Jason Matheson: The Unscripted Rise of Daytime’s Dual-Platform King

If you live in the Midwest, you know the laugh. You know the glasses. And you definitely know the opinions. Jason Matheson has transformed from an overnight news dispatcher into one of the most influential media personalities in the Twin Cities.

As the host of the nationally syndicated The Jason Show on FOX 9, Matheson has done what few local broadcasters can: he built a personal brand that transcends the news desk.

Whether he is dissecting the latest pop culture drama or sharing a vulnerable moment about his family, Jason offers viewers something rare in modern television—authenticity.

But how old is Jason Matheson, and how did a kid from Indiana become the “King of Daytime” in Minneapolis? Here is the story behind the suit.

At A Glance: The Jason Matheson Profile

I. The Authentic Anchor: Public Persona and Local Kingmaker

Jason Matheson holds a unique and highly influential position in American media, successfully bridging the competitive worlds of prime-time radio and daily television.

Unlike most regional celebrities who focus on a single medium, Matheson commands the Twin Cities morning airwaves while simultaneously hosting a rapidly growing syndicated talk show.

This dual-platform strategy has not only made him a foundational personality in his home market but has established the trust and authenticity necessary for national expansion.

The Format Defined: Oprah Meets Letterman

The Jason Show, which first launched in 2015, defies easy categorization.³ It is neither a traditional news program nor a standard celebrity puff piece showcase.

Instead, it is best described as a “freewheeling program that owes as much to David Letterman as it does to Oprah Winfrey”.

This distinctive blend is the foundation of its appeal. The show incorporates Letterman’s irreverent humor and spontaneous style, blending it with Oprah’s knack for genuine emotional connection and vulnerability.

Matheson uses his platform daily to present his own humorous commentary on topics ranging from celebrity social media gossip to cultural trends in food and fashion, often engaging with a live studio audience.

The show’s content strategy is designed to be unpredictable. A single episode can pivot quickly from discussing A-list news—like the cast of reality stars on The Traitors or movie news about Toy Story 5—to highly relatable, spontaneous segments, such as a “Fast Food Field Trip” to sample a new Dairy Queen blizzard.

This willingness to embrace the absurd alongside the personal keeps the audience engaged and ensures the show feels perpetually fresh.

Local Dominance Fuels National Reach

Matheson’s approach has yielded remarkable professional success. In the crucial Minneapolis-St. Paul market (KMSP, FOX 9), The Jason Show has consistently demonstrated ratings superiority.

The program regularly finishes second only to the national staple The Price Is Right in its time slot and reliably “tops ratings for The View“.

This extreme longevity and localized credibility serve a powerful purpose. Many syndicated shows fail because they cannot build a genuine connection outside their home market.

However, The Jason Show has successfully translated its regional power into national scalability. The program has completed two successful national runs, expanding its reach to air in nearly 40 cities across the country.

These markets span the geographic spectrum, including major metropolitan areas such as Seattle, Chicago, Orlando, Miami, Washington D.C., and San Antonio.

The show fills a valuable gap for younger, pop-culture-savvy audiences who appreciate spontaneity in daytime television, positioning it as a strong counter-programming option against traditional, more highly structured daytime formats.

II. The Making of a Host: From Dispatcher to Daytime Star

Jason Matheson’s career trajectory is a testament to the power of raw, captivating personality over traditional journalistic credentials.

His ascent was marked by rapid promotion, powered by key relationships and an undeniable talent for connection.

Paying Dues and Charisma as Currency

Matheson began his media career humbly, not in front of a microphone or camera, but at WCCO-TV. His first role was as an overnight dispatcher, a classic entry point that required him to “pay his dues” working the weekend overnight shift.

He secured this critical entry point and charmed his way into the industry by connecting with WCCO’s managing editor, Marian Davey. Matheson captivated her with charismatic anecdotes drawn from his prior experience working as a server at Red Lobster.

This multi-decade support system proved pivotal: Marian Davey is now the KMSP-TV General Manager, making her the “key executive behind The Jason Show“.

This relationship, forged early on through charisma and personality, highlights how his intrinsic hosting talent was recognized and supported by power brokers like Davey and Ted Canova (a news director who worked at both WCCO and KMSP). His career was accelerated not by a formal academic path, but by his magnetic personal appeal.

The Rapid Ascent at FOX 9

In the spring of 2000, Matheson moved to KMSP-TV (FOX 9). He initially worked behind the scenes as the executive producer of “The Buzz,” a popular daily entertainment segment.

