Star 94, after several years hosting a ticketed Jingle Jam concert at Gwinnett Arena, last year opted for a smaller free concert at Center Stage featuring Train, Plain White T’s and Christina Perri.

This year, they’ve brought the concert back to Gwinnett Arena Dec. 13, this time headlined by Daughtry, with Big Time Rush, Matt Nathanson and Parachute as the rock band’s openers.

[UPDATE: 10/27/11: The station has added to the lineup the Irish pop rock band The Script, which has two big hits "Breakeven" and "For the First Time" and a current single "Nothing."]

This will be at least the fourth time Star has hosted a show with an “American Idol” finalist. Daughtry, a band headed by season five contestant Chris Daughtry, is promoting its upcoming third album “Break the Spell” and has a current Hot AC hit “Crawling Back to You.” Since 2006, the band has collected eight previous hits under its belt, including “It’s Not Over,” “What About Now” and “No Surprise.”

Big Time Rush, the pop …

Continue reading Star 94’s Jingle Jam returns to Gwinnett Arena Dec. 13: Daughtry, Big Time Rush, the Script, Matt Nathanson »

Adele bumped off Maroon 5’s two-week run at the top of Atlanta radio with her latest single, the heart-wrenching “Someone Like You.”

Like “Rolling in the Deep,” which remains in the top 10, “Someone Like You” is getting airplay across an array of formats: Star 94 (65 spins), B98.5 (27 spins), Wild 105.7 (98), Q100 (90) and Dave FM (29). Those 309 spins beats “Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 5 by eight spins over the past seven days. That means you’ll hear the song every 40 minutes in Atlanta.

Here are the top 10 most played radio songs in Atlanta:

1. Adele “Someone Like You” 309 (+56)
2. Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera “Moves Like Jagger” 301 (+23)
3. Gym Class Heroes “Stereo Hearts” featuring Adam Levine “Stereo Hearts” 209 (+3)
4. Foster the People “Pumped Up Kicks” 187 (-19)
5. LMFAO “Party Rock Anthem” 163 (-5)
6. Drake “Headlines” 157 (+23)
7. Cobra Starship “You Make Me Feel…” 154 (-3)
8. Jay Z & Kanye West “N**** in Paris” 152 (+18)
9. Lil Wayne “She Will” 151 …

Continue reading Adele’s back on top of Atlanta radio with ‘Someone Like You’ »

Former American Idol runner-up and Broadway star Diana DeGarmo will be playing Angelina, the Jersey-girl daughter of mob boss Angelo Veneziano (Mike Starr). She starts Oct. 31.

Former Snellville resident Diana DeGarmo possesses a soaring, powerful voice — which is why she came in second on “American Idol” seven years ago and has built a steady career in Broadway productions from “Hair” to “Hairspray.”

But she’s facing perhaps her biggest career challenge as she plays “Angelina” on the most popular soap opera, CBS’s “The Young and the Restless,” starting Monday, October 31. Her character — a mob boss’s daughter with an over-the-top, Snooki-like attitude and look from “Jersey Shore” — shows up wanting to become a professional singer. The truth is, Angelina can’t sing a lick.

“I have to place myself in a different mindset,” DeGarmo said from Los Angeles during a rehearsal break last week. “As a singer, you automatically find the …

Continue reading Diana DeGarmo talks about channeling her inner Snooki on ‘Young & the Restless’ »

Former CBS Atlanta weather forecaster Dagmar Midcap left Atlanta more than a year ago, distraught over a former boyfriend’s suicide.

The Vancouver native moved to Los Angeles, hired an agent and began seeking jobs. A couple months ago, in an interview, she said she’d prefer to do something outside of TV news but was willing to go back if need be.

Alas, that’s where she has landed: the NBC affiliate in San Diego.

She covered 4, 5, 6, 7 and 11 p.m. newscasts starting today.

“They’re so nice here, some of the friendliest people I’ve ever seen,” Midcap said in an interview this evening. “There’s a sense of family. They’re really easy going.”

CBS Atlanta, in comparison, was “a very tense, miserable environment,” she said. She spent three years at the station and gained a following with her warm, syrupy voice and sweater choices.

With her new job in the pleasant climes of San Diego, Midcap found a place to live three blocks from the water in Del Mar. “It’s a magical place,” she …

Continue reading Former CBS Atlanta weather person Dagmar Midcap lands a new job in San Diego »

Melanie Amaro does her thing on the first live show and makes it through to the top 12 easily. CREDIT: Fox

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I had some personal issues to deal with Tuesday night and couldn’t recap the show immediately. I’ll have to do it in the morning. Sorry ’bout that. Feel free to comment about it though.

Good news from what I heard: the two people Simon should not have put through in the first place, Simone Battle and Tiah Tolliver, were ousted during the first live show. Unfortunately, country-ish teen duo The Brewer Boys were cut while standards singer Phillip Lomax and histrionics-filled James Brown/Mick Jagger sound-a-like Dexter Haygood were rightfully ousted as well.

