Where you can hear Carmine Gialanella: Under Pressure podcast (and former cohost of Carmine and Maegan in the Morning on WiLD 95.5)
Growing up in New York, Carmine Gialanella thought his fate was sealed. “I lived in the Bronx for the first 20 years of my life, and I always figured I was going to work for [local energy company] Con Edison,” he says. “Every single person in my family and friend group followed that path. Nothing against my neighborhood, but nobody leaves.”
Gialanella was an exception to that rule. In 2007, his mom and future stepdad packed up the family and moved to Jupiter when Gialanella was 20 years old. At his mom’s suggestion, he took some classes at what was then Palm Beach Community College (now Palm Beach State College), but he wasn’t really sure what he wanted to do. One day, he heard an ad on the radio for the Connecticut School of Broadcasting and decided to enroll. “I was thinking about doing something in sports, but then I gravitated toward radio,” he says. “If I’m being totally honest, it was easier to get an internship in radio [than sports].”
After graduating from CSB in 2009, he interviewed with Mo Foster and Sally Sevareid from Today’s KOOL 105.5 and landed an internship—along with a new nickname. “During the interview, I mentioned that my mom calls me Pooky,” he recalls. Inevitably, Foster started referring to him as “Intern Pooky.” Says Gialanella: “That name stuck with me for a couple years.”
A few months later, he was hired part-time to operate sound and help with events—and eventually, he was given an on-air spot on WiLD 95.5’s overnight shift. He was moved to Saturdays, then nights, then weekdays…. And in 2021, he got his big break as the station’s morning show solo host.
A year later, Maegan Lahti joined as his cohost, and the duo’s witty banter was a hit with listeners. “We had great on-air chemistry,” Gialanella says of working with Lahti. “We would just talk about pop culture things and funny things that happened to us.” This past January, however, Gialanella was unexpectedly laid off from the station after 15 years as a popular on-air personality. “That was my insurrection day,” he says.
He took the job loss as an opportunity to pivot his career into the modern age of podcasting—and in April, he launched his Under Pressure podcast (available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube). “I wanted to do something where I could talk more, and people are consuming long-form content these days,” he says. On the show, Gialanella interviews notable locals, from business owners to wildlife advocates. “The podcast is about all walks of life and times when people have been under pressure and how they’ve dealt with that adversity,” he says.
New episodes of Under Pressure drop several times a week, and at press time in early June, Gialanella already had 20-plus episodes under his belt. Of course, the affable host brings his signature humor to the studio—but through all the laughs, he says he really enjoys getting to know his guests and sharing their stories. “You’ll look at somebody and feel like they have it all, but you didn’t see how they got there and the times they were so close to quitting,” Gialanella says. “If you care about something, keep pursuing it. Keep living your dream.”
And that seems to be exactly what Gialanella is doing.
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