Open House Party


Open House Party is an American radio show hosted on Saturday and Sunday nights by Kannon. The show promotes itself as "the Biggest Party on the Planet". It focuses on playing contemporary hit radio music, also known as Top 40. From its inception in September 1987, OHP quickly became popular with its all-request format, along with a heavy rotation of dance music and remixes that differentiated itself from most Top 40 stations or shows. Garabedian created and hosted both Saturday and Sunday nights for many years. The show peaked in success from 1998-2002, where it was heard on over 175 stations and became the world's most-listened-to radio program. Today, it is broadcast on less than 40 stations, primarily in small markets.
The show typically airs on most affiliates from 7PM to Midnight Eastern Time and 6PM to 11PM Central Time, while most stations in the western half of the US delay the broadcast by two hours. Many stations rebroadcast OHP from midnight to 5:00 a.m. or 11:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m..

History

In 1955, the original Open House Party was created as the afternoon show on radio station WORC in Worcester, Massachusetts. Garabedian would often co-host the show, and throughout his career at WORC, he worked many different positions including one of the key people to bring up ratings and create major success for the station. A few years later, then 17-year-old John Garabedian was hired to DJ on Saturdays and Sundays. After the sale of Garabedian's television station V-66 in 1986, he ventured out to find the next opportunity in broadcasting. One night in 1987, Garabedian went to a party in Boston. There he bumped into Sunny Joe White, legendary radio programmer of Boston's WXKS-FM "Kiss 108". White asked Garabedian if he would do the weekend shift. The following week, the two of them met to discuss it at dinner, where Garabedian proposed the idea for a national interactive weekend party show. White loved it, and agreed to put it on Kiss 108 after Garabedian created a studio to do the show. After looking into various office buildings, Garabedian decided to do the show from his basement. He and his friends strapped a 50-foot pole to his chimney to hold up a little microwave antenna aimed at the Prudential Tower, to the east, in downtown Boston.
On September 5, 1987 at 7 p.m., Open House Party hit the air for the very first time on Kiss 108. Within six months it became the most-listened-to radio program in Boston on Saturday night, as well as the most listened to radio program every week in the Boston radio market with a 14.8 share.
By May 1988, stations across the country had heard about Open House Party's success and were signing on. The 50-foot pole was taken down and replaced by a satellite dish. By 1990 over 100 stations were carrying Open House Party in the United States and another 40 in Canada. In the 1990s, during a brief demise of Top 40, and the rise of country and hip-hop in the mainstream, many stations were changing formats, which resulted in OHP losing many of their stations, causing Garabedian's syndication network Superadio to go nearly bankrupt. The Sunday night show underwent a name change to Sunday Night Street Jams, which was a rhythmic oriented show that only lasted a few years until Garabedian decided to put Open House Party back on on Sundays. Sunday Night Street Jams was hosted by Paco Lopez, and distributed by Superadio Networks.
Garabedian continued to DJ on both Saturday and Sunday until March 2004, when WFLZ-FM afternoon DJ Kane took over the Sunday night show from his house in Tampa. Kane later moved to Washington, D.C. and is now a syndicated host through IHeartMedia with his morning show and Sunday nights on Club Kane. In December 2007, Mike Kannon, who was a fan of the show since the early 90s, and previously lived with Garabedian and served as the show's mixer, became the new host of Sunday nights and currently voice tracks the show from his house in Atlanta.
On April 16, 2016, Garabedian announced live on the air that his memoir "The Harmony of Parts", was set to be released on October 3, 2016. The book details his whole life up until that point.
In May 2016, planning and filming had begun for an Open House Party documentary titled, Super Radio FM: The Story of Open House Party. Darren Rockwell was a frequent visitor to the show throughout the late 90s and early 2000s, and serves as the film's producer. The original title of the movie hints at Open House Party's original syndicator, Superadio, which was a company founded by Garabedian in 1988 to distribute the show. Later in its production, the film was renamed "Be Your Dream: The Story of John Garabedian & the Open House Party".
On October 25, 2016, a press release revealed that John Garabedian would not return as the host of Open House Party in 2017. Having hosted the original show since 1987, Garabedian sold the show to United Stations in 2012 and wanted to do something new. Garabedian stated "When I sold 'Open House Party' to United Stations four years ago, they required me to host for four more years. That expires at midnight this New Year's Eve. Though they were surprised I declined to renew, I explained that I had one major life achievement I had yet to accomplish and needed space to do it.” On December 17, 2016, John announced at the closing of the show, that United Stations had not found anybody to take over Saturday nights yet, and wouldn't have anyone for a while. United Stations asked Garabedian if he would stick around until the end of January, to which he agreed. His final show aired on January 28, 2017.
On January 5, 2017, it was announced that Kannon would become the host of Saturday nights, in addition to Sunday which he's hosted for the previous 10 years.

Segments

These are a few of the segments that have formerly, or still air on the show each week: