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John Chester Kobylt and Kenneth Robertson Chiampou, known professionally as John and Ken, are American talk radio hosts of a four-hour weekday radio show, ''The John and Ken Show'', on KFI AM 640 in Southern California.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 KFI AM 640 Show Schedule )〕 ''The John and Ken Show'' airs from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. PST on KFI AM 640 〔(KFI AM 640 More Stimulating Talk Radio )〕 The program is the most listened to local talk radio program in the United States: they draw an estimated weekly audience of approximately 1.2 million listeners. According to ''Talkers Magazine'' estimates, they are the only local radio show with more than one million listeners.〔(The Top Talk Radio Audiences ). Talkers Magazine. Retrieved 2010-09-02. (Archive ) 〕 ==History== John Kobylt was born to a working class Catholic family in Paterson, New Jersey. His father, Chester was born in Poland and like many Europeans of his time was greatly affected by the German aggression. He was taken from his family and held in a Nazi labor camp for five years. He then joined the British Military and eventually immigrated to the U.S., where he married a Polish American woman, Helen. Chester and Helen had two sons John and Richard and lived a fairly typical working class life in northern New Jersey. John entered the radio business as a sportswriter after dropping out of Seton Hall University. Ken Chiampou, a native of Brentwood, New York, was a certified public accountant〔http://www.nysed.gov/coms/op001/opsc2a?profcd=07&plicno=044037&namechk=CHI〕 and had graduated from the University at Buffalo, working in corporate audits for a Big Eight firm.〔http://www.radioguide.com/djprofile/jkprofile.html〕 Both worked in the Elmira-Corning market in New York state in the late 1980s, Kobylt as a disc jockey at WENY and Chiampou at the station's cross-town rival WELM. Kobylt and Chiampou first worked together in 1988 for a radio station in Atlantic City, New Jersey. According to Kobylt, the show was named "The Odd Couple" by a producer who was the "stupidest man on two legs." Kobylt became program director of WOND.〔Parisi, Albert J. "His Beat Is the City's Pulse" ''New York Times'', July 10, 1988, Page 12NJ.〕 One of their earliest pranks was while they hosted mornings at 103.7 WMGM. They started a food drive for rival 95.1 WAYV's morning DJ Russ Monroe after he was fired a week before Christmas. The pair, as part of the prank, called WAYV live on the air to solicit a donation, which led to a hang up. In 1990, the pair was offered the afternoon drive slot on the then brand new station New Jersey 101.5 (WKXW-FM) in the state capitol of Trenton, New Jersey. They gained national notoriety for heavily criticizing New Jersey governor Jim Florio for passing the largest state tax hike in United States history immediately after taking office. During this period, their ratings quadrupled to 600,000 listeners. Kobylt criticized Florio for reneging on his promise not to raise taxes.〔Russakoff, Dale. "The Gov Whose Time Has Come'', ''The Washington Post'', April 12, 1993, Page B1.〕 A caller, postal worker John Budzash, then suggested the idea of ''Hands Across New Jersey'', a protest that would symbolically cut the state in half.〔(Hands Across New Jersey )〕 When other callers noted that blocking traffic was illegal, the movement turned into a rally in front of the State House in Trenton. A State Police officer told Budzash, who reported to the crowd from onstage, that approximately 65,000 people attended the event while another 100,000 people were turned away for lack of parking and because of crowded conditions. It was the largest rally ever held in New Jersey.〔 Kobylt and Chiampou both attended the rally and spoke passionately about Hands Across New Jersey, better government, and lower taxes and they encouraged people to stand up and fight back for a better New Jersey. Florio lost reelection and John and Ken's listenership quadrupled during this period.〔 Kobylt and Chiampou also campaigned feverishly for the abolition of tolls on the New Jersey Turnpike claiming that cutting government excess expenditures could itself fund highway maintenance. They also lobbied for the opening of HOV lanes to regular traffic. The pair left WKXW in late 1992 to move to KFI to do their afternoon drive time spot, replacing former Los Angeles Police Department chief Daryl Gates. The hosts began national syndication in 1997, which displeased management at Cox Communications, then the owners of the station. At its peak, 125 stations carried the program. On March 19, 1999, ''The John and Ken Show'' was taken off the air at KFI, allegedly by a vice president in Atlanta over the syndication issue, although the spat was referred to as a "contract dispute". In addition, the hosts themselves were more comfortable with dealing with state and local issues.