Andrew Wilkow | |
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Born |
Andrew Steven Wilkow August 18, 1972 Hollywood, Florida |
Education | University of Florida |
Occupation | conservative political talk radio host |
Andrew Steven Wilkow (born August 18, 1972) is a conservative political talk radio host on the Sirius XM Patriot channel on SIRIUS channel 125 and XM channel 125. Until July 2006, Wilkow had been on WGY in Schenectady, New York, (weekday mornings) and WABC in New York City (Sunday mornings). He calls himself the "next generation of great talk radio", a nickname given to him by Mark Levin. Wilkow is also a contributor to the website Conservative Punk.
Wilkow was raised in the Long Island town of Bellmore, New York. Wilkow's interest in radio began during his freshman year of college at SUNY Delhi at that college's campus station, WDTU. After transferring from Delhi to a local community college where he obtained his associate degree, he finished his college education at the University of Florida, graduating in 1996 with a degree in Communications. While there, he held an airshift at that school's commercially run WRUF-FM and was a member of Sigma Alpha Mu Fraternity.
Before entering talk radio in 2002 he had stints as a disc jockey at WCLG-FM in Morgantown, West Virginia, (as "Andrew Steele") and at WMRQ in Hartford, Connecticut (as "Wilkow"). Wilkow became a regular Sunday morning host at WABC while keeping his air shift at WMRQ. When WMRQ switched format from alternative rock to hip hop, he moved into talk radio full-time when he filled the 5-7 p.m. shift on WGY in October 2003. After becoming a ratings success, Wilkow moved to the 9-11:40 a.m. slot in May 2005, replacing Glenn Beck, when WGY wanted to clear the third hour of Sean Hannity. At WGY, Wilkow became known for being a vocal rival of the Democratic party in Albany (which he refers to as the "entrenched Democratic Machine".)