Rickey Smiley Addresses Messy Headline From AJC & The Morning Hustle [EXCLUSIVE AUDIO]

Rickey Smiley clears up headlines posted by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Reporter Rodney Ho published an article with the headline, "Headkrack’s morning show replacing Rickey Smiley at Hot 107.9 next month" which Rickey felt was dismissive and messy. (Updated post: Rickey has more to say after the show: see below.)

Atlanta's Hot 107.9 tweets out the change in their morning show. (WE have more to say on this.)

The Morning Hustle Starts January 11th! https://t.co/Q4BrXloAgz

— Hot 107.9 Atlanta (@hot1079atl) December 16, 2020

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The article, which we read, was messy in the way it tried to insinuate that Hot 107.9 was replacing The Rickey Smiley Show with The Morning Hustle due to poor ratings. Clearly, as we wrote yesterday in our story, the change is just a matter of fit. One station is a Hip Hop and R&B station and the other is an Adult R&B station. That's it.

Besides the whole idea that ratings matter when it comes to radio, especially Black radio stations is false. PPM, Arbitron now Nielsen's don't mean as much as people think. Never did for Black radio. In Atlanta, for instance, a big deal is made when WSB or The Fish 104.7 make it to number one; but let it be Hot 107.9 in a certain key demo, or overall like V-103, Majic 107.5/97.5, or Kiss 104.1 make it to number one. There is not a mention of it in the press. Ask sales people at Black radio stations if it matters when competing against the so-called big boys. (Wait, the Black radio stations are the big boys. iHeart, Entercom, Beasley, Cumulus, whomever own Black radio. The only one that was started by Black person, Cathy Hughes, is Radio One.)  It's all about perception on the advertisers part anyways and in many cases it don't matter!

Same is the case in other cities like Chicago, New York, or Philadelphia. Let it be V103, WBLS or Mega 97.9, and WDAS-FM reaching number one. The competitors dismiss it. But of course management is quick to show ratings numbers to an on-air personality when they are ready to make a change.

All in all we find it laughable in our story from yesterday when Troi Torain went at Ebro in the Morning over numbers. Star claims to have the receipts! Ebro and Rosenberg are solid in New York City on Hot 97 and their other various platforms. Any website or writers of radio media who picked up on the AJC story have to kind of think that the AJC writer has an axe to grind with Rickey Smiley or Radio One. The headline and the story just wasn't accurate.

Shout out to Headkrack for the retweet of our story. We try to be fair in our posts at all times and we addressed the "nosedive" comment. As for Rickey Smiley, making the transition from Hip Hop to Urban Adult Contemporary is a hard thing. To make people laugh everyday is a hard thing also. 

Prayers up for show member Pastor Fred.