His talent for crafting compelling content quickly became evident. Within months of his arrival, he was moved in front of the camera, taking on the role of film critic for the station’s new morning show, “Good Day Minnesota”.

His television presence continued to grow throughout the decade. By 2009, Matheson was named co-anchor of the newly expanded FOX 9 weekday morning show, also called “The Buzz,” and co-anchored the early edition of the FOX 9 Morning News.

After a short return to WCCO-TV in 2014, Matheson quickly came full circle. He articulated that FOX 9 was his professional home, stating that their “energy, spirit and willingness to try new things was always a perfect fit for me”. He returned in 2015 specifically to launch his signature program, The Jason Show.

This successful negotiation to return, backed by his long-term executive advocate, suggests a professional trust deep enough to allow Matheson the creative freedom needed to develop an innovative, non-traditional daytime show format.

III. The Dual Empire: Radio and Television Synergy

Matheson’s daily professional life is an intense balancing act, requiring him to shift instantaneously from the intimate, fast-paced world of radio to the high-energy demands of live television. This constant workload provides a crucial mechanism for refining his on-air skills.

Fifteen Years of “Laughin’ and Leakin'”

Jason Matheson’s radio career provides the longest, steadiest foundation for his public identity. It began in 2006 on myTalk 107.1 with co-host Alexis Thompson on “The Saturday Night Groove”.

Within a few years, their partnership proved strong enough to transition to a weekday slot, eventually launching “Jason & Alexis in the Morning” in 2013.

This show, running for 15 years, is broadcast weekdays from 6–9 am CST, and its tagline defines the tone: “Laughin’ and Leakin’”.

The longevity of the radio show is attributable to the established chemistry of the central team. Alexis Thompson is described as his “crafty counterpart,” and producer Holly Roberts ensures balance, calling things “like it is with a side of snark”.

This continuous, high-pressure, three-hour daily broadcast requires Matheson to maintain extreme topicality and sharp conversational skills, handling most of the sound bites personally.

This demanding radio schedule serves as a critical daily workshop for his television career. By completing three hours of live, rapid-fire content before he “scoots over to the TV studio down the hall for The Jason Show“, Matheson ensures his comedic timing is honed and his reactions are genuinely spontaneous.

The consistency and established roles within this long-standing team also ensure a robust editorial filter, guaranteeing a consistent, trustworthy brand delivery across both platforms.

Key Milestones in Jason Matheson’s Dual-Media Career

Matheson’s career is defined by key strategic moves that allowed him to build expertise in both production and performance.

Table 1: Jason Matheson’s Dual-Media Career Timeline (Selected Milestones)

IV. The Human Cost of Visibility: Pain, Purpose, and Perseverance

To understand Jason Matheson’s success is to first understand the painful origins of his desire for the spotlight. His celebrated openness and vulnerability on air were forged in the crucible of a lonely, traumatic childhood.

The Indictment of Invisibility: The Childhood Crucible

Matheson grew up in Michigan City, Indiana, as an “only child” who was often alone, describing himself as a “chubby, effeminate kid”.¹ He had “few close friends” until his junior year of high school.

His childhood was marked by severe bullying, particularly during his junior high years. Classmates would “corner him in the cafeteria and take turns pummeling him”.

The trauma was compounded by the fact that adult “lunch aides just chewed their gum and watched,” creating an overwhelming feeling of abandonment and isolation.

This profound isolation fueled his ambition. He later revealed that his initial motivation for entering the media was an explicit, personal calculation: he believed that if he were “those people on TV, I’d be popular,” and subsequently, he “wouldn’t be so alone”. He was seeking acceptance and validation.

During one particularly brutal beating, Matheson experienced a transformative moment of profound clarity. Though he is not religious, he recalled becoming “very calm” and receiving a “real clear message” that became the internal mantra of his life: “This isn’t anything. Your life is going be fine.

You’re bigger than anything that’s happening to you”.¹ This message of resilience is not a career strategy; it is the core manifestation of his professional identity.

The willingness to display deep vulnerability and discuss difficult, personal topics on his show is a direct effort to validate the experience of being an outsider, fulfilling the sense of belonging he craved as a child.

Navigating the Digital Hate

Despite achieving the popularity and acceptance he sought, visibility made Matheson a target. He routinely deals with toxicity and harassment through emails and social media that often send him into a “funk”.

The emotional toll of this exposure is immense, showing the paradoxical pain of a public career built on authenticity.

