Longtime Fish morning hosts Kevin & Taylor are moving to Star 94
Kevin Avery and Taylor Scott, morning hosts for the now-defunct Atlanta-based Christian radio station the Fish for 25 years, have landed at secular pop station Star 94.
The duo, who will start their new gig on Monday, Sept. 15, will host their show from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. weekdays.
“I’m so grateful for this opportunity,” Scott told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I need to pinch myself!”
“It’s a perfect match for us,” Avery added. “I cannot wait for Taylor and I to open the microphones and do our thing.”
Kevin & Taylor, who were inducted into the Friends of Georgia Radio Hall of Fame last month, was the Fish‘s only morning show over its quarter-century run as Atlanta’s first Christian pop station on the FM dial.
Under Salem Media Group, Kevin & Taylor lived up to Fish’s “good clean fun” moniker and built a loyal following, heard nationally in syndication in more than 100 markets.
They embraced their Christian faith but didn’t proselytize. They laughed at themselves and spoke honestly about their personal struggles and triumphs. Their ratings remained consistently in the top 5 among their target audience of women 25 to 54 in Atlanta through 2024.
On New Year’s Eve last year came a bombshell: Salem sold the station to Educational Media Foundation, which runs syndicated Christian formats such as Air1, which replaced the Fish on Feb. 1. Kevin & Taylor were out of a job.
Unfortunately, there were no substitute stations in Atlanta for the duo to go to. The other major local Christian stations air out-of-town syndicated shows. So they began eyeing Star 94, which has drawn the so-called “suburban soccer mom” crowd since its inception in 1989. It’s now owned by Audacy, which also operates sports talk station 92.9/The Game and stalwart R&B/hip-hop station V-103.
In March, Star 94 made several layoffs, dumping their brand director and air staff except Jenn Hobby, whose morning show was reduced to two hours.
A month later, Star brought in well-respected brand manager Emily Boldon. She previously had a brief run as director of operations at 97.1/The River and B98.5 and a 16-year stint as vice president of adult contemporary programming for Atlanta-based Cumulus Media, the nation’s second-largest radio owner.
With minimal air staff, Star has kept its ratings steady. In July, the station was 11th in the market and 12th in mornings. In its target audience of women 25 to 54, the station was eighth overall and third in the mornings with no jocks at all.
But Boldon, who has done studies on how Star is perceived in this market, wants more.
“It’s fair to say since the pandemic, Star has not been focused on live and local programming,” she said. “It changed the passion listeners felt for the station. My No. 1 priority is to remind Atlanta what this heritage can be: the best music, the best personalities, the best community involvement. It’s going to be a process.”
Star, which runs dance-pop hits from the past four decades, has not had a personality-based morning show in many years to compete directly with the likes of the Bert Show at Q99.7, Tad & Drex at B98.5 and Kincaid & Dallas at New Country 101.5.
“For me, it’s a no-brainer to bring a team like Kevin & Taylor that is so integrated into the Atlanta market,” said Boldon, who has introduced 40 morning shows in different markets over the past 20 years. “It just makes sense.”
She also plans to add mid-day and afternoon hosts in the coming weeks.
During the 1990s, Star was a dominant force with the duo of Steve McCoy and Vikki Locke. Ironically, the arrival of Kevin & Taylor at the Fish in 2000 along with the Bert Show at Q100 ate into their audience and Star dropped them in 2007.
Over the next 12 years, Star tried a series of morning shows seeking to recapture the magic of Steve & Vikki, even bringing in former Bert Show hosts Jeff Dauler and Hobby to go directly after Bert’s audience. It didn’t work, and Dauler left in 2019.
Star kept Hobby, who ran a music-oriented show for the past six years. In June, she moved to part-time at the station to take a full-time position at a nonprofit. Last month, Hobby began a local Saturday morning countdown show for Star akin to Ryan Seacrest’s “AT40.”
How Kevin & Taylor modify their show for the Star audience will be an evolving process, Avery said.
Regardless, “we’re going to be true to who we are and be the show people have loved for 25 years,” he said.
Whatever they do, their segments will remain tight and bright. “So many people already listen to Star,” he said. “We don’t want to overwhelm them and take away what they love.”
Val Carolin, their former boss at the Fish, said he hopes they can click with the Star listeners. “These guys are an important voice in the community,” he said. “We need less cynicism, less lasciviousness. It’s easy to roll in the gutter. They just don’t. They want to lift you up.”
Avery and Scott didn’t want to leave Atlanta. Starting over in a new market was not their ideal option, Avery said.
And several companies approached them about doing a podcast, the medium of choice for many broadcasters. But financially, Avery said, that was a tougher avenue to pursue.
Star and Fish have some overlap listeners but for most Star listeners, Kevin & Taylor will be a new entity.
“We’re looking forward to getting to know them and introduce ourselves to them and having a new set of friends,” Scott said. “It’s like playing friendship matchmaker. We’re excited about it. We can’t wait!”
Star 94 plays some hip-hop songs that don’t exactly jibe with Kevin & Taylor’s family-friendly persona. Carolin said the station will have to calibrate its sound for their morning show.
Avery embraces all types of pop music: “I love what they play. Everything they play fits their moniker of feel-good throwbacks. Who doesn’t love the Backstreet Boys?”
Change can be difficult in Atlanta radio. Steve & Vikki, after 18 years at Star, moved to B98.5 in 2018, but there was a culture clash and the show didn’t last. Randy & Spiff had a good run at oldies station Fox 97.1 for 14 years until Fox died in 2003 but bounced around to four other radio stations before leaving the Atlanta radio scene for good in 2011.
The Regular Guys, a testosterone-driven rock show, were fired twice at 96 Rock in 2004 and 2006 but managed a decent run at Rock 100.5 from 2008 to 2014.
The seven morning shows on Star 94 since 1989:
Steve & Vikki (1989-2007): Steve McCoy and Vikki Locke brought in the strongest ratings for Star 94 during its heyday in the 1990s when they had very little competition for family-friendly listening. The Bert Show and Kevin & Taylor ate away at their audience in the 2000s.
The Morning Mess (2007-2009): This trio (Marc “Marco” Orem, Shannon Murphy and Superphat Mikey) with the apt show name did not click with listeners.
Cindy Simmons & Ray Mariner (2009-2012): The pair spent several years pulling in solid ratings in the afternoon so management thought they could translate into mornings. They did OK but could never approach the Bert Show in ratings.
Cindy Simmons & Jimmy Alexander (2012-2014): After Mariner left for murky reasons, management brought in Alexander from Washington D.C. That didn’t bring in enough new listeners and the combo lasted less than two years.
Drex Rener, Cassidy Proctor & Steve Tingle (2014-2016): Lincoln Financial, right before they sold Star to Entercom (now Audacy), brought a new trio together from different markets. Again, this move didn’t move the needle. (Drex is now on B98.5’s morning show.)
Jeff Dauler & Jenn Hobby (2016-2019): These two former Bert Show hosts reunited with the express intent of competing with their former employer Bert Weiss. The effort made modest inroads but the Bert Show’s dominance remained. Dauler was let go without explanation but Star kept Hobby.
Jenn Hobby solo (2019-2025): Hobby gave Star the closest semblance to stability but her show was decidedly music-oriented. She left over the summer to join a nonprofit but will continue to do a weekend show.
About the Author
Rodney Ho writes about entertainment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution including TV, radio, film, comedy and all things in between. A native New Yorker, he has covered education at The Virginian-Pilot, small business for The Wall Street Journal and a host of beats at the AJC over 20-plus years. He loves tennis, pop culture & seeing live events.
