Format The show, known simply as
Delilah, begins at 7 p.m. and ends around midnight local time. She takes calls, emails, and letters sent in through her radio station’s website from her listeners. She encourages and supports her listeners and receives musical dedication requests. It is based in
the Pacific Northwest. One of the cornerstones of the show is its use of callers. Most of the time the caller tells Delilah their situation or story and then Delilah chooses the song that she feels best matches the caller's situation. Callers are recorded during the show and replayed later, sometimes within the hour. Delilah also plays songs by direct request. Originally heard only on weeknights, stations that carry the show have the option of carrying it six or even seven nights a week, with most stations airing at least one night of the weekend (usually Sunday) in addition to a weeknight show. •
Adult contemporary (AC): This is the most widely distributed version of the show between January and early November. It airs the usual
adult contemporary music and is geared towards adults and their families. This is the version heard on most radio stations. It has also surfaced on
hot adult contemporary and
soft adult contemporary stations. •
Gold-based AC: A version of the show that features older
adult contemporary hits. •
Christmas music: This is the only version that is produced between mid-November and
Christmas. •
Christian adult contemporary (Christian AC) version: A version of the show featuring
Christian adult contemporary music, specifically produced for stations and audiences favoring this genre. The show includes "Friday Night Girls", where she honors groups of her regular female listeners with prizes. She occasionally also calls "Friday Night Girls" chapters and speaks with them live on the air. She also airs a "Delilah Dilemma" each evening in the first and third hours of the broadcast, where she reads a dilemma submitted by a listener and offers advice on their situation.
Distribution The program debuted on four stations at the beginning of 1996 and finished the year on a dozen stations. In 1997, Broadcast Programming started to distribute the program, which was later bought by
Jones Radio Networks. Delilah moved to
Premiere Radio Networks in 2004, where she remains to this day. There are nearly 170 radio stations, and the
Armed Forces Radio Network, airing the program. Jane Bulman has been the executive producer of the show since its inception. Many of the stations carrying the show are owned by Premiere parent
iHeartMedia. In November 2006,
WLTW in New York began carrying her. The version of the show that runs on WLTW is a separate, specially tailored version of the show produced just for that station, with music programmed by local WLTW Programming. In 2007,
KODA Houston began carrying her show. In March 2012, she went on the air in Los Angeles on
KFSH-FM, a
Salem Broadcasting owned station playing Christian music. This addition debuted the Christian Music formatted version of the program.
iHeartRadio has an online Delilah stream where listeners can hear the show all the time. In October 2017, Delilah temporarily went on hiatus after the suicide of one of her children. On January 26, 2018, Seattle soft AC station
KSWD announced that Delilah would host middays on the station beginning January 29. The station also picked up her syndicated show for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. In 2021, Delilah purchased
KDUN in her hometown of
Reedsport, Oregon, which carried her syndicated show. She returned KDUN's license to the FCC in May 2025, citing the station's lack of commercial success.
Audience The show is popular among women between the ages of 25 and 54. As of 2016, eight million people listen to the program at least once a week. According to a Bloomberg interview, Delilah has seen her reported audience numbers plummet in cities where
Nielsen Audio has adopted the
Portable People Meter for tracking
listenership.
In popular culture The show plays a role in the
Hallmark Channel television series
Cedar Cove, which is based on writer
Debbie Macomber's book series and set in a fictional Pacific coast town in Washington state. Quotes and other inspirational pieces voiced by Delilah, especially for the series set up some of the
plot devices that occur in the course of each episode. The show can be heard in the 2018 film
I Can Only Imagine, the biographical story of
MercyMe lead singer
Bart Millard. In episode 5 of season 3 of the TV show
Louie, comedian
Maria Bamford mentions listening to Delilah and does an impression of a back and forth between a caller and Delilah. ==Personal life==