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Thursday, June 26, 2008
6/27: Farewell to Kelly & Alpha, Matt Chernoff subs at 680/The Fan
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s hard not to feel a little bad for Kelly Stevens and Alpha Trevette, two dutiful foot soldiers for B98.5 who left the airwaves Friday morning after nine-plus years at the soft-rock station and 20 years together as a team.
“We had some wonderful life changing experiences,” Alpha said during the final farewell at 8:50 a.m. this morning.
“We’re leaving you in good company. You have a new show coming,” Kelly said. And as he passed the baton to Jordan Graye, the mid-morning host, his voice broke.
It was a touching, low-key farewell for two classy guys who were given a shot to actually say goodbye. [If you want to leave them some kind words, go to their Web site.]
The pair’s mandate from day one was to provide brief, amusing buffer banter between songs. They were seldom given a chance to breathe, to develop a real show a la the Bert Show or Frank & Wanda or the Regular Guys.
For B98.5, it worked. The station brought in a consistent audience of folks who preferred music while going to work or ferrying the kids to school.
But when Steve McCoy & Vikki Locke became available, Cox Radio — owners for B98.5 — had to make a strategic choice. Steve & Vikki’s audience had gotten too old for Star but seems a perfect fit for the B98.5 crowd. If B98.5 chose to do nothing, another radio company might have been tempted to start a second soft-rock station. (Atlanta as a metro area has been with just one soft-rock station since Lite became the country station the Bull in December 2006.)
So Cox hired Steve & Vikki themselves to create a bulwark and disincentive for any rival to take on B98.5 directly.
Kelly & Alpha were simply in the way. They had to go. It’s ironic that B98.5 so assiduously constrained the pair from doing a full-personality show; yet, the station gets rid of them for a personality morning show.
The pair chose to make Friday a “celebration” as opposed to a wake, taking well-wishing calls from their regulars such as Mark from the Yamaha bike factory at 5:10 a.m.. “You giving us a free bike?” joked Kelly, a regular motorycle user. “What?” Mike said. “Suddenly, he’s hard of hearing!” Alpha joked.
Even the gallows humor was relatively lighthearted and things didn’t get histrionic, at least early on. After playing Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’ ,” Kelly at 5:15 a.m. couldn’t help but reference it as the final song on “The Sopranos.”
Kelly at 6 a.m. noted they were being videotaped by a staffer for posterity. “Maybe we can sell it on eBay and get some money that way,” he cracked.
The final daily “impossible” question: five percent of men would rather do this than lose their hair. You can find the answer here.. And yes, the team even did their final endorsement to Purina One at 6:25 a.m. And at 6:58 a.m., they brought back the Friday song one more time after a long absence and sang it together (quite well, in fact).
Interestingly, the “noncompete” clause in the Steve & Vikki contract at Star 94 precludes B98.5 from even mentioning their names on air until July 1, which is probably just as well for Kelly & Alpha. (But the station found a loophole and have been airing Steve & Vikki TV ads for weeks.)
I spoke with both Kelly & Alpha Thursday. Alpha seemed like he was holding a bit back and you can’t blame him since they’re both getting paychecks from the station through the end of the year. He chose not to comment about Steve & Vikki while Kelly said he only wished them the best: “They’re a great team…I have no animosity. I made sure my desk was nice and clean so Steve could set himself up.” (Marjorie Coley won’t be doing the news for B98.5; under Steve & Vikki, it will be Jeff Hullinger, who will continue to anchor news over at WSB-AM in the afternoons.)
Kelly (right), fresh from alcohol rehab at Ridgeview, harbored zero bitterness about his impending departure from B98.5:
“It’s a transition. I wasn’t surprised. I was shocked they were giving us as much notice. Four months! That was a blessing.”
It gave Kelly time to go to rehab and get his life straightened out, he said. “I owe [Ridgeview] my life,” he said. He’d been spiraling down the past two years.
“I wanted to go find the old Kelly and bring him back,” he said. “If this is the last time I’m on the radio, I didn’t want to go out that way. I wanted to end strong.”
He even chose to talk about it on air. “I wanted to be honest,” he said. “I was amazed by the support.” He even kept his drinking problem from Alpha and producer Will Gara, who stays on to work with Steve & Vikki next week. (Ironic song on the final day: “Red Red Wine” by UB40 at 6:08 a.m. “A little euphoric recall,” Kelly joked.)
“He hid things from me and everybody else,” said Alpha. “We didn’t communicate as well as we could.” He said since Kelly came back from rehab earlier this month, they have been doing great shows. “It’s more relaxed and easier to do the show,” he noted, despite the impending end.
Alpha (right) said he’s just grateful he got to say goodbye on the air, an opportunity many radio personalities do not get. (See Rhubarb Jones, Leslie Fram and Kristen Gates as recent examples.)
“The focus has been on the music while trying to have fun in what little space given us,” he said. “I think we’ve done a pretty good job. We’ve learned to condense quite a bit. We cut out a lot of fat and needless talk. It would have been nice to flesh some things out but we worked within the framework.”
Kelly said he did what he was told: “You’re talking to someone who spent five years in the service. [The Coast Guard.] I salute smartly and do my job. I’m not the boss!”
He also said Thursday before the farewell show that he just hoped to keep his composure when he hands off the morning to Jordan Graye at around 8:45 a.m. “It’s going to hurt a little bit,” he admitted. “I might cry like a baby!” (From the sounds of it on air, he did.)
