Bert Weiss is upset that one of his best friends give him the heads up he would be competing against Bert. CREDIT: Rodney Ho/rho@ajc.com

Q100’s Bert Weiss told his radio listeners this morning he was deeply upset with one of his best friends, who didn’t tell Weiss he’d be competing against him on morning radio in Atlanta.

That man is Jimmy Alexander, a co-host on the Jack Diamond morning show in D.C. at Mix 107.3. Last Friday, Alexander signed a contract to co-host a morning show with Cindy Simmons on Star 94, a rival of Q100. (Alexander’s start date is not set yet but he should be on air before the end of the year. Cindy herself just had a baby 9n Monday.)

Weiss, who worked on that same Diamond show before he came to Q100 in 2001, didn’t find out about Alexander’s new job until he read about it… on this blog.

Weiss told listeners he was upset that Alexander would even compete against him at all. But he was more peeved that Alexander didn’t call him ahead of time. That was …

Continue reading Q100’s Bert Weiss, blindsided, upset best friend Jimmy Alexander is now a radio rival on Star 94 »

Rashan Ali has a new radio gig at Streetz 94.5 hosting mornings. CREDIT: Rodney Ho/rho@ajc.com

 Loading …

Streetz 94.5, a new hip-hop station that debuted in June, has hired its first morning host: former Hot 107.9 personality Rashan Ali.

She starts Thursday, Nov. 1 from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. with expected guests such as B.o.B, Bobby Valentino and  Yung Joc.

[UPDATE 11/1/12: Jay Tek has been added as an afternoon personality, who starts today from 2 to 6 p.m.]

Ali’s last radio gig was with V-103, where she spent a year as co-host with Ryan Cameron in the afternoons until March, 2011.

She began her career under the tutelage of Cameron at Hot 107.9, then stayed on after he left in 2004 for V-103. She remained as part of Hot’s “The A Team” for about four years until 2008. She left Hot in 2009.

Her former Hot …

Continue reading Rashan Ali hired as new morning host for Streetz 94.5 Nov. 1 »

Cindy Simmons (second to left) is a breast-cancer survivor and is on the current cover of Best Self magazine.

Star 94 morning host Cindy Simmons had her second daughter Luna James Monday at Northside Hospital.

She tweeted yesterday: “Didn’t sleep a wink…too in love watching my new little girl sleep. Luna James born yesterday! 7pds 11ounces 21 inches. #ProudMomma”

She kept a baby blog on the Star 94 website if you want more details of her pregnancy.

Her oldest daughter is Lily Jane, born on July 22, 2005.

Simmons got married last year for a second time to Eric Carnell. (You can see wedding photos here.)

Her agent Norm Schrutt told me last week he wasn’t sure when she’d be back on air but he said her break won’t be especially long, especially with new co-host Jimmy Alexander joining the crew soon.

Simmons has been a morning host with Star for more than three years and an employee with the station for eight years.

And here’s a challenge for folks who like to make gratuitously …

Continue reading Star 94’s Cindy Simmons has her second daughter Luna James »

Kirstie Alley survived another week on "DWTS: All Stars." CREDIT: AP

 Loading …

Sabrina who?

If you missed out on the Disney “Cheetah Girls’ franchise, Sabrina Bryan is just a pretty girl who has really great dance skills who somehow made it on “Dancing With the Stars: All Stars.” She came in seventh season five because so many people didn’t know her and her personality didn’t stand out.

That happened again tonight. For the first time that I can recall, the top-rated dancer was canned. In fact, she had the highest average score after seven dances with a 27.1. That means she averaged a 9 every dance with every judge. Amazing.

And to top it off, Bryan garnered a perfect score Monday night for her emotional rumba. “This is the true beauty of dance,” said Carrie Ann Inaba.

Her lack of fans did her in and she ended up coming in eighth. The judges looked stunned, as …

Continue reading Who is out on ‘Dancing with the Stars’? »

For the fourth consecutive fund drive, 90.1/WABE-FM broke a listener campaign pledge drive record, pulling in nearly $1,5 million over two weeks ending Oct. 26.

The preliminary total – $1,487,565 – was up 12.3 percent from the fall 2011 campaign and 41 percent over five years.

The non-commercial NPR affiliate also drew a record 15,468 individual donors, about 900 more than during the spring drive.

John Weatherford, chief operating officer, said recent comments by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney about eliminating federal support of stations like his may have fueled more donors.

He also said the station changed the messaging to say that if someone doesn’t want a “premium” gift like a tote bag, they don’t have to take it. As a result, the percentage of people taking gifts dropped from 30 percent to a preliminary estimate of just 17 percent. Obviously, if the station doesn’t have to send out a gift, it can save money.

All pledge money, he said, go directly into …

Continue reading WABE-FM has another record-breaking campaign drive with nearly $1.5 million in pledges »

David Morrissey gives The Governor a depth of malevolence that's hard to fathom. CREDIT: AMC

“The Walking Dead” finally gets itself a real human villain in all its shades of darkness: The Governor. David Morrissey is yet another British actor, along with lead Andrew Lincoln, to grace the show with his presence.

