The first syndicating I tried was when two partners and I created

Host: The studio was a ghost of its former self — a warehouse turned into an echo chamber of old dreams. Dust floated through the light that poured from a cracked window, where the Los Angeles sun filtered in like the last breath of an old film reel.
Posters from long-forgotten shows peeled from the walls — smiling faces frozen in time, their fame flickering like old static. A vintage microphone sat in the corner, quiet and waiting, as if it still remembered voices that had once filled the airwaves.

Jack and Jeeny stood in the center of it all — Jack in his rolled-up sleeves, a faint trace of coffee stains on his shirt, Jeeny balancing a clipboard against her hip, her eyes scanning the room like she could still hear the applause that once lived here.

Host: They had come to see what remained of an old radio syndication office, one of the first of its kind — a forgotten temple of storytelling.

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “You know what Casey Kasem once said? ‘The first syndicating I tried was when two partners and I created a production company in 1952. We wanted to syndicate famous Bible stories and sell them for $25 a show.’ Can you imagine? Twenty-five dollars a show.”

Jack: (chuckling) “Sounds cheap until you remember — in ’52, twenty-five bucks was ambition with a cigarette and a dream.”

Jeeny: “And syndicating Bible stories, of all things. It’s almost poetic — taking the oldest stories in the world and trying to make them new again.”

Jack: (leaning against the dusty desk) “Or just trying to make rent. Let’s be honest — syndication wasn’t art. It was hustle. You recorded once, sold it a hundred times. Kasem wasn’t preaching; he was surviving.”

Host: The dust danced in the beam of sunlight as if even it agreed — that every dream worth chasing had a little hunger behind it.

Jeeny: “But that’s what makes it beautiful, Jack. He believed in those stories — in the idea that voices could travel farther than the men who spoke them. It wasn’t just survival; it was vision.”

Jack: “Vision? Maybe. But it was also desperation wrapped in hope. Look around, Jeeny. Half of these studios were built by people who thought they could sell eternity — ten minutes of airtime at a time. And now? Silence.”

Jeeny: “Maybe silence isn’t failure. Maybe it’s memory. Maybe what they built still echoes — just not in ways you can measure.”

Host: A faint gust of air rattled the old poster frames on the wall — one of them loosened, tilting until it finally fell, the glass shattering softly against the concrete. Both of them paused, watching the fragments catch the light.

Jack: “That’s time, Jeeny. That’s what happens to dreams — they fall apart slowly enough for you to pretend you can stop it.”

Jeeny: “Or they break open to make room for something new. You always see endings, Jack. Kasem saw beginnings. In 1952, nobody was talking about syndication. He invented a market before anyone believed in it.”

Jack: “You mean he found a way to sell stories like furniture. That’s the American way — package the sacred, price it right, and hope someone’s buying.”

Jeeny: (sharply) “But isn’t that what every artist does? You think you’re above it because you write instead of record, but it’s the same. You turn emotion into product. You syndicate your own pain, sell it for attention, call it truth.”

Host: Her words hung in the still air, heavy and sharp. Jack looked at her — that mix of anger and awe tightening his jaw — but he didn’t answer right away. He ran a hand through his hair, his voice low when it finally came.

Jack: “You’re right. I sell my pain. But at least I know it’s for rent, not for sale.”

Jeeny: “Kasem knew that too. You think he sold Bible stories for money? He was trying to share wonder — to make meaning available to anyone with a dial. That’s the paradox of creation: we sell what’s priceless, because it’s the only way to keep it alive.”

Jack: “And yet we cheapen it. Twenty-five dollars for Genesis, thirty for Exodus. It’s absurd.”

Jeeny: (smiling sadly) “Maybe absurdity is what keeps us human. The fact that we try at all — to take something divine and make it reachable.”

Host: The light shifted again, catching on the old microphone, which gleamed faintly, as though remembering voices it once carried. Jack walked toward it, tracing its rim with his fingers — the metal cool, the history warmer.

Jack: “You ever wonder how he felt? Sitting in some cheap office, trying to sell the story of Moses to a local radio host in Cleveland? Did he think he was changing the world or just paying for dinner?”

Jeeny: “Maybe both. That’s the thing about visionaries — they never know which one they’re doing until history decides.”

Jack: (laughing quietly) “History’s a lousy judge. It only celebrates what survives.”

Jeeny: “But sometimes what survives isn’t the product — it’s the idea. Kasem made storytelling portable. He made the sacred reproducible. You call it business; I call it evolution.”

Host: A ray of sunlight moved across Jeeny’s face, lighting her eyes like small fires. She looked at Jack, not with argument now, but with a kind of quiet understanding — that human longing to give meaning shape, even at the cost of purity.

Jack: “You always find the poetry in practicality.”

Jeeny: “Because they’re the same thing. Every time someone tries to bring light to the masses, they have to carry it in something ordinary — a candle, a record, a broadcast. The vessel doesn’t matter. The flame does.”

Host: He smiled then, not in irony, but in recognition — that Jeeny’s words, like Kasem’s idea, carried more truth than comfort.

Jack: “You think that’s what we’re doing? Carrying the flame?”

Jeeny: “Aren’t we all? Even when the flame flickers, it still burns. Even when it costs only twenty-five dollars a show.”

Host: Outside, the sun began to set, casting the whole room in a soft, amber glow — the same color as the old radio dial that once glowed in living rooms across the country. Somewhere, faintly, as if through time itself, you could almost hear the echo of a familiar voice — Casey Kasem’s warm tone, saying goodbye after a broadcast, reminding people to “keep their feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.”

Jeeny stepped closer to the old microphone, touching it lightly, like an artifact.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack... maybe that’s the real miracle of syndication — the idea that something human can be copied without losing its soul.”

Jack: “And maybe the tragedy is that we stopped believing it could.”

Host: The light dimmed; the day was ending. But in that dusty studio, the air still hummed faintly — as though a thousand old frequencies still traveled unseen, carrying stories once told for twenty-five dollars, still echoing across the decades, still reminding anyone who cared to listen that no story — once shared — ever truly disappears.

And as they stood there, surrounded by the ghosts of voices and static, it felt like the room itself was whispering:
“Every dream starts small — even the ones that try to reach heaven through a radio dial.”