It all started with MTV. An Illinois teen wanted to be a video jock a la Martha Quinn from the moment music television hit the airwaves. “I loved radio and media and was obsessed with pop culture and then MTV exposed me to all different kinds of new music,” says Courtney Landrum, host of St. Louis’ “The Courtney Show.”
She graduated from Althoff Catholic High School in 1986 in Belleville, then “studied” for a year and a half at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
“I majored in sorority. My mom and dad made me come home,” she says.
While at Mizzou, Courtney was a TV news intern at Channel 5 and that’s where her dream to work in television fizzled.
“TV didn’t feel creative to me. The Gulf War broke out, and everybody was excited about that, and I was like, I don’t want to be excited about a war.” Not a newsie.
Focus on Radio
She enrolled in the Broadcast Center of St. Louis and actually studied this time. Her focus? Radio. Before she completed her courses, she landed an internship in 1991 with the biggest morning show in St. Louis, “The Steve & DC Show,” on WKBQ-FM 106.5. Two months later, she was producing the program and part of the on-air team, where she continued until 1997. That’s when she was asked to host her own morning show at Emmis Broadcasting Alice 104.1 in St. Louis, then a modern AC format.
“I jumped at the chance, and it was a lot of fun. We had about a year until they flipped it to XTREME radio,” she recalls. That was the end of “The Courtney and Joe Show.” The only consolation, she says, is that she was replaced by Howard Stern.
Next step was “The Phillips & Company” morning show on Entercom’s (now Audacy) KYKY Y 98, a hot AC station in St. Louis. There, she would grace the airwaves and wake the folks up from 1999 to 2018. In 2018, Y 98 asked her to create a morning show, and “Courtney & Company” aired for two years. She was laid off in December 2020.
Less than five months later, she was back on morning drive at competitor The Arch, Hubbard Radio’s WARH St. Louis, to host on 106.5 FM. “The Courtney Show” was born in 2020, during the COVID pandemic. She chose St. Louis personality Brando as a co-host. “I liked Brando a lot. He’s a dad with four kids, so I knew he’d be great.”
She told her then co-host at Y 98, Tim Convy, about her new venture and he suggested she reach out to his brother, Hollywood producer Chris Convy, to join the show.
Chris Convy’s projects include The MTV Music Video Awards, The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for Humor TV special, and shows with comedian Nikki Glaser. (Glaser’s his girlfriend. They met when he produced MTV’s “Nikki & Sara Live” talk show.)
“Everything shut down in Hollywood for COVID,” Courtney recalls, “so I took a gamble thinking, long shot. He ended up coming to town. We did a couple of shows, and he just had a gift. He was incredible. He packed up his life in L.A. and moved back to St. Louis, where he’s from.”
Glaser moved to St. Louis, too, as chronicled in her TV show, “Welcome Home Nikki Glaser?” on E! in which Chris co-stars. Later, Tim Convy would join his brother, Brando, and Courtney, and that’s “The Courtney’s Show’s” current winning lineup.
COVID worked in Courtney’s favor to snag Chris Convy as a co-host. She says the pandemic was also a huge factor in the program’s popularity.
“Our show started during COVID, and we assumed no one was listening. We threw a lot of darts. I can tell you that they did tune in.” Courtney says there was a closeness, a “we’re all in this together” camaraderie.
The Importance of Morning Shows
“I think morning radio is still very vital and important locally in each market. Morning shows are a great way to be a part of a community on the air. Our listeners are the best, and we have inside jokes, and with podcasting, they don’t have to worry about missing anything.”
They steer clear of politics. “We’re a politically free, safe space for you to laugh a little bit or hear a really kind story. You can’t win,” says Courtney. “It doesn’t matter how you present people hear what they want to hear.” Leave that to the political shows, she says.
What listeners do hear on “The Courtney Show” includes the station’s music mix from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and today. “You Never Know What You’ll Hear Next” The Arch’s motto. But the real meat-and-potatoes are bits like “Listen to My Strong Opinion/Time to Bitch” where they vent about various topics (like the wolf turn in gymnastics).
“Curbside with Courtney” featured special guests who drove up to the station during the lockdown.
“That was when you couldn’t have anybody in the building, and we had (NFL legend) Dan Dierdorf and local St. Louis celebrities with a crazy long microphone, interviewing them in their cars. It was silly but funny. We were just trying to find some happiness during that time.”
Listeners loved it, and they also came up big last year when “The Courtney Show” raised over $50,000 for Children’s Hospital of St. Louis. The show held a twelve-hour on-air marathon where the hosts did just about anything for donations. Courtney and Brando even sang, “I Got You Babe” for the financial benefit of sick kids and listener laughs.
What the audience finds most powerful is personal anecdotes. Courtney says she overshares on air. “I give a lot of my life and tell terribly embarrassing stories about myself, but the biggest compliments I get is from women listeners who say, ‘I feel like I could be one of your best friends.’ They get me.”
