TylerChronicles and Ms. Basketball Exit The Big Tigger Morning Show on V-103, The Urban/Hip Hop Radio Format Will Never Be the Same

The Big Tigger Morning Show co-hosts Christina “Ms. Basketball” Granville and "TylerChronicles" (Troy Fluker) have exited V-103 WVEE Atlanta. The two hosts were brought in to solidify mornings, the most important daypart at any station, as the show transitioned from "The Morning Culture" with Big Tigger as lead host. Ratings are reportedly poor. The show has fallen below the top 10 and significantly trail The Steve Harvey Morning, The Frank Ski Show, Rickey Smiley, and The Breakfast Club.



Therefore the station which was consistently competing for the number one position or at number one for two decades, is hovering near tenth. Some of that may be attributed to the instability in the mornings. Some of it is media companies changing their focus.



Mornings have not been the same since Frank Ski seeking a national syndication deal left the station and then owners CBS Radio in 2012. He was hosting mornings since 1999. The station was winning. Ryan Cameron the afternoon hosts at V-103 was brought in to do mornings. Big Tigger was brought in to fill PM drive. Ryan was the king in the afternoons, but many thought "The Ryan King" did not click the way he did in the afternoons doing mornings. The station was never able to find the right co-hosts for him. They even tried Frank Ski's former co-hosts Wanda Smith and Miss Sophia. Ryan Cameron quit radio in 2018. Some say he aged out of the demo (18-34 and 25-54). By this time Frank Ski had returned to V-103 as a weekend part-time host, after having worked as afternoon host at WHUR in Washington, D.C. until 2015.




Frank Ski returned to mornings with Wanda Smith briefly. (The station was looking to return to its glory years, but then the Katt Williams fiasco happened.) Then the station came up with "The Morning Culture" concept with Frank Ski paired with radio newbies JR SportBrief and singer Jade Novah (who barely lasted three months). It fell flat. Frank Ski left the station for good in early 2020 and resurfaced at WHUR doing afternoons. Then six months later, Frank Ski became the morning host at Kiss 104.1 in February of 2021 while also doing afternoons in D.C. His co-host Nina Brown, who also works with him at WHUR, have very good numbers in the morning in Atlanta. It was Ryan Cameron who suggested to Frank Ski that Nina, a former behind the scenes producer at V-103, would make a great on-air co-host.(He was right.) Meanwhile Ryan is now doing afternoons at Majic 107.5/97.5. Both he and Frank Ski are doing much better ratings wise in their time slots at their respective stations compared to V-103.

#ICYMI: THE ♥️ IS REAL & we feel it daily! Big shout out to Ms. Rhonda for making us HER show! We couldn’t do this without our listening family. 📻 Thank you for locking in with us every day! We appreciate the phone calls, emails, DM’s, and social media shoutouts! Y’all the 💣! pic.twitter.com/ME7E081Z85

— Frank Ski Show (@FrankSkiShow) December 9, 2021

In terms of morning radio, that's a lot of turnover. Especially in Black radio and a station like V-103. 



Now it's management job to get the right person(s) in place around Big Tigger. But will they? Or care to? Or just let his contract expire? It will be interesting to see who Audacy will bring in to Atlanta. Audacy recently cut ties with Joe Clair, the morning host at WPGC 95.5 in Washington, D.C. V-103 and WPGC are similar in terms of the demo they are trying to reach. WPGC mornings are now hosted by veteran radio personality Guy Lambert, known for many years as the "news man" who worked for Donnie Simpson. Lambert is now also a local TV personality but he ain't hip hop. But honestly Audacy's fix in Atlanta seems to be to let Big Tigger go solo in the morning. It would have been a mistake to part ways with Big Tig at this point.





Numbers for urban/Hip Hop radio stations are down across the country. Which means they will stay down as a format for the foreseeable future unless someone sees the next Breakfast Club and a personality like Charlamagne on the horizon. So let's say it, media companies are done with trying to extract large amounts of revenue from their radio stations that play Hip Hop. The so little movement in terms of programming on urban/Hip Hop stations in big markets over the last year or so is telling. (don't blame the pandemic.) They're done with their urban radio division. Figuratively, not literally. (Oh the format is not going anywhere. Labels still need radio as a platform to release their product.) It's obvious it's no longer the go to it once was. Big stations like Hot 97 and Power 105.1 have the budgets to still command a presence in NYC, but once top stations across the country like V-103, Power 99, Hot 107.9, and WGCI are no longer the top dogs. 92Q WERQ-FM was always a top station in Baltimore. Not anymore. Urban/Hip Hop radio will continue to be streamlined and subject to even more cost cutting measures. They've realized that the audience has aged out and have abandon this format on the radio.) But many of these media companies are late to the podcast game. That's where they could have gone. 


They've given up on Gen Z's who are into Hip Hop. Although they would never give up on Pop radio. Keep that in mind.

 

They (let's call them the Hip Hop Gen Z's) damn sure know how to consume audio. They know how to consume sneakers, Ubers, Tik Tok, and Doordash. They know where to find music. They know podcasts. They know streaming. They know subscriptions. They know platforms. They know how to access them, when to access them, and where to access them. It's literally in their hand. Their hand. But they don't know how to consume radio.

And whose fault is that.