Adult album alternative Independent 88.5 FM is making changes to The Nic Harcourt Show, which is heard weekday mornings on the station from 6 to 11 a.m. Effective immediately, 88.5 personality Jet will join Harcourt on the newly-named Nic Harcourt Morning Show with Jet.
Jet — who has previously been heard on the air nights and weekends — will offer a “supporting voice” to Harcourt; Harcourt has been Jet’s mentor during her four years at the station.
“I feel lucky to be able to do what I love every day and continue to grow within the current climate of the entertainment industry. I’m looking forward to where this takes 88.5 FM,” said Jet in a message.
”I think we all consider ourselves fortunate to truly be a part of our community at this time,” Harcourt said in a message.
The move comes at an interesting time in local morning radio, with the recent losses of Frosty Stilwell (who was furloughed) and Lisa May (who retired last year) from the “Frosty Heidi and Frank” show on KLOS (95.5 FM), and KROQ (106.7 FM) lost Gene “Bean” Baxter to retirement and then letting go Kevin Ryder and the rest of the morning crew, replacing by former afternoon drive-time’s Stryker and Klein.
No doubt 88.5 management hopes to pick up on disgruntled listeners from those two, along with anyone else who is tiring of predictable and often pre-recorded radio.
88.5 General Manager Patrick Osburn said in a statement, “Harcourt is regarded as the ‘ultimate tastemaker’ in music, with many artists — including Adele, Coldplay, Death Cab for Cutie, KT Tunstall, Interpol, Lana Del Rey, The Record Company and Florence + The Machine — crediting him with putting them on the map and helping them achieve success.
“Jet,” he concluded, “is active in the local and national music scene, while still handling promotions and social media for the station.”
The focus of the show? Music, information, and fun.
“We’re living in challenging times, and it’s more important than ever to spin great music and deliver information the audience can use and, yes, have some fun! “ Harcourt commented. “Adding Jet to the mix brings a fabulous new perspective for both myself and the audience.”
Held Back
It’s too early to truly evaluate their morning show fairly, but KROQ’s Stryker and Klein have been together for a long time doing afternoons. Afternoons are a different animal than mornings with different pressures. It takes a while to find a groove sometimes.
That being said, I can’t help but feel that something is going wrong with the morning show. The ones I’ve heard sound far too rehearsed, lacking the fun, open banter the team had when they were the station’s afternoon stars.
Of course, part of it could be the distance broadcasting I assume the station is using; it is doubtful that the two are in the same room and are broadcasting from independent home studios due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But I have to say that to me they also sound coached and lacking the kind of spontaneity I’ve come to enjoy about their show. Is this part of them becoming the new morning show hosts? I hope not.
Stryker and Klein are talented and funny. They already have a tough time due to resentment on how station management handled the firing of the old show, so if someone is trying to hamstring them I worry they are being set up for failure.
Survival
COVID-19 is the big issue of the day across most of the world, but one thing you can do to make things better is play more Al Green. At least that’s what I heard a former local general manager said to make the station more successful.
Perhaps he was right.
Play K-Mozart
With smart speakers, the cool thing is you can say “Play Go Country 105,” and your speaker does. Say “Play Alt 98.7,” and it does. But say “Play K-Mozart” and it doesn’t. Why is that?
Turns out to be a technical issue that is being worked on as we speak. The voice tags work when those tags are registered with one of the radio streaming services recognized by Siri, Hey Google and Alexa, such as Tune In or the awful iHeartRadio. In the creation of K-Mozart, that was not set up. Hopefully, it will be fixed soon.
Thinking Positively
Janeane Bernstein’s show, Get the Funk Out, is a local show designed to inspire and uplift. Bernstein herself says that the show “is filled with positivity through these challenging times.” It is heard over the air on UC Irvine’s KUCI (88.9 FM), you can hear it Mondays from 9 – 10 a.m., or via recorded podcasts after the show airs live. More information at kuci.org.
Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance columnist. Email rwagoner@socalradiowaves.com
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