Perry & Price
| Genre | News/Talk/Music |
|---|---|
| Running time | 5-10am HST (Mon-Fri) 8-11am HST (Sat) |
| Country of origin |
 United States
|
| Home station | KSSK-AM and FM |
| Hosted by | Michael W. Perry |
| Original release | 1983 – present |
| Website |
[1] KSSK Radio - Perry & the Posse |
Perry & The Posse is a morning radio show which airs six days a week on KSSK-AM and KSSK-FM in Honolulu, Hawaii. The show is currently the number one morning radio show in Hawaii, capturing a 25 percent share of the state's listening audience. It is also consistently number one in market share nationwide in the adult contemporary format.
After KSSK morning DJ Hal "Aku" Lewis died in 1983, KSSK moved then-afternoon host Michael W. Perry to the morning slot and paired him with former football coach Larry Price, who at the time was vice president of public relations for the station. Although Price had done some TV investigative reporting, he'd "never done radio, never even thought about it... then I had to get used to talking to a red light (in the studio)." The first time the pair had met was during one of the Jerry Lewis telethons in the 1970s. According to Perry, "[Larry] dared me to jump into a large pool of Jell-O fully dressed. I did that, for Jerry’s kids, but vowed revenge. I have been extracting that revenge very slowly over the past 25 years."
From the beginning, people in the industry and in the listening public were skeptical that the show would work. According to Price, "Here's a haole guy with a local name and local guy with a haole name... One is from Virginia, the other is from Kalihi. How can these guys get along?"
One item that Perry & Price kept from Aku's morning show was the "Coconut Wireless" name and sound effect that begins their news reports. According to Perry, "I think [Aku] had been using that [name and effect] since 1966." Larry Price, one-half of the duo, ended his 33-year run in May 2016 on the top-rated morning radio show in Hawaii to focus on other interests.
One of the show's mainstays, which the station as a whole has adopted, is its cell phone "posse" network. Listeners make up this posse and serve as the watchdogs of the community. They call in to report traffic incidents and also report crimes and real-time updates (for example, where a stolen vehicle was last seen), although the station discourages people from directly confronting the criminals. Sometimes the network is even ahead of the local police, who are said to have radios tuned to the station to catch updates.
The Posse has been so successful with catching criminals that a local bank created a C.A.T.C.H. (Citizens Against Troublemakers and Criminals in Hawaii) Fund. For every crime incident that the Posse successfully resolves, the bank donates $1,000 to the fund. Near the end of the calendar year, listeners vote to determine which local charity receives the proceeds from the fund.
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Wikipedia