Tom Louden
Five-time Emmy winner Tom Louden has been in broadcast his entire career running TV shows familiar to any Philadelphian or sports fan — and it all started with a Drexel co-op.
Growing up, Tom Louden (BS communications ’02) was a huge sports fan. “I wanted to be the next Harry Kalas, like everybody else, I’m sure,” he says, referring to the legendary Phillies play-by- play announcer who died in 2009.
Louden’s voice might not be known to millions of baseball fans, but his job would fulfill the dreams of any sports lover. As executive producer of Comcast SportsNet’s “Breakfast on Broad,” a two-hour all-sports morning show, Louden gets access to ath- letes and coaches from every team in Philadelphia. And he has a blast while doing it.
When it comes to programming, Louden says his bosses have “pretty much given me a blank slate.” The result is thoughtful analysis from four on-air anchors who are also game for all kinds of silliness. “Breakfast on Broad” has featured skits, mock “Family Feud” segments, and a “Rocky” bit that followed anchor Barrett Brooks, a former Eagle, on a morning jog that detoured through a Dunkin Donuts drive-thru.
Everything that happens during the broadcast, broken down into minute-by-minute intervals, is visible to Louden on his right-hand computer monitor. On his other monitor he sees every potential camera angle and upcoming video clip. Since the show runs from 6 to 8 a.m., the planning occurs at unforgiving hours. “My alarm goes off at 1:15,” Louden says with a shrug.
He’s unfazed by the work schedule because he previously spent 15 years at Philadelphia’s Fox 29, starting as a co-op student during his Drexel days and rising to become executive producer of the station’s six-hour morning lineup, which includes “Good Day Philadelphia.”
“I loved the morning show,” he says of “Good Day Philadelphia.” “It has everything — you have news, sports, entertainment. You never get bogged down on one thing.”
While at Fox 29, Louden received five Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards, one for breaking news coverage and four for best morning show. But when Comcast offered him the “Breakfast on Broad” job last summer, the South Philly native couldn’t resist joining a show that was only a few months old.
“I’ve been lucky to be able to build my career in Philly,” he says. “And then to do a sports morning show here, that opportunity won’t come around too often.”
“Breakfast on Broad,” says Louden, is “the kind of show I like to do: You want to react to things quickly.” That nimbleness was on display on a rainy late fall morning, as Louden sat in the back row of a control room with several other producers while the anchors discussed the season-ending injury of an Eagles player and joked whether they’d “Date, Ditch or Marry” various athletes. Faced with a wall of television screens and tasked with covering games that occurred just a few hours earlier, Louden and his crew are constantly improvising and juggling. An in-studio chat with St. Joseph’s University basketball head coach Phil Martelli and junior forward Deandre Bembry ended with a light-hearted video of the well-coifed player at his barbershop — a clip that didn’t exist in its edited version when the two men began the interview.
“We’re not going to be breaking down plays with X’s and O’s,” Louden explains, noting that people often tune in and out of morning shows while getting ready for work. “We’re going to have fun.”
It’s the kind of ideal assignment that will get a man to show up for work at 2 a.m.
— Theresa Everline