My DVR last night did not tape “X Factor” so I’m having to watch this on YouTube so I’m watching the 17 out of order.

I was …

Continue reading ‘X Factor’ first live show top 17 recap »

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The seven couples did a Broadway group dance on Monday. CREDIT: ABC

Chaz Bono, the most controversial celebrity on this season’s cast of “Dancing With the Stars,” took his last dance Tuesday night after getting the lowest scores among the seven remaining contestants.

Bono, a transgender man who was born Chastity, lasted six weeks, far longer than many people expected. His tango to “The Phantom of the Opera” gave him the lowest score this past week with a 19. This was the third time he had the lowest judges score but the first time his fans couldn’t lift him from the basement.

“This was an amazing journey,” he said after he was eliminated, “that really pushed me and showed me I could do more than I ever thought I could.” He later dedicated his effort to …

Continue reading Who was out sixth on ‘Dancing With the Stars’? »

CREDIT: AMC

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Metro Atlanta should be seeing more soul-crushing zombies around next year because AMC has quickly renewed “The Walking Dead” for a third season just two episodes into season two.

The zombie drama drew 7.3 million viewers week one and another 6.7 million this past Sunday, excellent retention for a second week. Its 18-49 demo numbers are better than most broadcast network shows with a 3.6 share this past Sunday, better than “Desperate Housewives” and “The Amazing Race,” to name a couple of competitors.

Given those numbers, a quick renewal is not a surprise. AMC did the same thing a year ago, renewing the show after two episodes.

Its ratings are more than triple that of  “Mad Men.”

“Today we are pleased to announce that the ‘dead’ shall live as we proudly renew ‘The Walking Dead’ for a third season on AMC and, globally, with our …

Continue reading AMC renews ‘The Walking Dead’ for a third season »

Lisa Ling CREDIT: AP

In some circles, Lisa Ling is best known as that Asian-American woman who was on “The View” and isn’t Lucy Liu. But Ling left that chat show nearly a decade ago.

Since then, she has pursued what she really loves: serious, in-depth journalism.

You can now see her every Sunday night on “Our America With Lisa Ling” on the new OWN network where she tackles subjects ranging from sex offenders to transgendered people to online brides. She is currently in her second season, having already aired hours focused on amateur porn (with time in Georgia) and modern polygamy.

Next up this Sunday: sex trafficking, followed later by an hour a week later on post-traumatic stress disorder among war veterans.

She is also doing a piece on African-Americans in prison, spending time in Georgia.

“I don’t want people to watch this and be aghast by the numbers,” she said earlier this month after she spoke at the O You! conference at the Georgia World Congress Center. “I want people …

Continue reading Lisa Ling loves digging into America’s issues on OWN »

Scott Wilson plays vet Hershel on "The Walking Dead." CREDIT: AMC

From “Dead Man Walking” to “The Walking Dead,” Atlanta native Scott Wilson has made the acting rounds over 44 years. But at age 69, he’s still very much alive, a classic “character” actor you recognize but whose name you can’t quite place.

“I have people who come up to me who think we went to high school in places I’ve never been,” Wilson said in an interview last week.

On ‘The Walking Dead,” he plays the seemingly avuncular veterinarian, Hershel Greene, who owns a farm where Rick Grimes and his ragtag group of survivors use as a sanctuary for at least a few episodes. Wilson’s character was introduced this past Sunday as he helped save the life of Rick’s son Carl, who was shot accidentally by one of Wilson’s cohorts in the first episode of season two.

Hershel took a bullet fragment out of Carl’s side but said he needed more medical equipment to ensure Carl’s survival. The guy who shot Carl and Rick’s best …

Continue reading A talk with Atlanta native Scott Wilson, who plays Hershel on ‘The Walking Dead’ »

I’ve been covering Atlanta radio for a decade, through the rise of top 40 Q100 and gospel station Praise, the fall of 99X and deaths of Lite 94.9, Smooth Jazz 107.5 and 96rock. Revenues rose, then fell sharply.  Syndicated shows by the likes of Rickey Smiley, Elvis Duran and Steve Harvey popped up. There have been plenty of big stories but in celebration of my ten years here, I’ve compiled the top 12 most unusual radio-related stories. I couldn’t make any of them up. Some are sad, some are funny, some are just plain odd.

12. Ralph From Ben Hill’s comeback gets shortchanged: Ralph From Ben Hill was a brazen presence on WGST-AM in the late 1970s and 1980s as a regular caller. The station hired him in 1989 for his own show, where he espoused a volatile mix of black nationalism and social conservatism before getting canned in 1994. In late 2001, he was embarking on a comeback at WAOK-AM, which was news/talk at the time. One week in, though, he sounded incoherent on air, battling …

Continue reading Top 12 strangest Atlanta radio stories of the past decade »