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Monday, November 3, 2008
11/4: Frank Ski Foundation “Local Legends” luncheon with Judge Penny, T-Boz
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ABOVE: Judge Penny Brown Reynolds, Tanya Ski and Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins at Ski’s home Sunday during the first annual “Local Legends” luncheon. CREDIT: Rodney Ho/rho@ajc.com
Over filet mignon and creme brulee, TLC star Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Judge Penny Brown Reynolds (from “Family Court With Judge Penny”) gave six Clayton County high school students pearls of wisdom and a brush with fame at Frank and Tanya Ski’s Atlanta home Sunday.
The Ski’s, through their foundation, wanted to inspire the best and brightest seniors from the beleaguered Clayton County school system, which lost its accreditation earlier this year. They presented $1,000 scholarships to each teen as well.
Meaghan Jackson, a senior and student government president at Morrow High School, said she will always remember a line Judge Penny told her: “God will call into existence those things which do not exist if you only believe.”
Judge Penny hugged Jackson goodbye and told her, “As the first person in your family to go to college and finish high school, that’s a big weight and responsibility. But just be the best you can be. Don’t worry about carrying the legacy.”
ABOVE: Clayton County students Songsarae Harley and Tyler Jones pose with V-103 host Frank Ski and their oversized $1,000 checks. Jones was tickled pink by the oversized check, plans to hang it on her bedroom wall and pass it on to her kids.
Tyler Jones, a Mt. Zion High School senior who wants to go to Georgia Tech, said she’s heard people denigrate her school system, saying anybody going there might as well give up dreams of college and work at the Pink Pony. “I’m really insulted by that,” she said. “We have good teachers, good test scores. It’s our school board that can’t get its act together.”
Jones said her dad told her not to be starstruck but she couldn’t help it. “Oh my God! I’m sitting next to T-Boz! She touched my arm!” she thought to herself at lunch. “I had to pinch myself under the table to make sure this wasn’t a dream!”
ABOVE: (l-r) Maritza Morales, Songsarae Harley, Meaghan Jackson, Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, Judge Penny Brown Reynolds, Kelita Almost, Tyler Jones, Jamesha Foote.
T-Boz, who is on the upcoming “Celebrity Apprentice,” is hoping to be well enough from sickle cell anemia, to be able to do a couple of dates next spring in Japan, where TLC remain very popular. She said she and Chilli will sing songs with the late Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes on the big screens behind her. I mentioned I met her when UPN had that “R U the Girl for T-Boz and Chill” show, which she readily admitted was merely a paycheck and was never intended to seek a replacement for Lopes. The contract stated the winner would perform once with TLC and that wa sit.
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11/3: Matt Chernoff reunites with Chuck Oliver on the Fan starting Tuesday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former Zone hosts Matt Chernoff and Chuck Oliver are reuniting as a team on rival 680/The Fan starting tomorrow from 1 to 3 p.m.
The pair will focus on college football during the season. Chernoff has been part of the morning show the past few months while Oliver signed on with the Fan last week, as announced on this blog.
A minor complication: the Jim Donnan Show, which airs Monday and Thursday, will continue through January so Matt and Chuck will only be on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Chernoff will do mornings on Mondays and Thursdays. Oliver said it will be five days a week starting in January, no holds barred.
Prior to this change, the Fan had been airing Tirico and Van Pelt, an ESPN syndicated show, from 1 to 3 p.m.
Oliver said the pair had done three prior mid-day stints on the Zone totaling about three years. “We’re like an old married couple,” he said.
Originally, the Fan had plans to build a solo show around him but he was cool with the idea of working with Chernoff again. “This is not a consolation prize,” he said.
This is rare instance where a radio station is expanding local talent while other stations (see Hot 107.9, the River, ) are cutting staff in midst of a major revenue downturn, Dickey said the Fan is actually seeing double-digit revenue increases this year, a consequence of stronger ratings the past couple of years.
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11/3: Whatever happened to… Carol Blackmon and Mike Roberts
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ABOVE: A recent headshot of Carol Blackmon.
ABOVE: Mike Roberts (left) at a going-away party for outgoing Radio One GM Wayne Brown over the summer. That’s Derek Harper, who runs Praise and Grown Folks, on the right.
Here’s a story I wrote for the print edition Monday about the morning show that dominated Atlanta in the 1990s: Mike Roberts and Carol Blackmon from V-103:
Before Frank Ski and Wanda Smith, V-103’s big morning show was Mike Roberts and Carol Blackmon.
From 1990 to 1998, the pair connected with fans via daily call-in polls, interactive games such as “Battle of the Sexes” and gobs of community support. “We stuck to a simple premise: educate, entertain and inform,” Roberts said.
But growing competition from other R&B and hip-hop stations took a toll on ratings. In September 1998, Blackmon quit the station, saying she wasn’t treated fairly by management.
Roberts voluntarily ended his run at V-103 a month later, to accolades and respect from listeners and peers.
“I could have stayed on and reinvented the morning show,” he said recently. “But my head wasn’t there at the time. And I didn’t want to become one of those 50-year-old guys trying to sound hip.”
Since then, the pair has gone separate ways. Roberts, now 51, has focused on running and owning radio stations in Macon. Blackmon, 50, has been doing a variety of different jobs, including voiceover work such as ads for Publix and BMW, artist development, media training and TV host for the Georgia Lottery.
Neither has been back on air as radio hosts in Atlanta. For Roberts, it’s by choice. For Blackmon, the right deal has never come along.
The lottery work, Blackmon said, “keeps my chops up, keeps my face out there and keeps me in the industry.”
She also is a stage mom and manager, helping her 12-year-old son, Sterling, get work doing print ad modeling for Macy’s, TV commercials and film. He played Queen Latifah’s son in the recent film “Mad Money.”
Roberts, in the meantime, spent years building four Macon radio stations: one hip-hop, one R&B oldies and two gospel ones. By 2001, he said he was starting to break even, but a rival hip-hop station came into town with a stronger radio signal and lower ad rates.
He tried to hang on, paring staff and cutting costs but sold three of the four stations in 2006. He now owns a single R&B oldies station Majic 100, splitting his time between Macon and Atlanta.
“I sold them for more than I paid for,” he said, “but I invested so much into them that it’s hard to say I actually recouped my money.”
Why R&B oldies? “It’s the music I grew up with,” Roberts said. “I have a lot of passion for it.”
Blackmon and Roberts don’t see each other often, but they have warm memories.
“I still have very fond thoughts for Carol,” Roberts said. “It’s unfortunate our schedules are so crazy we don’t talk more. But when we do, it’s always a good conversation.”
