A lot of siblings use the weekend to call each other and catch up. Few, though, have strangers across the country eavesdropping, or joining the conversation.
The five Dolan sisters will be doing just that on Saturday, when their radio program "Satellite Sisters" debuts on KABC-AM (790) and other ABC network stations. The show, which originated with a two-year run on public radio in 2000, features the five women, ranging in age from 37 to 47, chatting about subjects from momentous to minuscule.
"The core idea of our show is, we want to talk about the things real people talk about, the way real people talk about them," said Liz Dolan, the show's creator, who co-hosts with her youngest sister, Lian.
They're joined in Los Angeles by middle sister Sheila, and they connect with Monica, the second-youngest, in Portland, Ore., and with Julie, the oldest, in Moscow. The result is only slightly more formatted than a family conference call.
"The sound and the subject matter is exactly what we want it to be -- it's spontaneous. It sounds like we're not trying to be 'professional broadcasters,' " Lian said.
Scheduled topics for this week's 6 to 9 a.m. show include identity theft, children in Afghanistan and workplace stress. On one recent program, they hashed out themes ranging from the portrayal of women in advertising and homeland security to losing your keys and the etiquette of gift-giving. When Sheila talked about her distaste for receiving gift certificates, because "I'm forced to go to that store, essentially," she was met with a round of derision from her sisters.
"People like the sound of people who like each other," Liz said. "Within that, you can talk about things that are very serious, or very silly."
Lian said the result resonates with listeners, who she said tell the Dolans, "Boy, you remind me of my cousins when we get together."
"We're like your family, without the fights," she said.
"We wanted," Liz added, " to do conversation radio, not talk radio."
She got the idea for the show after quitting her job as vice president of global marketing for Nike and realizing that among all the programs on talk radio, "something was missing -- the way women talk when they talk to each other." Liz pitched the idea to her sisters on a weekend get-together while they simmered in a Calistoga mud bath.
"She might as well have said, 'What if we get into a rocket and go to the moon?' It was such an impossibility," Lian said. So, they figured, why not agree?