The constant flow of digital hatred reached a breaking point two years prior to a 2023 article, when Matheson received a homophobic threat from a military veteran that was so disturbing he “seriously thought about quitting” the industry entirely.

Matheson openly expressed the difficult cost of his job, acknowledging that having “people telling you that you’re going to hell” will be the thing that makes him want to “end one or both of my shows”.

His decision to remain on air and maintain his platform, despite the targeted threats, elevates his career beyond entertainment into a quiet, but powerful, act of defiance and resilience for the LGBTQ+ community.

V. The Interviewer’s Edge and Professional Honors

Matheson’s success is professionally validated by both the high caliber of his interview subjects and the prestigious industry recognition he has earned throughout his career.

The Philosophy of Unscripted Connection

Matheson’s interviewing style is ambitious. His guest list includes A-list names like Cher, Will Smith, Meryl Streep, and Ewan McGregor, as well as intellectual figures like playwright Arthur Miller.

He views the best in the business as those who can break through the celebrity veneer, citing Howard Stern as “the best celebrity interviewer of our time.”

Matheson admires Stern’s ability to get celebrities to “say things they normally wouldn’t say,” even successfully humanizing figures like Katherine Heigl and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Matheson applies this philosophy of unscripted truth to his own show, often allowing his genuine, unedited reactions to become the content. During one memorable segment with exotic animal expert Emily Roberts, Matheson’s confrontation with a Burmese python showed the essence of his freewheeling style.

He stammered, screwed up his face, and scurried to plop down on an audience member’s lap in terror. His spontaneous reaction—asking humorously, “How does he feel about talk-show hosts?” after learning the snake eats other reptiles—was a viral moment that demonstrated the unpolished, immediate nature of the show.

This willingness to show personal fear and vulnerability (the “Oprah” side) functions as a journalistic tool (the “Letterman” side), encouraging celebrity guests to drop their guard by showing that the host, too, is prone to unscripted human emotion.

Professional Accolades and Civic Leadership

Matheson’s work has been consistently recognized by industry peers. He is a five-time Emmy Award nominee and a two-time winner, confirming the high production quality and professional excellence of his content within the Upper Midwest region.

The fact that his unconventional, hybrid format garners such critical acclaim demonstrates that his unique approach meets the highest professional standards in broadcasting.

His radio career has also received national notice. In 2016, he and co-host Alexis Thompson were nominated for the prestigious Marconi Award for Large Market Personality of the Year, validating the powerful reach and professional quality of their work on MyTalk 107.1.

Beyond his media accomplishments, Matheson has been recognized for his civic contributions and leadership in the Minneapolis-St. Paul community.

He was named one of the “40 under 40” by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal and was selected as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Minnesotans by the Minnesota Jaycees—a highly selective honor previously given to figures such as Walter Mondale.

Table 2: Key Professional Accolades and Honors

VI. Home Life: The Private Anchor and Modern Marriage

Matheson’s high-energy professional life is balanced by a grounded home life in the North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis. He lives there with his husband, Collin Haas (also cited as Collin Matheson), and their two dogs, Dexter and Mr. Big.

Domestic Dynamics and Personal Passions

The marriage between Jason and Collin provides an essential stabilizing influence. Collin has described their relationship dynamic in media, noting that while he tends to be the primary “planner,” Jason can be “a little more short-tempered on things”.

Given Matheson’s intense daily schedule and the emotional drain caused by constant public exposure and digital hostility, Collin’s grounded, planning nature is clearly crucial for maintaining Matheson’s personal stability and professional longevity.

Matheson maintains a deep, lifelong passion for classic pop culture, specifically citing his love for the ‘80s soap opera Dallas and Disney World.

 This blending of professional work and personal passions is further realized through his co-hosting role on the Disney Parks podcast, Two Fairy Godfathers.

Navigating Political Division

Matheson does not shy away from using his public voice to discuss the realities faced by modern couples, particularly the tensions arising from political polarization.

He openly discussed a highly sensitive and painful incident where Collin was subjected to “horrible hurtful things” from an unnamed conservative family member, implied to be Collin’s father.

Matheson’s willingness to share this private conflict is critical to his brand of total authenticity. By risking the disclosure of domestic discomfort, he provides an honest look at the societal struggles of the LGBTQ+ community navigating family relationships complicated by political hostility.

This action grounds his celebrity profile in a highly relatable modern struggle and strengthens his connection to his audience, reinforcing the humanizing dimension of his program.

The Latest: What Happened to Jason Matheson This Week?

Fans frequently search “What happened to Jason Matheson” because his career moves are often headline news in Minnesota. The biggest shift in recent years was his departure from radio.

