OREM — Al Stopa and Joe Pratt aren't what you'd call big-time radio personalities.
Granted, they have experience: Stopa has been a radio producer and works as a writer for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's "Music and the Spoken Word" broadcast, and Pratt has worked in television and radio in Utah and Alaska.
But they definitely don't have the name recognition of Dr. Laura — or even KSL Newsradio's Grant and Amanda.
Still, Utah County residents looking for a more local perspective might not mind the fact that Pratt and Stopa are relative unknowns in the morning talk-radio scene.
On Dec. 1 the two men started hosting a new morning talk show called "The Upside" on Orem-based KSSR (K-Star) 1400 AM. "We just wanted to create a morning radio show that we could call our own here in Utah Valley," Stopa said.
Pratt said the show covers events in Utah County that Salt Lake stations sometimes miss.
"A lot of times there's some great stuff going on that some of the other radio stations just don't have time to cover because they're based in Salt Lake," Pratt said. "We're really trying to focus here on Utah County."
Pratt and Stopa met when Stopa worked as a producer for Pratt's morning show on KOVO AM 960 in the early '90s.
"The reason that we both gravitated toward each other is that what we really want to do is promote good values, and do something wholesome in the media because there's so much that is not wholesome in the media," he said. "And we want to do it in a way that's entertaining, not saccharine — something that's real, that talks about real issues."
Stopa and Pratt both thought when they worked together that they'd like to co-host a morning show. About a year ago they decided to make it happen. They listened to other stations, took notes on what they liked and disliked, then pitched the concept to K-Star.
"They loved it," Stopa said. "And we love doing it; it's a lot of fun."
Pratt and Stopa decided to take a different approach to news on their 7-to-9 a.m. show.
"As we listen to the radio, we find it more interesting when two people are talking to each other, rather than just delivering the news," Pratt said. "So we decided to create a show where we'd talk to each other about the news because we thought that'd be more interesting."
Stopa said the pair goes deeper into their stories than is typical for radio.
"We spend a lot more time on these stories than you normally would hear," he said. "We talk a lot more, there's a lot more news happening on our station. We had to find a way to offset ourselves from the competition. We just pepper people with all kinds of stories instead, and give comments in between."