactly the voice for the conservative movement.
And I wish him all the success in the world.