#276 | Mark Reardon; Talk radio host on success, crippling anxiety and polarization

About this episode

Mark Reardon, a longtime St. Louis talk-radio host (KMOX, formerly WTMJ Milwaukee), joins Vance for a wide-ranging conversation covering radio-industry mechanics, cancel culture, gender ideology, and Reardon's own decades-long struggle with severe anxiety and depression. Reardon explains how radio success is measured (Arbitron/Nielsen ratings, time-spent-listening vs. total reach) and why live radio and live sports remain uniquely effective ad mediums due to personal trust with the audience. He describes losing a decades-long friendship after being publicly rebuked on Twitter (with his employer CC'd) over a comment about biological sex, and discusses the "Billboard Chris" incident — a man assaulted and hospitalized in Montreal for wearing a sandwich board opposing pediatric gender-transition surgery. The most personal stretch of the episode is a candid, first-time-on-air account of Reardon's crippling anxiety and depression — panic attacks dating to the late 1980s, near-suicidal ideation seven or eight years prior, medication (beta blockers, Xanax, Lamictal), and his current management via THC use. The conversation closes on inflation as a regressive "wealth tax," skepticism toward savings accounts at 9-12% inflation, and a discussion of Bitcoin's fixed 21-million-coin supply as a hedge against currency devaluation.

“So he copied my company. Oh. And he put an at reply. I'm like, what the fuck? I, I couldn't believe that that happened... So that severed the relationship right there. I thought that that was so outrageous that that happened, especially over something that really, let's face it, you can't argue with biology even though people want to.”

“Well, last night in, I think it was Montreal, he had some people that looked like they were dressed in all black. They had masks came up and hit him to the degree that his arm was broken... What could you possibly write on a sandwich board that would make that same thing happen?”

“The psychology of COVID though will be books written about this... This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. You unvaccinated people out there, the problem, right? Those of us who've got the vaccination and the booster we're good. The rest of you f off. Well, that was ridiculously embarrassing in retrospect for me to say.”

Key moments

• ~0-4%: Cold open — the Twitter rebuke and CC-to-employer story that severed a decades-long friendship.
• ~9-14%: How radio ratings actually work (Arbitron diaries, time-spent-listening vs. reach) and why live radio/sports remain uniquely trusted ad mediums.
• ~22-40%: Gender-ideology discussion — Demi Lovato pronoun example, the "Billboard Chris" Montreal assault, and Reardon's own son accusing him of transphobia.
• ~40-49%: First-ever-on-air account of Reardon's crippling anxiety — on-air panic attacks, near-suicidal ideation seven or eight years prior, and the "audio cushion" trick he used to get through newscasts.
• ~51-54%: Anxiety medication history (beta blockers, Xanax, Lamictal) and current management via THC.
• ~62-70%: Retrospective embarrassment over his own confident "pandemic of the unvaccinated" take, and concern about government financial deplatforming for wrong-think.
• ~80-88%: Inflation as a regressive "wealth tax," savings-account skepticism, and Bitcoin's fixed supply as a hedge against currency devaluation.