Kidd Kraddick has built a devoted fan base in cities nationwide with his syndicated morning show. Kidd Kraddick In The Morning airs on more than 100 stations from coast-to-coast on the Yea Network, which is also owned and operated by Kidd. He admits you never really get use to getting up when it’s still dark outside, but his passion for creativity and the privilege to entertain millions of people on a daily basis is what drives him. Kidd Kraddick In The Morning has quietly become one of the premiere morning drive shows in the country.
By Bob Burke
Kidd Kraddick
Kidd Kraddick has built a devoted fan base in cities nationwide with his syndicated morning show. Kidd Kraddick In The Morning airs on more than 100 stations from coast-to-coast on the Yea Network, which is also owned and operated by Kidd. He’s an award winning personality whose accolades includes Billboard Magazine “Air Personality of the Year”, a coveted Marconi Award for “Radio Personality of the Year” and winner of the first annual WB Radio Music Awards as the “Best On-Air Personality in the Country.” Beyond his professional achievements, Kidd’s committed to giving back to the community with his annual charity, Kidd’s Kids which raises money to send terminally and chronically ill children and their families to Walt Disney World. To date, Kraddick has accompanied more than 1,500 children and their families on the trip. Even though he’s been on radio for more than a few years Kidd Kraddick has quietly become one of the premiere morning drive shows in the country. His commitment to creating great radio is what makes him a winner and his show a must listen…and did we mention the ratings? They aren’t bad either!
When did you know radio would become a career for you?
I knew what I wanted it to be very early. My dad was a very driven entrepreneur and guided his kids towards their individual passions. Mine was entertaining people (or at least trying to). By 14, I was deejaying at a Christian teen club, and I got my first full time radio job at 18.
What was it about hosting morning drive that made you want to get up while most people are still sleeping?
I had a kush gig when mornings in Dallas was offered to me. I was doing a three hour personality driven afternoon shift and the thought of waking up every morning at 4 a.m. was not something I looked forward to…BUT, “c’mon, it’s mornings!” All my radio heroes did mornings. It’s prime time. All these years later, I still have a love/hate relationship with morning drive. If you’re new to this and you’re wondering if it ever becomes “normal,” let me clear that up for you now. No! It doesn’t! It will forever suck waking up in the morning but I just remind myself that it sucks for all those people listening too and they’re counting on me to change their mood.
How did syndication come about or was that part of the plan all along?
It was NEVER part of my plan, not until it presented itself as a solution to another problem. During the consolidation craziness about ten years ago, I had gone through three owners and a dozen managers and each had their own “ideas” for the show. I felt that syndicating was the only way I could protect what I had built over the years. Kraig Kitchin saved the day for me and had Premiere build us a studio, got us affiliates, and we were off to the races. That was two days after 9/11.
What’s the biggest challenge in doing a syndicated morning show?
Hosting it or running it? (laughs) To be honest, the challenges on the air are not any different. Even as a local show, I was focused on compelling content and that didn’t change. Off air, the biggest challenge is convincing station managers that hiring us is not a compromise. That we will strive to be the #1 morning show in their market and they won’t be losing anything. My opinion has evolved and I don’t think “radio” and “local” are necessary partners but I realize it’s a huge mind shift for PDs and GMs. The bottom line is we have a long track record of ratings and revenue success. Getting them to judge us on the same criteria they would judge a local show is the biggest challenge.
How has the show evolved over the years and what has been the biggest change?
The biggest change happened early when we got into the affiliates’ heads and opened up our clock. When we started, we played NO music. That seems like such a hair brained idea now. Then we went to playing a few songs an hour with us choosing the songs. Finally, we came to the correct decision to give the affiliate time to play whatever song they wanted. The technology caught up with that goal and now it’s easy but it wasn’t then. Our clock now gives our affiliates just under half of each hour to put in not only their own songs but also our custom local liners and their news and traffic. After nine years, we have a flawless clock that gives the stations just the right amount of customization.
From a show content standpoint, we were always “real” before but now even more so. The fear of exposing ourselves has been mitigated by how long we’ve been on. To me, character definition is the absolute key to great morning radio. Randy Lane has been really helpful over the years teaching us all how to connect with ourselves instead of our audience. If you’re doing “War of the Roses” or other bits that are shared by many shows, then you are vulnerable to theft and copying. For better or worse, you can’t steal the essence of our show unless you steal the actual cast-members and they’ve all been here a very long time.
Premiere had syndicated the show for many years. Then in 2006 you purchased the Yea Network from Clear Channel. What was the thought process in taking ownership of the company?
