---
name: Radio show — co-host roster (Randall, Rob, Tara, others)
description: The Computer Guru Show has had multiple co-hosts over the years. The fabricated "Tom" was actually Tara. Track known co-hosts here as Mike confirms identities.
type: project
---

The Computer Guru Show has had **multiple co-hosts** rotating through over the years. Mike Swanson is the only constant host.

## Known speaker roster (per Mike, 2026-04-27)

The show has had multiple **co-hosts** rotating through, plus **producers / board ops** who would sometimes go on-air. Both groups need separate voice profiles to avoid being mislabeled as callers.

### Co-hosts
| Co-host | Era | Confirmed in audio | Profile built |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Randall** | early years | not yet | no |
| **Rob** | early years + appearances in 2018/2019 (Mike unsure of exact dates) | not yet | no |
| **Tony** | 2012-era co-host (Mike unsure whether on-air in 2012-06-09-hr1) | not yet | no |
| **Tara** | confirmed 2014-s6e19, 2016-s8e43, **2018-s10e18 @ 50:50** (verified by Mike 2026-04-27 listen). Plausible in 2015 and 2017 (pending verify). | yes | yes — `voice-profiles/tara/` (44 embeddings, **possibly contaminated**, see below) |

### Tara profile contamination flag

Mike spot-checked CO-HOST-flagged windows on 2026-04-27 and found the diarizer matching:

In **2018-s10e18**:
- **A bumper** (09:20-10:05, music/promo — not a voice)
- **Tara** (50:50 — true positive)
- **A caller, "Christopher"** (~82:10 — false positive, real caller misattributed as Tara)

In **2012-06-09-hr1**:
- **A caller, "Kay"** (22:10-26:00 — real caller misattributed as Tara). Spans the 22:25-24:30 (125s) and 25:15-25:55 (40s) CO-HOST turns. Mike unsure whether co-host Tony was on-air this episode.

In **2015-s7e19** (Jan 2015 New Year episode):
- **A caller, "William"** (~35:30 — confirmed in transcript: "let's talk to William. Hello, William. How are you?", asks about Excel→Word mail merge)
- **A caller, "Charles"** (~16:30 — Mike-identified, transcript not yet verified)
- **A recurring special guest, "Clay" from "Nerd Junkies"** — appears multiple times: transcript at 33:13 "More Clay from the Nerd Junkies", at 37:33 "I'm just curious, Clay, do you have any feedback". Clay is a recurring guest, not a co-host. The 4:40 of "Tara"-attributed audio in this episode is likely **all** Clay + callers, with no actual Tara presence.

### Recurring guests / fill-ins
| Person | Affiliation | Confirmed in audio | Profile built |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Clay** | "Nerd Junkies" — fills in for Tara when she's out (Mike: rarely appears in other episodes) | 2015-s7e19 (throughout — Tara was out, Clay covered) | **skipped** — first attempt failed (Clay vs Mike sim = 0.994); Mike chose to accept 2015-s7e19's Q&A as noisy rather than build cleanly. Mike's rationale: Clay is rare in other episodes, so the cost of not having his profile is bounded |

Tara's role is explicit per transcript at 2015-s7e19 @ 00:51: "in Tara's place, we have Clay. Clay from the Nerd Junkies." — Tara is the regular co-host for that era; Clay is a fill-in.

Root cause is likely contamination in `build_cohost_profile.py`: the TARA_WINDOWS were sourced from "first 60 min CALLER turns" under the assumption "real callers don't call in during the first hour of a 2-hour show." That assumption appears to leak — at least one real caller ended up in Tara's training data, and the resulting profile now matches a too-broad acoustic space.

Two distinct fixes needed:
1. **Bumper handling in diarizer** — the qa_extractor has bumper signature detection but the diarizer doesn't filter music/promo segments before speaker matching. Bumpers with vocal content can trigger speaker matches.
2. **Tara profile rebuild from vetted windows** — Mike-confirmed windows only, not the heuristic-selected first-60-min approach. The 2026-04-27 listen confirmed 50:50 in 2018-s10e18 as a clean Tara window; more would be needed.

### Producers / board ops (sometimes on-air)
| Person | Profile built |
|---|---|
| **Andrew** | no |
| **Shannon** | no |
| **Ken** | no |
| **Unknown board op (2015-s7e19 opening)** | no — Mike heard him at the very start of 2015-s7e19, name forgotten |
| (Mike: "a couple more" he doesn't recall off-hand) | no |

Mike: "The 'producer' (board op) would also be on-air sometimes." Anywhere a producer's voice appears, they're currently being labeled CALLER, which inflates Q&A false positives. Same problem as unprofiled co-hosts.

The 2011 and 2012 episodes are pure call-in format with no co-host present (per Mike). However, a producer could still have been on-air — so even small CO-HOST attributions in 2011/2012 (1-12% of audio) may be capturing a producer rather than being false positives.

## "Tom" was hallucinated

The 5070 Ti session (`2026-04-27-qa-extraction-cohost-indexing.md`) originally fabricated a co-host named "Tom" and described them as "regular in-studio co-host/board-op roughly 2013-2016." That entire identity was invented by the prior conversation. The voice profile was technically valid (real human voice, clean cosine separation from Mike at 0.698) but the human attached to it was wrong.

**Resolution applied 2026-04-27 (GURU-BEAST-ROG session):**
- `voice-profiles/tom/` renamed to `voice-profiles/tara/`
- `voice-profiles/profiles.json`: key `Tom` → `Tara`
- `build_cohost_profile.py`: `TOM_WINDOWS` → `TARA_WINDOWS`, `COHOST_NAME = "Tara"`
- Both relevant session logs updated; correction header preserves the history
- Diarization re-run; `speaker_map` now emits `Cohost: Tara`

## Implications for the archive pipeline

Co-hosts without a built profile get labeled CALLER, which inflates Q&A false positives in those eras:
- **Early-years archive (~2010-2013):** Randall and Rob are present but unprofiled — caller-labeled audio in this era is suspect.
- **2018/2019:** Rob makes appearances — same issue.
- **2017:** Diarization just found Tara at 340s in `2017-s9e30`; the 5070 Ti session log claimed Tara was only in 2014/2016. Pending Mike's confirmation that the 2017 attribution is correct.

## How to apply
- When diarizing a new episode and a CALLER cluster looks too long / too prominent / too consistent, suspect an unprofiled co-host before assuming a real caller.
- Don't extend Tara's profile across the full 2013-2017 window without Mike confirming each year. She may not have been in every episode.
- Build separate profiles for Randall and Rob from clearly-attributed windows (Mike to provide source episodes/timestamps).
- Never invent a co-host name from voice signature alone — ask Mike.