During a press conference Monday, Morrissey talked a bit about his character and how he doesn’t see him as a cult leader, rather as a good leader “whether we like it or not.”

He listened to a lot of different Southerners to create his accent, which is actually relatively mild compared to, say, Kyra Sedgwick’s honey-dropped Brenda Leigh Johnson. He admits that a few syllables here and there may have been cribbed from Bill Clinton.

He also said we will get some back story about the Governor in bits and pieces.

As a Brit, he was taken aback a bit by the heat here, though relatively speaking the summer of 2012 wasn’t nearly as bad as 2010 or 2011. “It’s very hot,” he said. …

Continue reading David Morrissey (’The Governor’) talks ‘The Walking Dead’ and the ‘man cave’ »

Khloe Kardashian is going to be an "X Factor" co host. Can she do better than Steve Jones? Having Mario Lopez there should help. CREDIT: AP

With the San Francisco Giants sweeping the Detroit Tigers in the World Series, Fox’s schedule has opened up so they have moved up “The X Factor” top 16 live show to Wednesday, Oct. 31 and the top 12 reveal on Thursday Nov. 1.

We get to see Khloe Kardashian and Mario Lopez in action as co-hosts and be terribly judgmental about it. Mario is a pro at this hosting work. Khloe? Who knows?

***

Carrie Underwood is one of the performers at the American Music Awards on Nov. 18.

***

Phillip Phillips talks to the Hollywood Reporter about his upcoming album “The World From the Side of the Moon,” due out Nov. 19. That album title is a lyric from his song “Man on the Moon.” They did the album in three weeks.  He did it in New York City, which he likes more than Los Angeles.

His single “Home” is on the verge of the top 20 on the CHR chart.  In the …

Continue reading ‘X Factor’ first live show debuting Oct. 31, not Nov. 1; Kelly Clarkson, Phillip Phillips updates »

Clear Channel has chosen to turn a limited translator signal at 92.3 FM into a comedy channel starting at noon today. I have no other details at the moment but it was last where news/talk WGST-AM had been until that turned into Hispanic sports talk earlier this month.

Here’s a memo being sent out:

Hi,
We are excited to announce a New Comedy Radio station in Atlanta on 92.3 FM. We will
launch at noon today. Let me know if you have any questions. Looking forward to helping you
laugh throughout your day! LOL

A press release later quotes the elusive Matt Scarano, the new head of Clear Channel Atlanta: (Hey Matt! I’d love to introduce myself to you. Please call me or email me at rho@ajc.com. As you and your administrative assistant know, I’ve been trying to reach you for the past six weeks.)

“24/7 Comedy will offer the Atlanta metro area a completely new listening experience. Everybody loves to laugh, and it’s great to be able to bring such a unique format to …

Continue reading Clear Channel launching a comedy channel at 92.3 FM at noon Oct. 28 »

Kelly Stevens and his bride Katie Buser got marred Oct. 27. CREDIT: Courtesy of Kelly Stevens

Less than two months after a wrong-way driver badly injured Kelly Stevens in a head-on collision on 400, the B98.5 radio host got married in his backyard to Katie Buser.

The near-death experience made him realize that life is short so he asked his girlfriend Buser for her hand in marriage last month for a wedding that happened over the weekend. The pair had been dating for a year.

The car accident badly messed up his left elbow and left knee, leaving him in a wheelchair for now. But he said his knee is improving and he was able to walk 20 feet with the help of walker during the wedding and stay upright during the vows.

“It hurt like a son-of-a-gun,” he said in an interview Sunday, his first full day as a married man. “For love, we’ll work through the pain.”

And he noted, it ended in time for the Georgia-Florida football game. Since Georgia won, “it was like an added wedding …

Continue reading B98.5’s Kelly Stevens got married Oct. 27 less than two months after head-on collision accident »

Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood host. CREDIT: ABC

Sure, there are at least four different country award shows now but arguably the biggest is the CMA Awards on Thursday at ABC and it features the delightful co-hosting couple Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley, plus performances by most of the big current Georgia stars: Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Zac Brown Band, Little Big Town and Lady Antebellum.

Otherwise, it’s a fairly quiet week. On ABC on Friday, Tim Allen returns for the second season of “Last Man Standing,” bumped to Friday, followed by Reba McEntire’s return to sitcom land with “Malibu Country,” with an inexplicably strange turn by Lily Tomlin as her mom.

And Bravo’s most popular “Housewives” franchise out of Atlanta returns on Sunday night minus Sheree Whitfield but plus two newbies: Porsha Williams Stewart, grand-daughter of civil rights icon Hosea Williams, and model and producer Kenya Moore, who moved here from Detroit.

MONDAY

“Dancing With the Stars” 8 p.m. …

Continue reading TV best bets with CMA Music Awards, Tim Allen and ‘Real Housewives of Atlanta’ »