Man buys AM radio station-to fashion into a hub for Black and progressive listeners

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Smiley strode onto the national stage, hosting his own talk show on BET, then on NPR before settling at PBS. He interviewed presidents, potentates and the world’s biggest stars. The New York Times dubbed him “a world-class talker.”

Then Smiley’s talking — at least the public kind — went silent. PBS dropped the nightly talk show that bore his name five years ago, accusing him in a lawsuit of sexually harassing multiple women. He lost a court fight with the broadcaster and kept mostly out of the public eye, seemingly another alpha male permanently banished from the public stage by the #MeToo movement.
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For the last 20 months, the 58-year-old has forged a comeback path as the majority owner and morning host on KBLA 1580, an AM radio station that he is determined to fashion into a hub for Black and progressive listeners.
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There has been no independent measure of the size of KBLA’s audience. Smiley concedes the 50,000-watt station would trail many of its dozens of competitors in the crowded Southern California market, if he bothered to pay to be measured by the Nielsen ratings service. (Which he hasn’t.)
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