The radio personality pictured above is about to trade in his fishin' pole and his 45 of the Andy Griffith Show theme for a snow shovel and some Kanye West CDs.
Two days after Clear Channel's WKSC-FM (Kiss) dropped morning personality Kevin "DreX" Buchar from its lineup, the station hired Christopher Frederick, a.k.a. "Brotha' Fred" from sister station WIHT-FM (Channel 96.1) to replace him.
Frederick held down morning drive at WIHT for four years, which like WKSC, is also a Contemporary Hit radio station.
The new "A.M. Mayhem" debuts on January 17 in Chicago with sidekicks Angi Taylor (a holdover from Drex's morning show) and comedian David L. (and no, it's not "Squiggy" from Laverne & Shirley.) Two weeks prior to his Chicago premiere, Frederick will production of his show to WKSC.
His show will continue to be heard in Charlotte, although in customized form (meaning local material inserted in) and in two other markets - Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point, N.C. and Chattanooga, Tenn. and also on Sirius/XM's Kiss-FM channel.
For WKSC, the move was made to reverse a ratings slide the station has experienced in the key 18-34 morning time slot, usually the most important daypart in radio. Drex's ratings have eroded in the last two years, especially in the face of tougher competition from WBBM-FM's Jamar "J Niice" McNeil and Julian "Jumpin'" Perez.
While Frederick will no doubt have to prove himself to Chicagoans (like Drex did), he was a rising star in Charlotte. Frederick arrived at WIBT in 2006 from Austin, Tex. He co-hosted on Fox News Edge at WCCB-TV, a Fox affiliate owned by Bahakel Communications, Inc., for the last four years, and received props from the Charlotte Observer as one of the market's highest-profile personalities.
And like every high-profile personality, he has his fair share of detractors if the comment section of a story in the Charlotte Observer about his departure from WIHT is any indication.
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