Larry Mantle

Host of AirTalk

Larry Mantle hosts the daily interview/call-in program AirTalk with Larry Mantle, heard locally on Southern California Public Radio’s 89.3 KPCC (Los Angeles and Orange counties), 89.1 KUOR (Inland Empire and High Desert), and 90.3 KPCV (Coachella Valley). The show airs throughout Southern California, weekdays from 10 a.m.–noon.

Mantle started the program in 1985, and it is now the longest continuously running daily talk program in the Los Angeles radio market. The AirTalk guest roster features leaders in politics, entertainment, science, health, social debate, history and the arts, coupled with the telephone participation of a highly sophisticated public radio audience.

Mantle also hosts the movie review and interview program Film Week on AirTalk, heard every Friday at 11 a.m. and Saturdays at noon on KPCC.

Over its more than 30 years, AirTalk with Larry Mantle has won numerous national and local awards, including the 2012 Radio Journalist of the Year from the Los Angeles Press Club, 2013 Mark Twain Award from the Associated Press and the 2010 Journalist of the Year from the Society of Professional Journalists. Other honors include multiple Best Talk Show and Best Entertainment Reporting awards from the Los Angeles Press Club, 17 Golden Mike awards from the Radio-TV News Association of Southern California, and Best Public Radio Talk Show in the Nation from Public Radio News Directors Inc.

In April 2005, Angel City Press published This is AirTalk: 20 Years of Conversations on 89.3 KPCC, featuring interviews of 21 of Mantle’s favorite guests over the first two decades of the program. The Los Angeles Times bestseller includes conversations with Jimmy Carter, Steve Martin, Milton Berle, Walter Mosley, Jack Welch and Sting.