Kidd Kraddick in the Morning: Not your everyday cast of characters

Kidd Kraddick

The Kidd Kraddick in the Morning show is a hip, syndicated family friendly morning program out of Dallas. How did the show get started? Kidd was hired way back in 1993 after spending nine years doing CHR on KEGL. They changed the format to rock and replaced him with Howard Stern. He was sitting around with a year left on his contract, figuring out what to do next. That year, over a hundred stations had switched format away from CHR but Gannett was convinced the format would work in Dallas so they switched their jazz station to CHR and put Kidd on in the morning. The station was in 26th place in morning drive so he did a “Worst to First” campaign, personally handing out about five thousand t-shirts to listeners with ad-hoc drive-throughs in Target parking lots. They really played up how lowly-rated they were. He would routinely call the station in 25th place (a Music of Your Life format) and tell the deejay there he was taking him down. They played it like the underdog that they were and it worked. The station was number one in the market within 18 months. Six months later he added Kellie Rasberry and a year after that, he brought on Big Al Mack.

They’re both still with him today. Here we ask Kidd about the “rest of the story”:

What’s the draw/appeal with listeners?

That’s always a hard thing to quantify but if I had to put my finger on it I would say it is that we are very personal with our audience, whether it’s local or national. We really are committed to letting our listeners get to know us, flaws and all. More than benchmark bits, music, or stunts, the people on the show are the draw.
The audience has experienced the many changes in our lives…marriage, childbirth, divorce, eating disorders, A.D.D., child custody, suicide, etc. All of our triumphs and failures are there for our listeners to hear. Beyond that, I think we have a voice on the show for everyone…from teens and young adults with Taylor and JC (both 23 years old) all the way up to empty nesters. Also, our show has been fortunate enough to develop personal relationships with many celebrities and they join the show almost daily. We are committed to big contesting which gives our affiliates a huge advantage over their local competition.

What are your main target demos?

We are focused on 18-49 year old women. That sounds broad but in Dallas we’ve been lucky enough to be number one in virtually every demo from teens to 35-54. A trade magazine reported this year that our numbers in Dallas-Fort Worth over the last 5 years make us the single-most dominant morning show in any top ten market.

Where did you find all of your co-hosts? Tell us a bit about them—any funny stories?

Kellie came to me from a tiny station in Florence, SC. I got a tape from a night guy there and Kellie had a crush on him so she would hang out with him in the studio and chime in once in a while. When I listened to this guy’s tape, it was her POV that really stood out. I flew her in and tried her out on the air and hired her two weeks later. Kellie is the most honest woman you’ll ever hear on the radio.

Big Al’s hiring was also a bit unconventional. He was a client of the station and would come on a couple times a week and voice live commercials for his limousine business. We had good chemistry and after a few months, I decided to put him on full time. I liked the fact that we could joke about our diversity and have everybody represented.

JC is the young male voice on the show. He’s an irreverent, sensitive and funny guy who had never had a full time job in radio when we found him in San Diego. He grew up dirt-poor in Mexico and he’s been a huge inspiration to his family and to all of our first generation American listeners. His “Take This Job and Shove It” job interview bits are becoming legendary.

Taylor is our young female voice who actually won her job. Last year, we had a reality competition called “Radio Dream Job”. Six candidates for the job lived in a high rise apartment for three weeks and competed against each other in a sort-of radio Olympics.

She was the clear winner and after her six month stint was up, we re-signed her. She’s the voice of young single women and is super passionate about music, fashion and everything else girls her age are into.

What do you do to help affiliates in each of your markets?

The most significant thing we do for affiliates is customize the show for their market. I think it’s important for each station’s audience to know that we know what’s happening in their city. We actually call affiliates and beg for local material if we feel we’re not getting enough. When you first put our show on, we’re able to use local liners extensively to mitigate the shock of a new show on the station.

Here’s a good example from B97/New Orleans that it works; after Katrina we raised over half-a-million dollars in a single show for hurricane relief. We then did remotes from the city (back when the airport only had one flight per day) and let the listeners know that even though we didn’t live there, we were feeling their pain. That fall, at a time when you would think local radio would dominate, we had our biggest ratings ever.

What extra promotions do you do with the show beyond being behind the mic every morning?

We’re very contest-oriented and want to offer our affiliates the type of promotions and prizes that their local competitors can’t match. For the third year in a row, we’re giving away a trip to the Caribbean every single morning. Also, I think we’re using the internet better than radio is accustomed. Our site (kiddlive.com) is filled with exclusive videos starring our cast. This type of exclusive content has driven our hits way up. Finally, because of our celebrity ties, we can offer listeners private in-studio concerts with huge artists and movie junkets to actually meet their Hollywood heroes.

Editor’s note: This article is archived from 12/07