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Friday, May 19, 2006
5/19: Cadillac Jack takes morning at Kicks, Jill out
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After much coaxing, Cadillac Jack is going to take over the morning show at Kicks. Kicks dumped Moby back in 2002, landed Bandy & Bailey for three years. But they left last fall. Kicks nabbed a guy from St. Louis named Craig Cornett but that didn’t work out either. So they pressed upon Cadillac to take over and my guess is they threw enough money at him to take it. I’ve known in the past he was happy where he was and resisted requests to go to the higher-pressure morning slot.
The popular Jill Kelly is out, too. With Kristen Gates as the primary female voice, the station had been reducing Jill’s role in recent months. Kelly told me that management said that they didn’t feel they needed two female voices on the show; thusly, she was out. But she struck me as fairly chipper about the situation. “When one door closes, another one opens,” she said. She’d been at Kicks for four years and had previous gigs in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Columbia, S.C. and Augusta. She’s got a three month non-compete and then plans to seek another radio job in this market. She’s open to different genres, having worked in news/talk and soft rock. As you’ll notice in the press release below, the fact she was let go today at 9 a.m. is not mentioned at all:
ATLANTA GA – KICKS afternoon host Cadillac Jack is announced as host of the “New KICKS Morning Show” beginning Monday May 22, 2006.
“Cadillac has been our go-to guy for a number of years at the station. It is just natural to see him take on a new leadership role for the station in the morning,” said ABC Radio Atlanta President and General Manager, Victor Sansone.
Cadillac Jack has been one of Atlanta’s most listened-to radio personalities over the last 13 years. Nominated in 2005 as the CMA Major Market Broadcast Personality of the year, he has hosted national radio shows, including the Jimmy Buffet “License to Chill” World Premiere Radio special. Cadillac has appeared as a guest news reporter on the popular ABC sitcom, “Hope and Faith.” Cadillac Jack also co-hosted the CMA red carpet television special for the CBS television network last year.
According to Mark Richards, Operations Manager, “Cadillac knows Atlanta, Cadillac knows our music, and Cadillac knows our audience. We could not have offered this opportunity to a better person.”
“KICKS is a legendary radio station and one of the best places to work in America. I have been here since I was 20 years old, and look forward to making the morning show the best it can be,” said Cadillac Jack.
Cadillac will be introduced as host of “The New KICKS Morning Show” this weekend to more than forty thousand people at the station’s “Country Fair,” a two-day country music festival held every May in Atlanta. He officially joins producer, Kristen Gates, and News/Traffic Director Jim Vann, on the air Monday morning.
