Larry Mantle hosts the daily interview/call-in program, AirTalk with Larry Mantle, on NPR member station LAist 89.3. The show airs throughout Southern California, weekdays from 9 to 11 am, and has a national audience as a daily podcast
Mantle started the program in 1985, and it is the longest-running daily talk program in Los Angeles radio history. The AirTalk guest roster features leaders in politics, entertainment, science, health, social debate, history, and the arts, coupled with the telephone participation of a highly sophisticated public radio audience.
Mantle also hosts the movie review and interview program Film Week, heard Fridays at 10 am and Saturdays at noon on LAist 89.3, and available on all podcast platforms.
Over his four decades on the air, Larry has won numerous national and local awards, including the Radio/TV News Association of Southern California Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019, the 2012 Radio Journalist of the Year from the Los Angeles Press Club, 2013 Mark Twain Award from the Associated Press, and the 2010 Journalist of the Year from the Society of Professional Journalists. His other honors include multiple Best Talk Show and Best Entertainment Reporting awards from the Los Angeles Press Club, 20 Golden Mike awards from the Radio-TV News Association of Southern California, and Best Public Radio Talk Show in the nation from the Public Radio News Directors organization
In 2005, Angel City Press published This is AirTalk: 20 Years of Conversations on 89.3 KPCC, featuring interviews of 21 of Mantle’s favorite guests over the first two decades of the program. The Los Angeles Times bestseller includes conversations with Jimmy Carter, Steve Martin, Milton Berle, Walter Mosley, Jack Welch, and Sting.
Mantle graduated with a BA in Psychology from Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, California.