Rock 100.5 is following the lead of its sister station Q99.7 and adding an afternoon personality-focused show — featuring Axel Lowe and “Southside” Steve Rickman.
The “Axel & Southside” show begins Monday from 3 to 7 p.m.
“Same great ROCK, but a few less songs mixed with lots of content, lots of laughs, lots of big-name rock star interviews and lots of phone calls,” wrote Lowe, who is also the station’s program director, in a memo to staff this week obtained exclusively by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I’m excited for Atlanta to hear it!”
The morning show also features producer Bryan Mozina, who goes by Mo on the air.
Lowe cited the success of Top 40 station Q99.7′s year-old personality-based afternoon show featuring Jade Jones and Moe Mitchell, who does double duty as morning co-host on the syndicated Bert Show.
Both Q99.7 and Rock 100.5 are owned by Atlanta-based Cumulus Media, the second largest radio company in the country.
The first show Monday featured an interview with blues/rock guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd.
Rickman is a survivor at the station. He was the last original morning show host left at Rock 100.5 since it launched in 2008. He was a longtime member of the Regular Guys morning show, which came from the defunct 96rock but over time splintered, then disappeared completely in 2014. (Tim Andrews and Eric Von Haessler, two former key members of the Regular Guys, now are part of a successful news/talk show on WSB radio (News 95.5 and AM 750 WSB) from 9 a.m. to noon. Larry Wachs is no longer in radio.)
From 2014 until last year, Rickman was a co-host with Jason Bailey during mornings, and the pair had some really strong ratings years though numbers wilted the past couple of years.
Lowe is also a radio survivor. He was the afternoon jock on the original 99X from 1992 to 2008. He transitioned to Rock 100.5 as afternoon host in 2008, then returned to 99X on a secondary signal for two years.
In 2012, he returned to Rock 100.5 to man afternoons but added the title of assistant program director. Two years later, he also became program director of a Cumulus rock station in Cincinnati called 96 Rock (not to be confused with the former Atlanta station.) While there, he continued hosting an evening show on Rock 100.5.
In 2019, Lowe came back to Atlanta to take over program director duties and took back his afternoon slot on air from Jesse Kage, who is now a real estate agent in Florida. He repositioned the station’s music to a more active rock sound. He also was part of the management team that dismantled the most recent iteration of the morning show, which featured Rickman, Bailey and Brandi Britain. Britain was let go last year, followed soon after by Bailey. Nate Hanson, the popular producer, also left for Mexico.
For the past few months, Lowe has been filling in mornings with Rickman.
“Well be debuting an exciting new morning show in the next few weeks,” Lowe wrote in the memo. “Until then, we’ll have music in the morning with lots of imaging informing our ROCK family of the Axel & Southside Show in PM Drive and teasing the new morning show that’s coming very soon (mid February.).”
Lowe didn’t return a text seeking additional comment. His boss Brian Phillips, who worked with Lowe in the 1990s during 99X’s heyday, and Rickman didn’t answer texts on Friday either.
Personality-based afternoon shows are usually more expensive to run than music-focused shows but are not unprecedented in Atlanta. R&B/hip-hop station V-103 had one for many years helmed by Ryan Cameron, who continues to do a comparable show at Majic 107.5/97.5. Q99.7 rival Star 94 in the 2000s had a strong afternoon personality show featuring Cindy Simmons and Ray Mariner.
And arguably, Lowe’s predecessor Kage with his “Kage Kult” in afternoons was very much a big personality himself.
Rock 100.5, which lacks the metro-wide signal of classic rock station 97.1/The River, regularly lags far behind the River in ratings though Rickman and Bailey in mornings had moments where they generated big audiences about five years ago.
In the most recent Nielsen monthly ratings book, Rock 100.5 generated a 1.5 share, good for a tie for 18th place in the market. The River was third with a 7.3 share behind only R&B station Kiss (7.4) and Christian pop station Fish 104.7 (8.8), which was playing Christmas music for most of that time period.
Bailey, who was the primary content producer when he was on the Rock 100.5 morning show, is currently building his own podcast network and provides content seven days a week, some free and some subscription based.
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