Chase Daniels is the Program Director for Audacy’s AC Star 102.1 and Hot AC Q104, Cleveland. His peers voted him as one of Barrett Media’s Top 20 Program Directors of 2024.
Daniels also oversees the programming for Classic Rocker WNCX and Sports 92.3 The Fan.
Daniels said, “We’ve got good brand managers over those two stations. I’m kind of their liaison to bounce ideas off of and help them get what they want to accomplish. And they help me get what I want to get accomplished.”
“We’ve got a great team of programming folks there. This cluster is unique. I mean, three out of four are heritage brands. The music brands are all heritage. And The Fan is one of the top stations in the market. It’s a great cluster.
I wanted to explore the differences between AC and Hot AC, starting with the AC.
“AC is like Campbell’s soup. You should always know a good AC brand. You should always know what it’s going to taste like, what it’s going to sound like. It’s consistent. The on-air personalities are consistent. The music is familiar, not burnt to a crisp, but something you don’t mind hearing several times.”
“That’s what makes a good AC station. I said this in my interview to get the job. I don’t remember because it’s very smart, so I can’t possibly have come up with it myself. But I said that AC is Classic Hits with hits and with currents. And it’s the truth.”
And what is the mix of current, gold, and recurrents?
“It’s still very dependent on the 80s, even though we’re targeting a 43-year-old. But the 43-year-old, if you whip out a calculator, you’re like, hang on, they didn’t grow up in the 80s. Not all of them, but it was a part of their movies. It was a part of the mom and dad listening to it. It’s a very unique decade that doesn’t have an expiration date. It will eventually, like everything else. But it’s still a very big sound for AC, and we’re not ready to abandon it yet.”
Programming an AC alongside a Hot AC is bound to have some overlap, but Daniels approaches them as two unique entities.
“We like to program as if they are stepsisters, not step-twins. We don’t want to be on top of each other too much because then we’re just cannibalizing ourselves. They need to be very close, be in uniform, and work together, but also be different brands, be different, and be separate.”
“The Hot AC listener, at least for Q104, is not afraid of being exposed to new music. I don’t think we need to break it necessarily, but if it’s streaming, testing if all the metrics are there, then obviously, there’s an appetite for that song. It’s just being very safe and being smart with playing newer music.”
With the music being the star, especially on AC, I asked Daniels how important he saw local content.
“That’s a good question. The TODAY Show is a national service, but the show on NBC is local for the first hour, and they have interjections of the weather guy who’s local in Cleveland. I think there’s a place for both. 50% of their content is local-based. But we’re not going to shy away from the Grammys.”
With two high-profile morning shows, what are Daniels’ coaching techniques?
“I’m from the school of pushing them when something is good. Complimenting them, not going into so much detail, but let’s do more of that.”
“I don’t like to dwell on the stuff I don’t want to hear or that I don’t think the listener wants to hear because I think it fixes itself in most cases. They already usually know if they’re any good. When we have morning show meetings or meetings in general, I don’t want them ever to not look forward to it. I don’t want them to dread it.”
“In some of the markets I’ve worked as a talent, I dreaded it because I already knew a break sucked. I don’t need to hear it again. So, I try to focus on the positives and push the positives.”
Being visible in the community is important to the Cleveland cluster.
“Anything that you can to raise brand awareness, be front and center, and be topical is never bad. You just got to pick your battles, obviously, with less resources and less people to, quite frankly, have the time to do that kind of stuff. You have to pick your battles and find out which ones to show your face to, and we try to do that.”
In closing, Daniels is happy with the overall spot the cluster is in.
“We’re in a good spot with these brands, and we’ve had some success recently. We don’t like to settle, so we’re going to keep hitting that gas pedal. A big shout out to the team here that’s gotten on the bus. They could have gotten in my way or challenged me, but they believed, and the results are paying off. I owe a great deal of thanks to the team that makes these stations the way they are and sound as good as they do. And Jeff Miller, my awesome market manager who didn’t hire me but inherited me.
Listen to Star 102.1 here.
Listen to Q104 here. https://www.audacy.com/q104
Email Chase Daniels here.
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Jeff Lynn serves as Editor of Barrett Media’s Music Radio coverage. Prior to joining Barrett Media, Jeff spent time programming in Milwaukee, Omaha, Cleveland, Des Moines, and Madison for multiple radio groups, including iHeartMedia, Townsquare Media, NRG Media, and Entercom (now Audacy). He also worked as a Country Format Editor for All Access until the outlet shut down in August 2023.
To get in touch with Jeff by email, reach him at Jeff@BarrettMedia.com.
