Friday, November 13, 2020

NEPA Radio: John Webster, Longtime AM Host To Retire

After 40 years on NEPA radio, John Webster is signing off.

The Citizen's Voice reports Webster, 63, who has co-hosted WILK’s "Morning News with Webster and Nancy" alongside Nancy Kman for the last 10 years, said he will retire in mid-December.

“I thought after 40 years, the 3 a.m. alarm clock has finally taken its toll,” Webster said.

Webster started out at the college radio station at East Stroudsburg University and got his first part-time news job in 1980 on Saturday mornings at WCDL in Carbondale.

For 25 years, he was half of the "Daniels and Webster" morning team on Times-Shamrock Communications' WEZX Rock 107.

His partner on that show, Jay Daniels, died in 2015 at age 61 after battling an illness.

Webster left Rock 107 in 2010 to co-host the morning show at WILK, which is owned by Entercom Communications.

He joked that he chose to work in radio because of “laziness and lack of ambition.”

Entercom has been advertising for a replacement for Webster and interviewing potential candidates but has not yet made a decision, said Entercom general manager Ryan Flynn.

Flynn called Webster a “legend” in Northeast Pennsylvania and a valuable member of the WILK team for more than 10 years.

“I can tell you his slightly irreverent, anti-establishment persona on-air is very real and not just an on-air character,” Flynn said.

“We just gave him the tools he needed to be successful and got out of his way,” Flynn said. "John is definitely a 'work smarter' type of guy and a great example is how he incorporated one of his favorite hobbies into a show feature called the 'Friday Morning Beer Buzz.' That feature quickly turned into an award-winning benchmark on the station.”

Kman said she will miss Webster’s humor the most.

“He could find something funny in the most mundane things,” she said. “John is so naturally funny. There has never been a dull day or dull topic in talk radio.”

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