The Passion Persists
After thirty years on air and at 56, Courtney’s passion for radio and music persists. She also loves the Cardinals, beer, dogs, and cats. She’s still sad over the loss of her beloved shelter mutt, Peabo Bryson, and lives in Fairview Heights with cats and her boyfriend of twenty years, Nick Sansone.
She met Sansone, a salesman for a security integrator when she was 35. “He keeps me on my toes. He’s way funnier than I am.” Sansone surprised Courtney recently when he and the morning show gang played a game with trivia about Courtney on air while she was vacationing on a girls’ trip. Courtney’s co-hosts’ significant others are often part of the show, including Nikki Glaser.
Attitude of Collaboration
Courtney attributes her longevity in the business and her shows’ successes in large part to the chemistry with and the professional generosity of her co-hosts. While some radio personalities want to be the only light that shines, Courtney’s circle is wide. She learned that, she says, as an intern on “The Steve & DC Show.”
“One of the most valuable lessons they taught me is that we all have stories in our lives, and they come from a different perspective,” she says. “You get credit for the show being good. Who cares who gets the laugh. I love it when everybody contributes a personal story or finds something that they want to talk about because they have passion for it. You’ve got to open it up.”
When a listener wrote an especially funny letter, she recruited him for the show. Just as Steve and DC did for her, she elevated a former intern, who says he owes his career to Courtney. Kevin “the Intern” Berghoff worked with her on “Phillips & Company.”
“He was always just dubbing tapes. I said, let’s find out what this kid is all about because he could be gold, and he was, and he’s still there at Y 98, going by the moniker ‘Kevin the Intern’ but not actually still an intern (because that’s what happens in radio). He’s a great writer. He’s an odd guy, and his stories are great because of his oddities,” says Courtney.
Her former intern says Courtney “lets you be you.”
Radio landscape
Courtney laments that the radio landscape has changed for aspiring radio pros.
“It’s sad that there aren’t as many internship programs because it not only helps the person decide what you want to do but it helps us. Internship programs were huge for on-air shows with multiple people.”
If you can’t get an internship and you love radio, she says, “Find a way to get in, whether that is with a street team or promotions. If being on the air is something you want, make it known at the station.”
“The Courtney Show” host says Chicago and other larger markets have offered and she’s declined. “I like my market; they get me. I am content and happy creatively. I have a great job that I love and know. It’s about the people around you and having fun in the studio. I have great people around me, and I feed off of them,” she says.
Her mother, brother, and sister live in Belleville, and she likes being close. Her father passed away five years ago.
She’s been fortunate to interview celebrities such as Hugh Jackman, Tom Hanks, and Ricky Gervais. As a music and MTV maven, she’s been thrilled to speak to Sting, INXS, Rob Thomas from Matchbox 20, and countless other musical idols of hers as well.
The bumps along her radio road have been few. She says as a “music snob,” however, she was shocked that she ended up having to work at stations where she didn’t like the tunes.
“I remember thinking I’m only going to work at formats where I love the music, and I didn’t get it.” She does, however, feel comfortable with the current, all-over-the-place mix on “The Courtney Show.”
“I love it. I can be a part of it now because it’s all the music I grew up with,” she says.
“I’m also a generous jukebox player when I’m out in public in a bar. I look around, I size up the crowd and I try to play a little bit of everything on Touch Tunes. I really try to make the whole crowd happy,” Unselfish. A crowd pleaser even in her leisure, Courtney Landrum’s a smooth pro who entertains her eager and appreciative audience every weekday morning from 6:00 to 10 a.m. on 106.5. The ARCH in St. Louis.
Social media strengthens the connection. Podcasts ensure the listeners don’t miss a trick. 2,500 members of the Facebook fan page, “The Great Taste Gang,” interact online with “The Courtney Show” to share their delight. The show’s Instagram page boasts 6,500 followers, with videos and posts allowing the folks to get even closer to the hosts.
Amy Snider is a music features reporter for Barrett Media specializing on stories involving radio professionals working in Adult Contemporary/CHR/Top 40 formats. She brings over twenty-five years of media experience to the outlet. Based in St. Petersburg, FL, Amy works for iHeartMedia and the Total Traffic and Weather Network as an on-air reporter, appearing on dozens of radio stations including 98 Rock, Mix 100.7, 95.3 WDAE, and Newsradio WFLA. She has also reported and anchored in the Tampa market at Fox 13, News Channel 8, WMNF Community Radio and WUSF-FM, the NPR affiliate.
Amy is a music fanatic. She hosted a drive-time rock and roll radio show for 20 years on WMNF-FM and is known as a tastemaker in the music and arts community. She booked, hosted, emceed and promoted a wildly popular weekly live music event in Tampa’s Ybor City featuring original music with performers from all over the world. Her free time is often spent at concerts and music festivals. To get in touch, find her on X @AmySnider4.
