Genre Talk/Comedy Updates Daily (weekdays) | Language English Audio format MP3 | |
Hosted by Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh Length 1 hour - 90 minutes (approximate) | ||
Too Beautiful to Live (often abbreviated to TBTL) is a podcast originating from Seattle, Washington, co-hosted by Luke Burbank of Seattle's KIRO-FM and Andrew Walsh. The podcast originated as a radio show on KIRO which aired from January 7, 2008 to September 11, 2009.
Contents
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" by Ben Lee, underneath a number of audio quotes from movies, TV shows or viral videos. Burbank welcomes listeners and starts the show by giving his weight, followed by introducing his co-host and guests for the show. His current co-host/producer is fellow former KIRO radio host Andrew Walsh. Infrequently, former TBTL radio show producer Jennifer Andrews and engineer Sean DeTore will appear. In addition to the daily lives and thoughts of Burbank and his co-hosts on pop culture and current events, the show often contains guest interviews with celebrities and listeners alike.
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.
News reports about the show characterized it as an attempt by KIRO, and its owner Bonneville International, to add a younger audience to KIRO's older listener base, 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's choice as "Best Radio Talk Show" in July 2009, after a poor showing in the Arbitron 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.