Posted Tuesday, December 19, 2017 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Boom 102.9's syndicated morning show Ed Lover with Monie Love is over at the end of the month after two years.
Mitch Henry, manager of network operations for Reach Media, confirmed the show's pending demise today. He said the final new show will air Friday on Boom 102.9 and a few other stations with "best of" segments airing next week. The show is produced out of Atlanta at Radio One downtown studios down the hallway from Rickey Smiley's syndicated show studios.
Lover was best known for his time as host of "Yo! MTV Raps" and Monie Love is an early classic hip-hop legend.
"Funny is funny," Lover said in early 2016 soon after the show debuted. "As long as we're funny, people will relate to us."
Henry had high hopes for the show but it didn't meet ratings expectations. He noted that for now, Lover will continue to host a weekend show, which is heard in about 20 markets.
The morning show reached 10 or 11 affiliates at its peak but only has about five now.
Lover's departure has fueled speculation that Radio One, which has majority ownership of Tom Joyner's Reach Media syndicated radio company, is going to change its classic hip-hop format at 102.9 to an old-school R&B format and add Joyner's show to that station in the new year. Kiss 104.1 recently dropped Joyner after more than 20 years there for a local show led by Art Terrell with Roy Wood Jr. contributing. (Joyner recently said he plans to retire in two years.)
UPDATE: On Friday before Christmas, Boom became Classix I suspect the fact I let the cat out of bag early forced them to change the format sooner
The old-school format, which favors songs from the 1970s and 1980s, was recently dropped by Steve Hegwood's Old School 87.7 in favor of the younger sounding Mix 87.7, which now spins more songs from the past 15 years and no longer airs 1970s cuts.
Henry declined to comment about the future of Boom, saying that was Radio One's side of the business. "Hurricane" Dave Smith, vice president of programming and operations in Atlanta for Radio One, didn't respond to a text message.
Boom is not a terribly strong signal and typically draws around a 1 rating, ranking it about 25th in the market. Its closest rival OG 97.9 tends to bring in higher ratings. In October, it drew a 1.3 rating, ranked 24th. Among 25 to 54 year olds, Boom in October drew a 1.4 (22nd) compared to 1.9 for OG 97.9 (19th).
The station was simulcast on 97.5 early last year but its much bigger sister station Majic 107.5 lost so many listeners by relinquishing that signal, Radio One gave 97.5 back to Majic a few months later.
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