NYC Mayor Adams to launch live call-in radio show Sunday on WBLS

Mayor Adams will launch a radio show on WBLS-FM that will air on Sunday mornings and include live call-in segments, his office said Thursday, opening him up to unscripted interactions with potentially testy constituents.

Adams said the show, “Hear from the Mayor,” will seek to highlight the efforts of working-class New Yorkers to improve the city.

“Tune in or give me a call, and hear directly from your mayor on what we are doing to build a better New York City,” Adams said in a statement.

The first show is set for 10:30 a.m. on Sunday. Politico previously reported the news of the show’s launch.

Through his first 19 months as mayor, Adams has sometimes shied away from the live call-in radio interactions that past mayors subjected themselves to on a regular basis.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio took questions from callers each Friday on Brian Lehrer’s WNYC radio show. De Blasio would prepare for a half-hour before each appearance, said Bill Neidhardt, who served as de Blasio’s press secretary.

The moderate Adams has appeared a handful of times on Lehrer’s show, which is thought to cater to a relatively progressive audience.

Other previous mayors, including Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg, had their own weekly Friday radio shows with live call-in sections.

Stu Loeser, who served as Bloomberg’s press secretary, said the show was “often the most terrifying hour” of Bloomberg’s week.

It was not immediately clear how often Adams’ show would air. The mayor’s office said in a statement that the show would run “semi-regularly.” An Adams spokesman, Fabien Levy, said the exact frequency was not yet set.

Media veterans could not recall a mayor appearing with any regularity on WBLS in recent years.

But Mayor David Dinkins, the city’s first Black mayor, would call into WBLS and WLIB, a talk station, said Dominic Carter, a former field reporter at WBLS. The segments were sometimes aired live and sometimes recorded.

Percy Sutton, a Black political trailblazer who once ran for mayor, owned WBLS and WLIB at the time.

Curtis Sliwa, the Republican staple of New York radio who lost to Adams in the 2021 mayoral election, predicted Adams would get “softball” calls. He said he believed Bloomberg’s radio segment had a stiffer screening process than Giuliani’s and de Blasio’s.

“It was the most lame calls,” Sliwa said Thursday, recalling Bloomberg’s show. “Boring as the day was long.”

But Loeser — who noted Bloomberg’s visits to “The John Gambling Show” provided plenty of fodder for the local press corps — said call-screening is not foolproof, and predicted Adams’ show would likely open the mayor up to critical constituents.

“It’s pretty simple to get through a screen,” Loeser said. “It’s going to open Adams up to a lot of activists and operatives, but also real New Yorkers.”