Former Bert Show host Kristin Klingshirn lands a new job

Three months after the end of the popular “Bert Show” in the mornings on Q99.7, Kristin Klingshirn will return to the pop station weekday afternoons.

For the first time, the former “Bert Show” co-host will helm her own show. Dubbed “The Kristin Show,” it will debut Monday, Jan. 26 and will air from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Her co-host has yet to be announced.

“I got a little choked up this week while finalizing the logo” for the show, she wrote in a text interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday. “This accomplishment has been over 20 years in the making. That logo represents a lot of blood, sweat and tears.”

Klingshirn, a Lexington, Kentucky native, worked for radio stations in Lexington; Cincinnati; and Raleigh, North Carolina, before joining the Bert Show in 2011. She became Bert Weiss’ longest-running co-host providing the show‘s effervescent sidekick vibes.

Weiss built “The Bert Show” into a ratings blockbuster in the 2000s, drawing female listeners by focusing on “being real” and delving into the personal lives of its listeners and the hosts themselves. Klingshirn came soon after Weiss began syndicating the show, which expanded into several other markets like Indianapolis and Nashville.

Last year, Weiss decided to retire from radio, saying he had lost his passion for it. He is now focused on his family, traveling and running an independent podcast company.

Klingshirn, who became close friends with Weiss, said she knew about his intentions for two years and even discussed possible transition ideas for the Bert Show with him.

The Bert Show host Bert Weiss (left), and co-host Kristin Klingshirn (right), posed with a Bert’s Big Adventure child during a family welcome night event at the Renaissance Concourse Atlanta Airport Hotel in 2019. The nonprofit sponsored Your Space Virtual Race on July 4 that year. (Contributed by Bert’s Big Adventure)

But “Cumulus had alternate plans,” Klingshirn wrote, referencing Q99.7’s parent company. “I’m grateful those plans include me and I can flex all I learned from ‘The Bert Show’ in the afternoons.”

Weiss, who didn’t respond to a text for comment, is someone “I hold in such high esteem,” Klingshirn said. “The fact he believes I can do this and do it well makes me believe maybe I actually can.”

Q99.7 chose not to give Klingshirn a slot in the mornings to take over the “Bert Show” slot. So far, the station has not announced a replacement, playing music in the mornings in the interim.

Brian Philips, chief content officer for Atlanta-based Cumulus Media, which owns Q99.7, didn’t provide a reason why management decided not to place Klingshirn in the mornings.

“You know us,” Philips wrote the AJC in a brief text. “Always working to change up the mix a bit.”

On The Bert Show Q99.7 float, Kristin Klingshirn spreads confetti during the Atlanta Pride Parade on Sunday, Oct. 9, 2022. (Jenni Girtman for the AJC)

For Klingshirn, who is married with a young son, the hours will certainly be better. She hopes to transfer the knowledge she built entertaining fans in the mornings to the afternoons. At the same time, she is unsure if listeners expect anything different in the afternoon versus the morning. “That’s definitely something I’ll learn as I go,” she said.

And while radio has lost audience to podcasts and Spotify, Klingshirn doesn’t think core radio fans have changed. “They want an escape from the heaviness of the world,” she said. “Something that adds, doesn’t detract, from their life.”

In a press release, Cumulus market manager Justin Schaflander noted that “her passion for this city and her commitment to using her platform for good are exactly what Q99.7 stands for.”