It was a scary prospect and if I had known how the economy was going to crater I probably wouldn’t have done it, but I’m glad I did. First it took John Hogan and Tom Owens being very supportive of the idea. They agreed that I would serve them better as a supplier than as an employee. Then it came down to whether or not I truly wanted to control my own destiny and what I was willing to risk to do it. The model of my show being independently owned is unique in radio but pretty much the norm in television. The networks don’t typically own or produce their content and much of what’s on TV comes from small production houses with a single owner with a vision. I think radio is far better served with this model. Amazon doesn’t write books. YouTube doesn’t make videos. Why are radio stations still trying to make content?
How important have new media platforms become for the Kidd Kraddick brand?
It’s the most exciting aspect of the business right now. Doing a four hour show and hoping people notice is not going to get it done anymore. I’ve always been a tech-geek. I started BitBoard Sharing Network in the early 90’s and had fifteen phone lines running into my house. I love learning about new opportunities and applying them to our brand. The best example would be KiddTV through Ustream. We started telecasting the live show with one camera just over a year ago and we now have a five-camera shoot, a full time director, and over a million unique viewers a month. I think we’ve served over ten million viewers since we began. The rule today is if you want to be part of one media, you’re tacitly agreeing to embrace all of them. We’re borrowing components from Gilt Group, Groupon, Facebook, and the other prolific players to add value to our brand. The makeup of my average day has changed completely. I spend several hours interacting with listeners directly through social media and creating interactive experiences for them. I’m blessed that they want more of us so I’m trying to put as much on the table as they can handle.
What’s been the biggest change you’ve experienced over the years in hosting the show?
Since I’ve been doing this a long time, I think you would expect the answer to be “relating to the younger core audience,” but that hasn’t been hard for me. I’m from South Florida where everyone is consumed by youth so I have a constant need to stay current, regardless of my age. It’s not like, “to reach this audience I have to talk about things I no longer care about.” I still love all those things and would be talking about Jersey Shore and Antoine Dodson even if I didn’t have a radio show. I think the 18-34 audience will tell you when to move on by not listening anymore. Since that demo is the strength of our show, I think we’re still okay. To me, the biggest challenge is turning off the businessman and turning on the “artist” each morning. When the show starts, I try hard to forget that I am the owner of a company and focus on being creative and more childlike in my thinking. That’s more of where I live anyway. I’m pretty much faking it with the business stuff!
You’ve done some great charitable work over the years. Tell us about Kidd’s Kids?
I’d rather just tell everyone to go watch ten minutes of the video on kiddkids.com because that will demonstrate better than I could ever tell you. Twenty years ago, a scare in my wife’s pregnancy caused me to make a deal with God to help children with terminal or chronic illness. It’s grown into this amazing organization that doesn’t really need me anymore but enriches my life more than anything I do.
Are there new Kidd Kraddick ventures/projects in the works we should be on the lookout for?
I sure hope so! This fall I will be launching a syndicated weekend show that will cover entertainment and gossip better than anything I’ve heard on radio. Like everything we do, it’s personality-driven with lots of big-name guests. I’m really excited about that so expect your friendly Yea affiliate rep to be calling you about that! Also, we have interest from a couple national TV networks to simulcast KiddTV every weekday morning and that’s something I’d really like to try. I’m lucky to have this group of really inventive people working for me. My pledge to them is that when they come up with an idea or concept, it won’t die on the corporate vine. We’re not a big company but we’re fast and we’re willing to take chances. I think that’s what has been sucked out of radio in the last few years and I’m hoping others feel that way too and give us a shot.
What’s been the secret to the show success for so many years?
I know it’s probably equal parts luck, passion, and talent. When people ask how I got to this point, I tell them the #1 thing I have going for me is creativity. I’m pretty good at coming up with something where before there was nothing. Lots of people have deeper voices than me, better vocabularies than me, quicker wit than me. What’s kept me relevant is my ability to create. So the blank canvas is exactly what I want. I love the pressure of knowing that me and the team have to turn that canvas into a painting every morning. My morning show is pretty much a blank slate every day. We try to fill in parts of it with benchmarks and stuff but for the most part, I can do anything I want. I can read from a book if I want to. I can write and perform a script. I can write a song and sing it or have someone else sing it. I can have a contest. I can have celebrity guests. I can try to get the listeners to all do the same thing at the same time. I can take calls. I can call people. I can pretend to be someone on the phone. I can just ask everybody how their life is going. I can talk about something that happened to me. I can talk in a funny accent. I can have listeners talk in an accent. I can whisper, I can yell, I can tell jokes, I can ruin jokes. I can try to make ’em laugh. I can try to make ’em cry, or empowered, or angry, or scared, or inspired. I can talk about movies or TV or politics or remodeling a kitchen or science fiction or cooking or Big Al’s bar. The canvas is blank and I can paint on it any color I want. That makes me like the luckiest guy ever.
[eQB Content by Bob Burke]