The morning team ended its run airing from 5 a.m. to 8:15 a.m., a relatively early finish compared to its competitors, but the radio station wanted to start the workday with lots of music.
Naturally, the pair would like to stay in Atlanta if possible but if a good job comes along in a different market, they’re all ears. But he said the job market is a bit quiet right now. (Their agent is Glenn Goldstein if anybody is interested and their Web site is here if you want to look at their resume and offer them a new job..
This is by far the longest the pair has stayed in the same city (they’ve been in Kansas City, Seattle, Tampa and Denver.) “We fooled these guys longer than anybody else apparently!” Alpha joked.
Next week, neither will be anywhere near Atlanta while Steve & Vikki start on July 1. Kelly, who is single, will be on his Harley going up the coast to Maine, which he has never seen. Alpha plans to visit his son in Denver (a former radio market for the pair) and see some old buds “away from the hype machine,” he said.
—If you’re hearing Matt Chernoff’s voice on 680/The Fan, you aren’t imagining it. The long-time Zone sports talk host until late last year has been working the TV circuit alone the past few months. But when 680/The Fan asked him to sub in for Christopher Rude Thursday and Friday, he said yes.
He said he hasn’t counted out a future radio gig again. “I’m open to anything,” he said. “This was just to sit in and have some fun… I’ve been enjoying TV and having one job like everyone else. But I do miss doing radio.”
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6/26: “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” finally confirmed by Bravo
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
(l-r) Lisa Wu Hartwell, DeShawn Snow, Kim Zolciak, NeNe Leakes, Sheree Whitfield.
Bravo finally confirmed today that, yes, there is a “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” coming to the cable network later this summer.
Here’s how Bravo is spinning it in its press release:
Bravo is heading south for its newest installment, “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.” The seven episode series will follow five women from Atlanta’s social elite - from NBA and NFL wives to sassy single moms - as they juggle their burgeoning careers and busy home lives with the whirl of the south’s hottest city.
Rumors have been floating around for months and the gossip Web site Young Black and Fabulous provided juicy details of four of the five women on June 9.
This follows the original, trashy “The Real Housewives of the O.C.,” the offshoot “The Real Housewives of New York City” and soon “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.” Apparently, Bravo thinks it has its very own “CSI” franchise.
The first 30-minute preview special airs Wednesday, July 30 at midnight after a rebroadcast of “Project Runway.” A specific launch date for the series has not bee set yet.
Here’s how Bravo describes each women:
Holiday cheer flowed in 2006 during the Christmas season at the Alpharetta home of Eric (left) and DeShawn Snow. Singer Lyfe Jennings (right) sang for the Cleveland Cavaliers center, his Realtor wife and their guests. CREDIT: JimiFlix Photography
-DeShawn Snow (above): Snow and her husband Eric, captain of the Cleveland Cavaliers, recently moved to their dream home in Alpharetta, GA. Mother to three boys - nine-year-old EJ, six-year-old Darius and five-year-old Jarren, Snow is an active member of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. She exercises her faith by running The DeShawn Snow Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on improving self-esteem in teenage girls. She is a regular on the Atlanta social circuit and extremely active in local philanthropy, sitting on the board of three different charities, all while expertly juggling her busy social calendar with being an NBA wife and keeping up with her boys.
-Kim Zolciak: Zolciak lives in an exclusive gated townhouse community in Duluth, GA with her two children, 11-year-old Brielle and six-year-old Ariana. Zolciak is single, but happily dating with hopes to marry again in the near future. She also has her sights set on fame in the music business as a country singer, and is currently working with Grammy award-winning mega-producer Dallas Austin and will begin recording an album later this year. A staple on the Atlanta scene, Zolciak balances life as a single mom with a vivacious social life. (Under that name, I have found zero info about her.)
-Lisa Wu Hartwell: Hartwell, a resident of a luxurious country club community in Duluth, GA, is a busy career woman who wears many hats - she owns her own real estate firm, Hartwell & Associates, a jewelry line called Wu Girls, a baby clothing line, Hart 2 Hart Baby, and juggles a budding acting, modeling and writing career. She’s a devoted wife to her husband, NFL player Ed Hartwell, and their three children 13-year-old Jordan, ten-year-old Justin and one-year-old EJ. When she’s not running one of her many businesses or running after the kids, Hartwell is very active in Atlanta’s social scene. She has a holding pattern Web site with no real content but you can see her photo.
-NeNe Leakes: Leakes is an active member of Atlanta society. She resides in the upscale Sugarloaf area of Atlanta with her husband Gregg, a successful real estate investor and business consultant, and their two sons, 18-year-old Brice and nine-year-old Brentt. Leakes donates her time to various foundations and is the founder of The Twisted Hearts Foundation, which brings awareness to domestic violence against women. Never one to sit still, the outspoken social butterfly also hopes to open a luxury boutique hotel in the very near future.
-Sheree Whitfield: Single socialite Whitfield, a resident of the exclusive Sandy Springs area of Atlanta, juggles her busy home life with a packed social calendar. She is a busy working mother to three children -Tierra, Kairo and Kaleigh. Whitfield prides herself on her fashion sense, and owned her own upscale clothing boutique - Bella Azul - for years before closing up shop to focus on her next business venture, a clothing line called “She by Sheree.” Whitfield is opening a new chapter in her life as a single mom while balancing her entrepreneurial spirit and active social life.
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