New Chachi Loves Everybody Eps With Tim Dukes and Steven Portnoy

25 September 2025

New Chachi Loves Everybody Eps With Tim Dukes and Steven Portnoy

LOS ANGELES, CA – September 25, 2025 — Benztown, a global leader in radio imaging, voiceover, programming, podcasting and jingles, announces the release today of two new episodes of Chachi Loves Everybody, an original podcast produced by Benztown and hosted by Benztown President and audio brand builder Dave “Chachi” Denes. The episodes feature Chachi’s special guests, Tim Dukes, President, Hope Media Group, and Steven Portnoy, award-winning national news correspondent, ABC News Radio.

To listen to the new Chachi Loves Everybody podcast episodes, visit: https://bit.ly/ChachiLovesEverybody.

On the first new episode of Chachi Loves Everybody, Tim Dukes, President of Hope Media Group, shares his radio journey with Chachi and his listeners, including his leadership roles at Jacor, Emmis, Tribune and Clear Channel, and the lessons he learned along the way.

Dukes gets candid with Chachi and listeners about topics including:

Growing up in Louisville, KY, and the host who inspired him to work in radio
Exaggerating his credentials to get his first radio job at Y107
How his mentors taught and supported him throughout his career
Moving to Tampa and helping to build the Power Pig brand
Transitioning to PD in Louisville, Cincinnati, and San Diego
Navigating Jacor’s sale to Clear Channel and joining Emmis
Why leading with creativity makes for great radio
Reevaluating his career and transitioning to nonprofit radio in Dallas
How he became President of Hope Media Group
How he gives back to the community
And more!

In the second new episode of Chachi Loves Everybody, award-winning national news correspondent Steven Portnoy shares with Chachi his journey reporting some of the country and world’s top news stories, covering Congress and the White House and serving as President of the White House Correspondents’ Association.

A recipient of the 2025 Excellence in Broadcast Preservation Award by the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation, Portnoy takes listeners through topics including:

His young life in South Brunswick, NJ, and the news legends who inspired him
His involvement in college radio at Syracuse University, then landing roles at local TV and radio stations
Reporting on major events including 9/11, the war in Afghanistan, and Hurricane Katrina
Getting selected for the prestigious ABC News White House Internship and moving to D.C.
Working his way to network news and becoming a credentialed White House correspondent and a brief history of White House press coverage
How he became president of the White House Correspondents’ Association while covering the Trump and Biden presidencies for CBS, and why he decided to return to ABC
Winning an Edward R. Murrow Award for his coverage of Osama Bin Laden’s death
His greatest stories from Air Force One and beyond
Being selected for the LABF’s Excellence in Broadcast Preservation Award and the importance of preserving broadcast materials
Advice to aspiring journalists and the necessity of working across platforms
And more!

Chachi Loves Everybody takes listeners with Denes – better known as “Chachi” – as he sits down for candid conversations with broadcasting legends, master brand builders, up-and-comers, and media innovators, revealing the true stories behind their successes and their insights into building iconic brands.

About Tim Dukes

Tim Dukes spent 24 years in secular media and markets that include Chicago, Atlanta, San Diego, and Tampa before answering God’s call to vocational ministry in 2011. He joined WayFM as General Manager of its new station in Dallas-Fort Worth in 2015 and added regional responsibility in 2019 for Way Media properties in Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, and Indiana. In 2020, Tim was promoted to Chief Operating Officer and added interim CEO responsibilities a year later. When Way Media and Hope Media Group merged in May 2022, he became the new organization’s COO, and assumed the role of President in August 2024. Tim and his wife Susan were married in 1989 and live in Dallas, as does their adult daughter, Macy.

About Steven Portnoy

With more than two decades of experience reporting from Washington, Steven Portnoy is one of America’s preeminent audio storytellers. From every major dateline in D.C., he has brought listeners to presidential inaugurals, congressional debates, State of the Union addresses and Supreme Court oral arguments. A past president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, Portnoy spent seven years covering the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations from the second row of the White House briefing room. Portnoy returned to ABC News — where he began his career – in 2023 after more than eight years at CBS News, where he served as a congressional correspondent before reporting from the White House.

At CBS, Portnoy was part of the team that broke the news of the prisoner swap that resulted in Brittney Griner’s safe return. He also covered the criminal trials involving former President Trump. In the spring of 2023, Portnoy reported extensively on the murder of a legendary broadcaster for the three-hour network CBS radio documentary,

“Who Killed George Polk?”

Portnoy has vast experience covering national politics, having reported for ABC through the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections and for CBS in 2016 and 2020. His reporting has won both networks Edward R. Murrow awards for breaking news, continuing coverage and overall excellence. Portnoy is an accomplished live broadcaster. He was on the air for more than eight hours on January 6th, anchoring CBS News Radio’s award-winning live coverage of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He served as CBS News Radio’s election night anchor in 2020. He anchored ABC Radio’s coverage of the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Steven Portnoy first joined ABC in 2002, as an intern for the White House unit of World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. A year later, he joined ABC-owned station WMAL-AM in Washington, where he reported on local news. In 2006, Portnoy joined ABC News as a correspondent.

In 2008, Portnoy was named a Peter Jennings Fellow by the National Constitution Center. He was honored with the Bayliss Horizon Award by the John Bayliss Broadcast Foundation in 2005 and took first place in the radio competition at the Hearst Broadcast News Championships in 2001.

While he was a student at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Portnoy produced television newscasts at WIXT-TV (now WSYR-TV) and WSTM-TV and reported for WSYR-AM.

He lives in Washington with his husband, Ryan.