The Ben Shapiro Show is the second high-profile podcast to announce lately that it’s making the jump to terrestrial radio. | Colin Young-Wolff/Invision/AP Photo Ben Shapiro to take his podcast to radio A favorite of young conservatives enters a talk-radio world dominated by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

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 Ph.D. 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.

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Shapiro said he does not see himself as directly competing with hosts like Hannity or Limbaugh but would like to expand the demographics of his mostly young audience.

“If I’m known as the up-and-coming young conservative, at a certain point I’m going to age out of that, right? I can’t be 34 my entire life,” Shapiro said. “Being in a place where I’m seen as a leading voice of conservatism generally, not just for young conservatives, is certainly something I’d like.”

“The Ben Shapiro Show“ is the second high-profile podcast to announce lately that it’s making the jump to terrestrial radio. Also on April 2, The New York Times’ breakout hit “The Daily“ will begin airing on several public radio stations. Shapiro, who also serves as editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire, said the radio program will feature the same content as his podcast, except with recorded transitions built in to make it fit the radio format.

Shapiro has railed against what he sees as a liberal college culture, and his frequent speaking engagements on campuses often spark outrage and protest among students who object to his views. He has said, for instance, that those who are transgender have a mental illness, and he has bemoaned an alleged narrative of “black victimhood.” A former Breitbart editor-at-large, he left the site in 2016 after accusing it of not adequately supporting a reporter who made assault allegations against then-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

“Many advertisers may regard him as radioactive because of incendiary comments he’s made in the past,” said Jeffrey Berry, a Tufts University political scientist who has studied and co-authored a book about talk radio. Westwood One, though, says its initial round of advertisements has sold out.

Shapiro said he is eager to present his views to a wider audience. “I’m hoping that it actually has a marked impact on how conservatives think across the country,” he said. “Because there is a pretty large gap right now between young conservatives and older conservatives on issues up to and including the administration.”

President Donald Trump is typically more popular among older conservatives. Shapiro also believes that younger conservatives have a more libertarian bent.

The show will air at 5 p.m. on WABC in New York and at 9 p.m. locally on KABC in Los Angeles, WLS in Chicago, WMAL in Washington, WYAY in Atlanta, KKAT in Salt Lake City and KTTH in Seattle. Shapiro typically records his podcast in the morning, Pacific time, but he said that, if need be, he can record updates to accommodate the radio program airing later in the day.

Shapiro said the hope is to expand the show to additional markets later.

