The Satellite Sister Act

Five sisters get together every Saturday morning for what they like to call "conversation radio," reports CBS News Sunday Morning's Serena Altschul. The Satellite Sisters show has the wit, chatter, gossip, and closeness that one usually sees when five women, all of them sisters as well as best friends, get together.

The Dolans are real sisters all right – Lian, Liz, and Sheila (in Los Angeles), Monica (in Portland, Oregon), and Julie (from her apartment in Moscow, Russia).

Five of them, ranging in age from 39 to 48, gather on Saturday mornings for what they like to call "conversation radio."

An example from the show:
Liz: Julie, you were not with us last week. You were sick.
Julie: Liz, it was killing me. I had laryngitis. I so wanted to interrupt and disagree with you, all through the show. But I couldn't say a single thing!

Says Julie, the oldest, "If you got together with your friends and you talked about a range of things, from the events of the day to very personal things – that feeling that you have after a very satisfying conversation with good friends – I think that's what we want to give to our listeners."

It's that long-distance closeness that has come to define a "satellite sister."

Says Monica, the second youngest, "It's really the person you turn to in your life when something great happens, and something terrible happens. It's the person you laugh with, and hang out with. A lot of times it's the person you have a history with. It doesn't need to be your sister."

It was Liz who came up with the idea and pitched it to her sisters at a mud-bath weekend eight years ago.

Says Liz, "They blame me for that. There was a moment where I just thought, you know, how come there's nothing on the radio that sounds the way friends sound when they talk to each other? Particularly female friends."
And what made them think they were qualified to host their own radio talk show?

Julie credits confidence.

Lian, the youngest, attributes it to naivete. She says, "If we had known anything really about the radio business at all, we never would have started this."

Did they feel there was a vacuum on radio for a show created by women, for women, about women?

"We didn't think that way, but Liz did. The rest of us hadn't really looked at the media landscape, and said, 'where's the vacuum?'" Lian jokes. "The rest of us were vacuuming, you know."

After years of planning and convincing themselves and others that there was an appetite for a talk radio show hosted by five inexperienced women, "The Satellite Sisters" debuted four years ago on public radio. The Saturday morning show eventually moved to ABC Radio, where the format now includes live call-ins, with topics ranging from the war in Iraq to how to negotiate a raise.

Another example from the show:
Julie: I think a lot of women think, 'I'm doing a good job, and my boss should see what a good job I'm doing and he or she should reward me for that good job.'
Liz: Oh, grow up. Have any of us ever successfully negotiated a raise? Monica, how about you?
Monica: No, of course not. I'm way too intimidated. But Liz, I did negotiate a cut in pay once.

The sisters deny their show is about women chit-chat, botox and pedicures, though they have discussed plastic surgery.

All five of them grew up in Connecticut, and lead very different lives. Sheila, divorced with a grown daughter, is a schoolteacher. Monica, single, also works full-time, as a nurse and medical researcher. Julie, who has two college-aged sons, left her career in academics when her husband was transferred overseas, first to Bangkok and then to Moscow. Liz, single and the former marketing director for Nike, is one of the main hosts along with Lian, a writer, married and the mother of two.

Says Lian, "I think we relate to each other better as adults. I see what my sisters have accomplished now, whereas if we didn't work together, I probably wouldn't recognize any of their skills. I wouldn't give them credit for anything, frankly."

Says Sheila, "We have a very unique relationship in that we're business partners, but then we're also really good friends. My sisters are my best friends, and you call your best friends for everything."

Do they ever bicker?

Lian laughs, "No, the beauty of having five sisters is that when you're a little miffed at one, you just go talk to another about her behind her back."

Humor is a big part of their show, and their lives.

"We grew up in a big Irish Catholic family. There are also three brothers," says Lian. "So, if you don't have anything funny to say, you might as well not say it."

The Satellite Sisters have become something of a multi-media industry. The three southern California Dolans are also part of a comedy club Sister Act. And a book. And a column in Oprah magazine.

Monica was the most reluctant to go on the radio.

"I'm not in every segment. And that's fine with me. I only have so much time during the week to prepare," she laughs. "Sometimes, my mother says at the end of the show, 'Why don't they let you talk more, Monica?'"

It's not just Mom who's tuning in. The show is carried on 85 stations, and heard by about one million people a week.

Perhaps surprisingly, based on the calls and mail the sisters get, men make up a large percentage of their audience.

Says Liz, "We have a special term for those guys. We call them satellite misters."

And what about the secrets of the Satellite Sisterhood? Are they any things that are off limits on the show?

"We don't talk about our childhood stories," says Liz. "We like to talk about our modern lives, what's going on in the modern world. Do people really want to hear about the time Julie went out in a row boat with her dorky boyfriend when she was 13?"

So what about the future?

Julie says she's in it for the long run, and Lian says she's got nothing better to do.

But as Liz puts it, "Whether we're radio show hosts or book sellers or nightclub performers, we're always going to be sisters."