Melissa Carter leaves B98.5 morning show after three-plus years

This was posted on Tuesday, February 28, 2017 by Rodney Ho on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog

After three and a half years,  Melissa Carter  is off the air on B98.5's morning show.

The morning host veteran has nearly six months left on her current contract.  Norm Schrutt , her agent, said Carter wanted to give the adult pop station time to find a replacement while staying on air but the station decided otherwise. Carter will remain employed with the station through August but it's unclear if she will have any active role. 

Carter, who declined to comment, built her radio career first being a news reader with the Morning X on alternative rock station 99X, then as part of the Bert Show on Q100 for a decade  until 2011.  She was the first openly gay morning radio host in Atlanta.

She initially planned to leave radio permanently but circumstances changed. She joined B98.5 in the summer of 2013  with   Jeff Elliott   as the new morning show,  replacing   Vikki Locke   and   Kelly Stevens . Last year,  Elliott was replaced by   Tad Lemire,   a close friend of program director   Chris Eagan .

Lemire will remain in place on mornings until a replacement is found for Carter. 

The morning show averaged a 3.4 rating in 2016 among 25 to 54 year olds and finished January with the same exact rating, ranking 12th in the market.

Think you can do the job? Eagan, in an email, wrote: "We have posted an opening to find a new co-host to join Tad Lemire mornings on B98.5.  It went out to industry trades this morning."

Here's the posting.

And here's a summary of the needs:

Description

The morning show co-host will be responsible for contributing to the prep, planning, execution, and promotion of a PPM-friendly female-targeted morning show on Atlanta's heritage AC station.  Work closely with the program director, other members of the morning show, promotions dept., digital content dept., sales management to create a winning show that's highly visible on the street.

 

Responsibilities:

• Be the co-host on a live morning show weekdays from 5-9am with additional weekends shifts or voice tracking at the direction of the program director.
• Responsible for creating digital content that can be shared on the station's website, social media channels etc. to further promote the morning show and station overall.  
• Appear at community events to promote the morning show / radio station as well as paid sales appearances at various client locations.

Qualifications

• 3-5 years morning show experience and proven ratings success in a medium to major market. 
• Candidate should have in depth knowledge of the AC or Hot AC format.  Must demonstrate a knowledge of blogging, Facebook, Instagram and other digital platforms.  
• Also must have a proven track -record of integrating well with the sales dept.

Jeff Dauler, her former Bert Show colleague now at Star 94.1, posted an item on Facebook later that day:

You may have heard the news that B98.5FM has taken Melissa Carter off their morning show. This disappoints me professionally, because she was not the problem with that station or show. And it disappoints me personally because she is one of the finest human beings I know and deserves to be treated better than she is being treated.

I know Jenn and I are going to get questions about working with Melissa again. And that is not something anyone can address for a while. Melissa has a non-compete provision in her contract that means we can't even have a conversation about that for several months at the soonest.

But I would like to invite anyone looking for a new morning show home because of this change to spend some time with the Jeff and Jenn Show. We'd love to entertain you as you start your day.

B98.5 and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution are both part of Cox Media Group.