For years, Jason dominated the airwaves with “Jason & Alexis in the Morning” on myTalk 107.1. However, in February 2022, Jason announced he was hanging up his headphones to focus exclusively on his television duties and his burgeoning restaurant business.

Currently, you can find him live on FOX 9 (KMSP-TV) weekdays at 10:00 a.m., where he continues to host The Jason Show. He hasn’t disappeared; he just narrowed his focus to conquer television completely.

“I’ve always believed in betting on yourself. Leaving radio was hard, but it was time to give 100% to the TV show and my businesses.” — Jason Matheson (Paraphrased from departure announcements)

From “The Dispatcher” to The Main Stage

Jason Matheson’s Upbringing and Early Grind

Born in Michigan City, Indiana, Jason didn’t start with a silver spoon. His work ethic comes from a grounded upbringing.

He credits his parents and, most notably, his grandfather (“Papaw”) for instilling a love of classic television in him.

While he attended Columbia College Chicago, getting on air wasn’t instant.

• The Grunt Work: Jason began his career at WCCO-TV behind the scenes. He worked the “graveyard shift” as an overnight dispatcher.

• The Turning Point: In 2000, he moved to KMSP-TV (FOX 9).

• The Breakthrough: He didn’t start as a host—he started as the Executive Producer of “The Buzz.” But his personality was too big for behind the camera. He was eventually pushed on-screen as a film critic, where his sharp wit caught the audience’s attention.

The Empire: The Jason Show and Betty & Earl’s

Redefining Daytime TV

Most local stations air syndicated reruns of Judy Justice or Dr. Phil in the mid-morning. Jason changed that. The Jason Show launched in 2015 as a localized talk show with national energy. It features celebrity interviews, games, and unscripted banter.

• Celebrity Interactions: He has interviewed heavy hitters like Meryl Streep, Cher, and Ewan McGregor.

• Awards: Jason is a multi-time Emmy Award winner and nominee, proving that local TV can have high production value.

The Biscuit King

Beyond media, Jason is a successful entrepreneur. He co-founded Betty & Earl’s Biscuit Kitchen, a Southern-style biscuit shop named after his grandparents. It has become a staple in the Twin Cities food scene, expanding his net worth beyond just a TV salary.

Jason Matheson Family & Sister:

While Jason is private about some immediate family details, he speaks fondly of his close-knit circle. Queries about “Jason Matheson sister” often stem from his on-air storytelling, where he treats his close friends and co-hosts like siblings, though he is technically an only child (a fact he often attributes to his need for attention!).

Colleagues and Frequent Collaborators

• Kendall Mark: Frequent contributor and foil to Jason’s antics.

• Keith Marler: FOX 9 Meteorologist and longtime friend (“The frenemy” dynamic).

• Alexis Thompson: His former radio co-host and radio legend.

VII. Conclusion: The Legacy of Resilience

Jason Matheson has achieved his status as a media kingmaker by fundamentally redefining what a daytime talk show can be.

He successfully transformed the isolation and pain of a bullied childhood, where he desperately sought acceptance, into a career characterized by radical openness and genuine human connection.

His professional life is a strategic convergence of high achievement and vulnerability. By consistently maintaining his demanding, live morning radio show, he ensures his comedic timing and topicality remain razor-sharp, giving The Jason Show its signature “Letterman” edge.

Simultaneously, his willingness to share personal struggles—from surviving playground trauma to navigating current homophobic threats and familial tension—provides the deep, authentic connection that fuels the “Oprah” side of his persona.

This unique combination of professional grit, local celebrity credibility, and unflinching personal authenticity has proven to be a scalable and enduring model.

With The Jason Show continuing its national expansion into diverse markets, Jason Matheson is positioned to move decisively from being a powerful regional figure to a permanent, mainstream national daytime presence, all built upon the hard-won legacy of being bigger than what happens to him.

Sources & Further Reading:

1. FOX 9 Official Biography: Jason Matheson.

2. Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal Archives: “40 Under 40” Recognition.

3. myTalk 107.1 Archives: “Jason & Alexis in the Morning” history.

4. Minnesota Jaycees Archives: Ten Outstanding Young Minnesotans recipients.

5. Star Tribune Interviews and Media Analysis.

6. National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) Upper Midwest Chapter: Emmy Nominations/Wins.

7. Official Instagram/Social Media of Jason Matheson (for personal insights).

8. Radio Ink / All Access Media Reports (Marconi Nomination coverage).