''Too Beautiful to Live'' (often abbreviated to ''TBTL'') is a podcast originating from

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

, and

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, co-hosted by

Luke Burbank Luke Burbank (born May 8, 1976) is an American radio host and podcaster who hosts the Portland, Oregon-based syndicated variety show ''Live Wire Radio'' and the Seattle-based former radio program and current podcast '' Too Beautiful to Live''. H ...

CBS News Sunday Morning ''CBS News Sunday Morning'' (normally shortened to ''Sunday Morning'' on the program itself since 2009) is an American news magazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio or television program, usually published ...

correspondent, host of

Live Wire Radio ''Live Wire Radio'' is a radio variety show that was launched in 2004 in Portland, Oregon, United States. ''Live Wire'' was initially hosted by Rob Sample, followed by Courtenay Hameister, with current hosting duties covered by Luke Burbank.Hud ...

and frequent

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

's '' Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!'' panelist, and veteran radio producer and one-time radio host Andrew Walsh. The podcast originated as a radio show on

KIRO-FM KIRO-FM (97.3 MHz) is a commercial radio station licensed to Tacoma, Washington, and serving the Seattle-Tacoma radio market. It airs a news/talk radio format and is owned by Salt Lake City–based Bonneville International, a broadcasting compa ...

which aired from January 7, 2008, to September 11, 2009. Upon its radio broadcast cancellation, it immediately transitioned to a podcast on September 14, 2009, and is still produced Monday through Friday. Fans of the show are often referred to as "The Tens", stemming from an early radio episode where Luke would mention how they only have "tens" of listeners, rather than "hundreds" or "thousands".

Format

The show begins with the song "

Catch My Disease "Catch My Disease" is a song by Australian singer Ben Lee. It was released a single from his fifth studio album, '' Awake Is the New Sleep'' (2004), on 18 January 2005 in the United States and on 25 April 2005 in Australia. The song reached numbe ...

" by

Ben Lee Benjamin Michael Lee (born 11 September 1978) is an Australian musician and actor. Lee began his career as a musician at the age of 14 with the Sydney band Noise Addict, but he focused on his solo career when the band broke up in 1995. He appe ...

, underneath a number of audio quotes from movies, TV shows or viral videos. Burbank welcomes listeners and outlines the upcoming show, followed by introducing his co-host and guests for the show. His current co-host/producer is fellow former KIRO radio host and veteran radio producer Andrew Walsh. Infrequently, former TBTL radio show producer Jennifer Andrews and

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

Sean DeTore will appear. In addition to the commentary of Burbank and Walsh on life, pop culture, and current events, the show features listener

e-mails Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

and

voicemail A voicemail system (also known as voice message or voice bank) is a computer-based system that allows users and subscribers to exchange personal voice messages; to select and deliver voice information; and to process transactions relating to ind ...

, and closes with a music selection by the hosts. On Friday shows, the closing song is chosen by a listener.

Radio show

TBTL aired on 97.3 KIRO FM (and 710 KIRO AM before the station moved to FM) from 7:00 to 10:00 pm weeknights and at the same time on Saturdays for the "Best Of", which included clips from the past week's shows. The format was similar to that of the podcast, with Luke Burbank joined by Jennifer Andrews and Sean DeTore. TBTL was a non-caller-driven program; listener phone calls were accepted on an infrequent basis. Instead on Wednesdays the shows had a "Call Makers" feature where listeners who previously sent in a phone number and question(s) were called and the question(s) discussed live on-air. Sign Off History: No Mountain Too Tall and Good Luck to All!: This is how Christy Wise explains it: "Thanks to the archive I know that the origin is: A listener signed off an email with it and they loved it. You can hear it along with Ahoy Hoy, and Eagle Soaring at 1:10." https://www.apmpodcasts.org/tbtl/2011/02/february-8-2011/ News reports about the show characterized it as an attempt by KIRO, and its owner

Bonneville International Bonneville International Corporation is a media and broadcasting company, wholly owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) through its for-profit arm, Deseret Management Corporation. It began as a radio and TV network ...

, to add a younger audience to KIRO's older listener base,Davila, Florangela (9 January 2008)
"Luke Burbank is hip, vain, back in town and back on the air".
''

Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington st ...

''. Retrieved on March 1, 2009. however, the ''Seattle Times'' noted that the show had only managed to draw 1.4 percent of 25- to 54-year-olds - the program's target sales demographic - who were listening to a radio at 7:00pm. While the program was ''

Seattle Weekly The ''Seattle Weekly'' is an alternative biweekly distributed newspaper in Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded by Darrell Oldham and David Brewster as ''The Weekly.'' Its first issue was published on March 31, 1976. The newspaper ...

'' choice as "Best Radio Talk Show" in July 2009, after a poor showing in the

Arbitron Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau by Jim Seiler in 1949 and became national by mergin ...

ratings, KIRO cancelled the program in September.

Conversion to podcast

While TBTL was an over-the-air ratings disappointment, it had attracted a national download following. In its final month of broadcasting, it had attracted more than 225,000 podcast download hours. '' The Stranger'' noted that "the younger listeners were, in fact, tuning in... they just weren't using the same equipment that KIRO's general audience uses." Thus, when the radio program was cancelled, Burbank and KIRO announced that the program would continue as a daily podcast. On March 2, 2015, TBTL transitioned to Infinite Guest, American Public Media's Podcast Network. It continues to air under the APM Podcasts masthead. The show has produced over three thousand episodes.

References

External links

*{{Official website, https://www.apmpodcasts.org/tbtl/ American talk radio programs 2008 radio programme debuts Audio podcasts 2009 podcast debuts Comedy and humor podcasts 2009 radio programme endings American podcasts Talk show podcasts