The Gallo Radio Show

History

Telesouth Communications Inc, originally the Mississippi Agriculture and News Network, was managed by Steve Davenport in Jackson, Mississippi, from 1979. After a purchase by Interstate Communications and a merger with Louisiana Network Inc, the firm expanded from news reports to longer lifestyle and sports phone-in programs. It began broadcasting University of Southern Mississippi football and basketball in 1984 and later added franchises for the University of Mississippi and Jackson State Tigers football.

In 1985, Davenport and the Hanley family bought Interstate Communications' Mississippi market business for $300,000; Davenport bought out the Hanleys in 2008. The company changed its name to Telesouth Communications Inc in 1995 and purchased WFMN and WTCD in 1997, converting them to the SuperTalk conservative talk format. Telesouth divested college sports franchises from 2011, with the Ole Miss Rebels agreement taken over by Learfield in 2012. It purchased Biloxi music stations from Alpha Media in 2018.

Between 2013 and 2018, sport, feel-good, and lifestyle programming were added to the SuperTalk format on its 12 talk stations.

Talk shows

As of 2022, the SuperTalk schedule includes The Gallo Radio Show, presented by Paul Gallo and produced by Perez Hodge. Other programs on the network include Coast Vue with Ricky Mathews, MidDays with Gerard Gibert, and SportsTalk Mississippi. The JT & Dave Show, which began in 2002, was co-hosted by JT Williamson and Dave Ingram, with producer “Scary” Gary O’Cain. The show addressed controversial topics from a conservative perspective and featured prominent Mississippi politicians.

Ingram left in 2010, prompting speculation on internet forums. The show was briefly renamed Air Bubba, then the JT Show, and hosted British campaigner Nigel Farage in 2016. Williamson announced a Lymphoma diagnosis in 2020 and died that year.

College athletes' image rights

Telesouth Communications Inc was a defendant in a class action lawsuit brought by amateur college athletes, including Steven Clarke. The plaintiffs alleged that athletic conferences, broadcast networks, and licensing agencies colluded to exclude them from the market for their image rights, setting fees at zero or below market value. In 2015, Judge Kevin H Sharp of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee ruled that the athletes' required surrender of image rights was lawful.