Donnie Simpson has worked in radio for more than 50 years, but he’s never owned his own work — until now.
The longtime radio host who got his start on Detroit’s airwaves before moving to WKYS, and later WPGC and WMMJ in the D.C. region, is now expanding to podcasts. He’s launched the Donnie Simpson Podcast Network, and its first show — also self-titled — drops Wednesday, he shared exclusively with the Washington Business Journal.
The show will be produced by Podville Media, a D.C. podcast production company led by co-founder and President Charlie Birney and co-founder and CEO Oscar Zeballos. Podville lists ESPN, the Lincoln Project, the George Washington University Hospital and the YWCA among its podcast clients, but "The Donnie Simpson Show" is its first original show. The parties declined to share startup costs for the network or other financial terms of their partnership.
For Simpson — who has experienced no shortage of success, including being inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame last year — starting his own podcast network is the culmination of a professional dream that goes back to his first few years in the industry. At that time, he recalls talking with other DJs about the need for more Black ownership of radio stations. It was “pretty much nonexistent then,” Simpson said. And it’s a number that is still extremely low, with around 1% of commercial stations in the country being Black owned, according to the African-American Public Radio Consortium.
“These conversations were being had in 1971, ‘72, but I never did anything about it,” Simpson said. Yet it was always important to him, he added, so much so that when Cathy Hughes, the founder and chairperson of Black-focused media company Urban One, Inc. (NASDAQ: UONEK) purchased WKYS in the mid-1990s, Simpson showed up with a bottle of Dom Pérignon to congratulate her, despite the fact that he no longer worked there.
It wasn’t about competition for him, he said. “I was so proud that day. And I still remain proud of her for that,” Simpson said. “And now, finally, here comes the opportunity for me to do it myself. And I’m really happy about that.”
With the podcast network, Simpson wants to build something tangible he can pass down to the next generation. “You can’t hand down popularity. That dies with you,” he said. Already, he is working with his son, Donnie Simpson Jr., who the father described as having the “entrepreneurial chip” he’s still trying to learn himself. A few years ago, the younger Simpson left his own job in radio to open a restaurant, Uprising Muffin Co. in Shaw, that has since closed. Now, he has joined his father as a senior adviser to the podcast network.
The elder Simpson also sees podcasting as a great business opportunity, and after years of feeling like he was just “talent,” he genuinely wants to learn more about the business side. He recently relaunched an online version of "Video Soul," the music show he hosted on BET for more than a decade. He also consulted with his friend and BET co-founder Bob Johnson, conversations that have encouraged Simpson as he’s taken his first entrepreneurial steps.
AARP is sponsoring the first season of Simpson’s podcast. He has been a national spokesperson for AARP since 2015, so it was a natural fit. And he’s looking to recruit more sponsors in the future. “If we’re lucky enough to work with other sponsors, this is the caliber of sponsor that we’re looking for,” Simpson says, referring to AARP. “That’s important to me, that it be credible.”
After the first 10-episode season of his show, Simpson said the team will get to work on the second season and also bring other creators on to develop future shows. But he wants to bring them on as partners, so they can also own what they’re creating, he said. Zeballos is a trusted collaborator in that process.
“We’re looking forward to helping Donnie build the Donnie Simpson Podcast Network and we’re eager to collaborate on future projects with other talented personalities, so they too can create and own their voices and ideas,” Zeballos said in a statement.
The first three episodes of "The Donnie Simpson Show" were released simultaneously Wednesday and feature interviews with recording artist Smokey Robinson, and actors D.L. Hughley and Tichina Arnold.