Originating at WCNY TV, ‘Balancing Act’ with John Katko’ discusses issues in greater detail with two guests with differing viewpoints
By Mary Beth Roach
Former Congressman John Katko may have left the U.S. Capitol a few years ago, but he has not left the political landscape.
He became host of a locally produced TV show in the fall of 2024. A few months ago, the show expanded its distribution, growing its viewership and impact.
Katko, 63, who served from 2015 to 2023 as the congressman representing New York’s 24th congressional district, has been hosting a TV program on WCNY, titled “Balancing Act with John Katko,” since the fall of 2024. Last October, WORLD, a digital multicast public television network owned and operated by the WGBH Educational Foundation, began distributing the program across 188 PBS markets.
He tapes “The Balancing Act” at the WCNY station near downtown Syracuse and when he winters in Florida, he’s able to record from an ABC affiliate in Sarasota.
The show opens with Katko introducing one national issue per episode and then he discusses (not argues) it in greater detail with two guests with differing viewpoints.
“We wanted to do a show where you take one issue and examine it without fighting and screaming at each other. Politics are a circus, but we’re going to cut through that circus,” he said.
Issues, he said, have been torn to the left and to the right, but his goal is to get to the core.
To get — and provide — a more unbiased view on national issues is critical for Katko, who calls himself an American political junkie. He loves current events and has read books on every single president, sometimes as many as 10 books, he said.
“I love current events, but it’s so hard to turn on the news now because all you hear is a very slanted view of the news or caustic comments,” he said. “I look back when we were kids, you had ABC, you had CBS, you had NBC and you had PBS. The worst thing you could ever say to any of those newspeople was that they were biased. That was like a stain on them. Now, it’s a badge of honor for all these networks. And I think that is what is contributing to the fever pitch of political angst in this country. You don’t have a place to go to get a balanced view on a subject. We’re going to cut through that nonsense. We’re going to take an issue that’s current and we’re going to discuss it in a dispassionate way with people that know what they’re talking about and even if they disagree, they going to disagree in an intelligent way.”
The show kicked off in October of 2024, although talks between the former congressman and representatives from WCNY, the local PBS station, started several months earlier. Mitch Gelman, WCNY’s president and CEO, and Rich Ezzo, its vice president of sales and marketing, had attended a speaking engagement featuring Katko during that summer and afterward, they approached him and suggested that he do a talk show.
Further discussions between Katko, his wife, Robin, Gelman, and Ezzo at Katko’s Camillus home led to further development of the program. Perhaps because the Katkos spend winters in Sarasota, the conversation, he said, eventually turned to the Ringling Bros. circus, which started in that Florida city.
Katko’s show plays on some circus terms. Katko introduces the topic of each show during a segment called “Walking the Tightrope” and the part with the two guests is called “The Trapeze Act.” He tapes “The Balancing Act” at the WCNY station near downtown Syracuse and when in Florida, he’s able to record from an ABC affiliate in Sarasota.
His selection of guests is wide-ranging, including policy experts, university professors and politicians and members of Congress. Former guests have included Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former South Carolina Governor and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, and former Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer.
Show is the second most watched locally produced show in Syracuse, according to a WCNY official. It shows there is an “appetite” for a more unbiased program on today’s current events, Katko said.
And now that the program is being distributed on WORLD, it “means that the reach is extended, the conversation is broader and there is more value to underwriters who are looking to connect with a national audience,” according to Lauren Easton, manager of marketing, public relations and events at WCNY.
Moving forward, Katko said there is a wealth of issues to discuss.
“Our forefathers masterfully made the constitution very elastic, but in so doing, made a lot of gray areas. Our show is going to look at those gray areas to inform the people what the current situation is on a given topic and maybe what should be done to fix it,” he said.
For example, he’d like to take such topics as gerrymandering and the power of executive orders.
“The inability of Congress to do their job has caused massive problems in this country,” he said. “Presidents have way too much power. I think the executive branch has usurped the power of the purse from Congress. One of the central concerns for me is that the dysfunction that goes on every day in Congress is now causing real world issues and it’s making presidents willing and able to do what they might not otherwise have done.”
Serving as a congressman, Katko said it was “the highest honor” one can have, having the community elect him to represent them and the history of the building resonated with him. However, he said, “the gerrymandering has made it such on both sides that far too many members of Congress vote to save their jobs instead of doing what’s right.”
