Simply Money, Cincinnati radio’s longest-running financial advice show, will cease production in December after about 33 years.
Business partners Nathan Bachrach and Ed Finke started the show on WVXU-FM in 1993, when Xavier University owned the station. It moved to 6-7 p.m. weeknights on WKRC-AM after XU sold its radio station to Cincinnati Public Radio in 2005.
Allworth Financial advisors Bob Sponseller and Brian James have hosted the program the past 18 months. When Bachrach and Finke sold their company, also called Simply Money, in 2018 to Sacramento-based Hanson McClain Advisors, the company was renamed Allworth Financial. Amy Wagner, Steve Hruby and Steve Spovach also have hosted the show.
“As we prepare to close this chapter, we’re grateful for the trust, curiosity, and connection this community has shared with us,” Allworth Financial customers were told in an email sent Wednesday Sept. 30.
“What began with Ed Finke and Nathan Bachrach more than three decades ago continues today through Bob Sponseller and Brian James, with dedicated voices contributing along the way.
“Throughout those years, it has been our great honor and pleasure to serve and educate this community. For many of you, the show was your first introduction to our firm. We’re especially grateful for the lasting relationships that grew from those beginnings,” according to the email from the Blue Ash company.
In the early 1990s, Bachrach asked WVXU-FM General Manager Jim King for his own show after subbing for financial host Chris DeSimio. King gave Bachrach a half-hour monthly show which soon grew into a weekly show, then to an hour, and finally into a one-hour weekday show. At that time, Bachrach and Finke called their company the Financial Network Group, based in Symmes Township.
A lot has changed over the years.
- The Simply Money merger with Hanson McClain Advisors in January 2018 was the first big move after Parthenon Capital bought 70% of Hanson McClain the previous July.
- Since then the company, renamed Allworth Financial, has expanded coast to coast. Allworth has 43 offices in 20 states, reaching from California, Oregon and Washington to Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland and North Carolina.
- Consumers’ media consumption has changed, moving from radio to on-demand video, digital and podcasts. So spending an hour or more to prepare for a one-hour radio show is not the most efficient or cost effective use of time. (Allworth advisors, however, are expected to continue their weekly chats with WKRC-AM’s Brian Thomas and WLW-AM’s Scott Sloan.)
Sponseller says that “after a 35-year career in Cincinnati as a financial advisor, being on the radio every weeknight was never on my bingo card. But in 2025, I got the opportunity to give radio a try — and somehow it stuck.”
He convinced colleague James to be his on-air partner and “we’ve had a lot of fun doing the show together. It’s been an experience I never could have predicted when my career began,” Sponseller says.
“My hope is that the show in some small way has accomplished what I have always tried to do as a financial advisor over the past 35 years — take complex concepts and simplify them so the listener can take action to improve their overall situation for their benefit and that of their loved ones and chosen charities,” he says.
In the email to customers, Allworth explains that as the company “has grown into a national firm, we’re expanding our platform for financial education to reach more people, in more ways. That next chapter builds on the same purpose that has always guided Simply Money: making financial topics understandable, relevant, and useful in everyday life.
“While the show is ending, our commitment to you and to Cincinnati remains unchanged. We’re not going anywhere. This change does not affect your relationship with your advisor, your financial plan or the care and service you receive from our team. We’re here to help you navigate what comes next, just as we have always been,” according to Allworth email.
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