Country station 94.9/The Bull is making some major moves, moving long-time morning host Kristen Gates to afternoons while pairing former “Bert Show” host Brian Moote with Jeremy “Otis” Maher.
Moote is the fourth former “Bert Show” cast member who is competing directly with Bert Weiss, heard on Q99.7 going back 21 years.
“I hate competing against friends,” Weiss said. “But I understand a man has to make a living.”
Moote was on the Bert Show from 2016 to 2018 and opted for a major morning show in Los Angeles that didn’t end up working out. He became morning host at Dallas country station 99.5 The Wolf from 2020 until March of this year.
Weiss has also previously competed with former Bert Show host Melissa Carter, who was a morning host at B98.5 from 2013 to 2017. Jeff Dauler and Jen Hobby, also key members of the Bert Show during its rise in the 2000s, teamed up on Star 94 in 2016 and were together for three years. Dauler was cut in 2019 and has since gone into full-time podcasting with his wife. Hobby has stayed at Star and continues to host mornings.
Maher returned to the Bull as music director and afternoon host last November after previously holding that job from February 2017 to November 2020.
Kristen Gates, a long-time morning host with the Bull going back to 2008, will now host afternoons from 2 to 7 p.m.
She had previously been part of the morning show with Jason Pullman (now mid-days at rival New Country 101.5) from 2008 to 2018 and Spencer Graves, who was cut in December without explanation after three years. The Bull in recent months has seen its ratings nosedive in relation to New Country 101.5, which has seen a renaissance with its morning show J.J. Kincaid and Dallas McCade.
Before that, she worked many years on the morning show at 101.5, which was then called Kicks.
“I’m ugly crying as I type this,” Gates wrote on the Bull website Monday. “Not because I’m sad. I’m so appreciative. I’m so humbled. I’m beyond grateful. I’m walking away from this incredible experience with so much more maturity and self-worth and strength and love than I ever could have imagined.”
In the most recent April ratings month, New Country had a 4.5 share, good for seventh place. The Bull was in a tie for 13th as 3.1 share with Star.
UPDATE: On June 3, the show announced a third member: Chicago native Kimmie Caruba, who was last working in Hawaii.
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