Top-Notch Talk

Ryan Warner never met an opinion he didn't like-on the air, that is. "Our show

is as much about finding common ground as anything," he says. As the host of WGCU-FM's Gulf Coast Live!, the 27-year-old Boston University alum also wants to create an "intensely local" focus. And that's no small feat in Southwest Florida, where it seems everyone is from somewhere else. In addition to Warner's intelligence and just plain good manners, the program features an impressive guest list-from TV journalist Cokie Roberts and jazz great Dave Brubeck to Sen. Bob Graham and urban planner Andres Duany.

Q: What was your first clue that the show was catching on?

A: When we had Andres Duany talk about Fort Myers' downtown plan. Duany all but lambasted the city, saying his plan has never really been put into effect. That fueled newspaper stories for quite awhile. That was extremely satisfying.

Q: You came to WGCU from a public station in Dayton, Ohio. How is it different here?

A: It's like night and day. I was a one-man news operation in the basement of Antioch University. The station was an old science lab; I had Bunsen burners on my desk. Here it's brand-new facilities and great people to work with-a real team.

Q: It must be hard to balance opinions on every show.

A: Balance isn't necessarily something that happens within every hour; it happens over the life of a program. There are times when you want to sit down and talk to Bob Graham for an hour, and it's counterproductive to have the extreme opposite view on at the same time.

Q: What about your opinions?

A: The show is not about Ryan Warner; it's about whatever the day's topic is.

Q: Is there any topic too controversial?

A: It's not so much about controversy as it is about hitting people where they live.

Q: So you shy away from controversy?

A: Oh, no, no, no-definitely not. We shy away from shouting; I just find that to be ineffective radio.

Q: If you weren't a radio host, what would you be doing?

A: I would either be fighting the AIDS epidemic or working as a pilot.

Q: A pilot? Did you ever take flying lessons?

A: As a kid I took a few, but it's so expensive. And I'm probably not on the right track to become a commercial airline pilot.

Q: What was the worst slip-up on the show so far?

A: The first show, we had one person on an ISDN line, one on the phone and one in the studio. But the person on the ISDN couldn't hear the person on the phone or the callers, so I was translating everything to everyone else and trying to host the show at the same time-and it was our first show.

Q: Any crazy listener calls?

A: The calls are screened. We don't do open lines [where you can] rant about what you want; we just don't find that terribly constructive. But one of the weaknesses of live talk is people can call in and say who they are and I have no way of checking that. We did a program about gay marriage, and a guy claiming to be a geneticist said that he was sure [being gay] was a choice and had nothing to do with biology and physiology. I said, "I thought the scientific literature is unclear on that, sir." And he hung up.

Q: Who's your dream guest?

A: [Ave Maria founder] Tom Monaghan. We've been trying to get him for months. But if we're really playing the dream-guest game, Tina Turner live in the WGCU performance studio.

Listen to Gulf Coast Live! from 2 to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday on WGCU-FM, 90.1.