Posted Monday, March 19, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Atlanta country station Kicks 101.5 quickly found a replacement to run the station: Brian Thomas, who takes over as program director from Scott Lindy, who was let go last week.
Thomas comes from Chicago, where he was program director of WLS-FM, a classic hits station which airs a mix of pop, rock and R&B hits from the 1970s and 1980s. That phrase "classic hits" is pliable. Cox's self-described classic hits Atlanta station 97.1/The River, which is exclusively rock from a comparable era.
He is also a member of Atlanta-based Cumulus' corporate programming team for the country format, and remains vice president of programming for classic hits.
Thomas has specialized in both classic hits and country over the years at different capacities at CBS Radio (now part of Entercom) and Cumulus.
Kicks has lately fallen behind 94.9/The Bull in ratings and has persistently skewed older than its rival. Last month, the Bull was tied for seventh in Atlanta with a 4.5 rating while Kicks trailed with a 3.2, good for 15th place, according to Nielsen Media.
The discrepancy is even bigger in mornings, where the Bull's Jason Pullman and Kristen Gates nearly doubled Kicks' Cadillac Jack and Ali Mac in ratings: 4.4 (eighth place) to 2.3 (18th place).
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