“We’re thrilled,” Playboy Radio producer Farrell Hirsch told XBIZ. “Vanessa is so funny, so charming and so different than anyone we’ve had before. She’s got a whole different energy. She’s got a little of that femme-dom thing going on.”
Blue had been hosting a segment of Playboy Radio show “Private Calls,” a call-in show where listeners can talk to adult celebrities one-on-one. “Private Calls” airs five days a week with a different hostess on each segment. Now that Blue has been tapped for “Night Calls,” her former spot has been offered to starlet Ann Marie. Other “Private Call” performers include Alana Evans, Taylor Wayne, Nicki Hunter and Kylie Ireland.
Other programming changes were outlined by Hirsch, including a newly revamped “Playmate Hour,” with hostesses Deanna Brooks and Miriam Gonzales. The show covers hard news topics from a Playmate point of view.
“They’re tough topics and it’s what Playmates would think about these kinds of issues,” Hirsch said. “We’re not trying to do what [CNN’s] Wolf Blitzer would do. We’re trying to give our audience a perspective into what’s going on in a Playmate’s head, which sounds like the straight line for a joke.”
Playboy Radio, which is hosted on Sirius satellite radio, is second in popularity only to the Howard Stern network, according to Hirsch, with an estimated 4 to 5 million listeners tuning in throughout the day.
The “Sexy Stories” show ranks consistently as one of the most listened to on the station. The program format includes a variety of content, from professional actors who are brought in to read erotic fiction to adult celebrities telling stories of their own real-life exploits.
But, Hirsch said, Playboy Radio’s most popular show is “Afternoon Advice,” hosted by Tiffany Granath.
“We have voodoo doctors who will tell you how to put spells on somebody,” Hirsch described. “We’ve had the guy that wrote the book, ‘How to Pick Up a Girl in 41 Seconds.’ We try to find the weirdest, freakiest weirdest guests to give the kind of expert sex advise that you won’t get anywhere else.”
The variety of content at Playboy Radio is what keeps listeners dialed in, Hirsch said.
“I think it takes to the extreme one of the underlying concepts that I’ve tried to infuse into the station, which is we’re on Sirius satellite platform and we’re Playboy; every single show you hear on this station should be something that you can’t hear anywhere else,” Hirsch explained. “We don’t want to do just good radio, we want to do different radio.
“On ‘Night Calls,’ there’s a bunch of porn stars, and they’re having a party every day. You can’t hear erotic fiction anywhere else on the radio,” Hirsch added. “You can send in a picture of your penis and have it rated by Christy Canyon. The ‘Private Calls’ show is very intimate one-on-one chat with a porn star. Those are things you can’t get anywhere else.”
And in anticipation of this year’s Playboy Jazz Festival on June 14-15 at the Hollywood Bowl, the radio station will host an all-day tribute to Miles Davis on Memorial Day. Programming will include never-before heard recordings of Davis, as well as interviews with the jazz legend.
“I mean, a guy tunes in to hear Christy Canyon masturbating and he ends up hearing Miles Davis,” Hirsch said. “But you know what? Life is eclectic, and so our station is going to be eclectic.”