It was 21 years ago today that the Northern Alliance Radio Network launched. 

Most of you remember the backstory – because a whole lot of you were there for it.  I was in the middle of a very difficult year employment-wise, I took the lessons of “Spanky and Our Gang” to heart, and I went to a bunch of local bloggers and said “Hey, gang, let’s put on a show”.

They replied “Sure – get us on a station”.

So I went in to AM1280 – and sure enough, they did. 

The cast and the presentation has changed a lot over the years:  what started as a three hour cavalcade of blog stars (John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, Brian “Saint Paul” Ward, Chad the Elder, JB Doubltess, King Banaian and Ed Morrissey) gradually morphed into two two-hour programs (HInderaker/Warc/Chad and Ed/King/Me), and then three of them (King joined MIchael Brodkorb for four years).  

Gradually, people left for other priorities – and others (Brad Carlson, Jack Tomczak) joined.  We’re four fairly conventional one-guy programs today, and I’m just fine with that. 

As far as highlights?  Hard to even count them all.

• Having a front row seat to watching Hinderaker and Johnson defenestrate Dan Rather
• Interviewing our first guest, 21 years ago – Pete Hegseth, today Trump’s SECDEF
• Half an hour with Michelle Malkin
• Interviewing Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and a who’s who of elected Republicans
• At the 2010 victory party, having Michelle Bachmann get off the stage with Fox News and swoop past the Twin Cities media to come over to the NARN table on Radio Row.
• My broadcast from home the Saturday after the riots, when the Midway still smelled like smoke. 

`And although I’ve been doing the show for 21 years now, I am if anything more thankful and grateful now than I ever was; if there was ever a time when not having some kind of platform would have driven me up a tree, this is it.  

Anyway – thanks to everyone who’s ever been involved:

• Four generations of station managfement – John Hunt, Ron Stone, Nick Anderson and now Mike Murphy
• Five generations of operations guys – Patric Campion, Nick Novak, Lee Michaels and John “The Consigliere” Berg
• Too many board operators – the ones doing the real work – to remember them all.  The ones that did it long enough to make an impression:  the late greatJoe Hanson, Jon Osburn, Matt Reynolds, Irina Malanina Howell, Meghan Fatale, Terminator N, Tommy the H-Bomb Huynh, and Gabe “G=Money” Anderson. 

And of course, the whole audience.  Which is still out there, and still suprrises me every so often by telling me how much is means to them that the show is chugging right along.  

Thanks!

 

 

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Thursday, March 6th, 2025 at 10:01 am and is filed under NARN, Talk Radio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.