Mike Horn, the founder of CRN Digital Talk Radio, has died at 74 after a long illness. The former Los Angeles air personality spent his career finding new places for radio to live, from local cable to platforms for talk hosts including Ed McMahon and Robert Conrad.
Horn’s path through Los Angeles radio ran through KBBQ and Alternative station KROQ, where he started as News Director and later went on the air alongside the station’s original personalities Charlie Tuna, Sam Riddle, John Darren, and Jay Stevens. He moved to KLAC as Production Director, then to Country KFOX in Long Beach as the host of Country Mike. At KFI-AM, he teamed with Dick Whittington as Whittington and Horn, one of the comedy teams on Goodtime Radio KFI, alongside Lohman and Barkley and Hudson and Landry.
He founded Cable Radio Network in 1983, a service that supplied commercial radio programming to local cable television systems.
The idea started when Horn learned that KMET in Los Angeles was earning ratings in the Phoenix market because a local cable system carried it. He took the concept to King Cable in the San Fernando Valley, where he programmed a country music channel and later switched it to oldies. Valley Cable and Falcon Cable soon showed interest, and the business grew as more local cable systems signed on.
When distribution via phone lines became too costly, Horn moved the network to satellite. When noncommercial music channels from Digital Planet and DMX reached cable providers, he moved CRN to talk radio instead of competing with them. The network became CRN Talk, then CRN Digital Talk Radio in 2007.
The talk lineup included Ed McMahon, whose show was Lifestyles Live, and George Putnam, host of Talk Back. Larry Elder’s show moved to CRN in June 2015, and Robert Conrad hosted until his death in February 2020, with Barry Farber on the air until his death later that year.