〔Perebinossoff, Phillippe, et al. ''Programming for TV, Radio, and the Internet'', Page 60.〕 Kobylt and Chiampou were replaced by syndicated consumer advocate Clark Howard from 3 pm to 4 pm followed by Karel and Andrew, the first openly gay couple in weekday talk radio in the country. Kobylt and Chiampou publicly referred to them as "Siegfried and Roy", and constantly berated the show for its low quality and lower ratings compared with their own show. On July 1, 1999, ''The John and Ken Show'' was reborn as a morning drive talk show on crosstown competitor KABC. The morning show was short-lived as they kept their afternoon show style and brought it to the mornings. Kobylt and Chiampou also had various stunts, one of which got them in trouble and forced them into attending diversity training, which they later said they resented taking, and disliked the Disney management toning down their banter. Due to low ratings and mutual dissatisfaction between the station and the hosts, KABC dropped the show on October 20, 2000. ''The John and Ken Show'' returned to KFI on May 2, 2001, and the hosts regaled listeners with the behind-the-scene problems at KABC before returning to their normal topics. Since then they have remained as a live program; however, some interviews are pre-recorded and replayed between hours, and at times Kobylt or Chiampou will broadcast from their home studios. On January 14, 2006, a new version of the show entitled ''John and Ken: Saturdays'' began. The show has been repeated on the weekend from time to time, however, ''J&K: Saturdays'' covers new material that was otherwise omitted during the week. The hosts did not actually show up to the studio live on Saturday but taped the Saturday edition during the week as time permits. ''J&K Saturdays'' was syndicated to other stations. The Saturday show was cancelled in September 2009 due to an expansion in their weekday time slot from the cancellation of Dr. Laura Schlessinger's program. With the hiring of Bill Carroll in February 2010, the program reverted to its 3 p.m.-7 p.m. slot. On March 4, 2006, Kobylt and Chiampou won the ''Radio & Records News/Talk Local Personality of the Year'' award, sharing the honor with KGO radio host Ronn Owens. Chiampou, accepting the award on behalf of the pair, mischievously thanked Antonio Villaraigosa, Stanley Tookie Williams, David Dreier, L.A. Archbishop Cardinal Roger Mahony, Robert Blake, Michael D. Brown, and Armando Garcia for providing the material that made the program possible.〔(R&R – Radio & Records, Inc )〕 They were also nominated for the 2006 National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Award.〔(National Association of Broadcasters | 2006 Major Market Personality of the Year Winner: Scott Slade, WSB-AM )〕 On September 10, 2009, ''The John and Ken Show'' started simulcasting the 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. portion of the show on San Francisco, California's KNEW (AM)-910. In the opening of the 3 p.m. hour, Kobylt welcomed the new listeners to the show, and promised the old listeners that the format would not change, despite the newly expanded audience. In July 2010, the program was replaced with John Gibson.〔(KNEW Replaces John And Ken With John Gibson | AllAccess.com )〕 On January 2, 2013, John and Ken began hosting on KFI sister station, WOR in New York City, from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. The first hour, from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. is simulcast from the KFI show, while the 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. hour is live and local for New York City. In December 2013, as part of a revamp, John and Ken ceased to air on WOR.〔http://www.insideradio.com/Article.asp?id=2733025&spid=32061#.UzJQsvldUrU〕 Kobylt's wife, Deborah Zara, is a former TV news correspondent. They have three sons, Justin, Jordan, and James.〔 Chiampou is unmarried, with no children.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John and Ken」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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