Darien Southerland was a radio nerd long before he was a radio owner.
Born and raised in Smyrna, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta, he grew up seven miles from where Truist Park sits today. As a kid in the early ’80s, he was supposed to be doing homework. Instead, he was listening to Ludlow Porch at night.
His way into the business came sideways. Around age 25, Southerland was an insurance adjuster promoting Southern gospel concerts in Cobb County. He bought spots on WFTD 1080 AM in Marietta. Then he heard one on the air.
“It was so bad. I picked the phone up and I called them, and I said, ‘This is awful.’ And they said, ‘Well, can you do better?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I can.'”
He recut the spot. Then he filled in for an absent afternoon jock. Then the station asked if he wanted to sell. His first month on the street, he billed more than $12,000.
“Insurance adjusting taught me how to prospect if nothing else ever did,” he said.
Selling The Fish Without a Salary
Two weeks later, Alan Power called, recruiting him to voice a Salem Southern gospel station in Atlanta. When Salem got ready to launch 104.7 The Fish, Southerland wanted in.
But he was told he sounded too country for the Fish, so he pitched himself for sales. Everyone else they hired had major-market experience. He had none.
“I took a job without a salary, without a draw, without a retainer,” Southerland said. “Here’s how big a fool I was.”
On day one, he was told to write down 25 companies and 25 decision makers. He got off the air at 9 a.m. and was dialing by 11.
“I had no idea how to fill out a contract,” he said. “But at the end of the day, I’d sold $12,000 worth of advertising.”
He walked back in with checks and asked how to write up a contract. Thirty days later, he was on retainer. By the time he left in 2011, he was billing $1.4 million a year.
He was also doing NTR before it had a name — the Fish on McDonald’s tray liners, the Fish Birthday Bash at the North Georgia State Fair, and Fish talent on car dealer billboards.
The Agency Years
One of those dealers, Carriage Automotive Group, made him its agency of record around 2005. He still holds that role.
By 2011, shrinking commissions made the math obvious. “I’m making more money on the side managing Carriage Automotive Group than I am working with a radio station,” he said.
So he launched his own agency, adding more car dealers and colleges, including Liberty University.
By 2023, he could see AI reshaping the agency business. He and Carriage owner David Basha started hunting for a new venture together, including a pair of old dirt racetracks.
Then Randy Gravley, now president of the Georgia Association of Broadcasters, called. He wanted to sell WLJA.
“That was like a drunk handing somebody a bottle of Jack Daniels,” Southerland said.
Building The Pulse
Southerland calls WLJA the biggest FM stick between Atlanta and Chattanooga. He knew the audience the moment he looked at it.
“Country music, Marjorie Taylor Greene, deer hunting, King James Bibles, and four-by-four pickup trucks. That’s my avatar,” he said. “Hardworking people that’ll respond. We can go up there and we can create real radio.”
Plenty of people told him it would never work. His pitch was simple: a country music version of K-LOVE, pulling a share point each from country, Christian, and pure entertainment.
He also leaned on advice from Moby, whom he later managed: if 80% of people like you, you win — and the other 20% will talk about you enough to become your best promoters.
He signed the deal in July 2024. The FCC approved it that December, and Carriage Radio took over in January 2025. The flip from Southern gospel and classic country to Christian country followed that March.
The timing helped. As Salem sold the Fish to K-LOVE parent EMF, Southerland hired midday host Kim Fitz and brought in production director and imaging voice Dan Ratcliffe for mornings. Griffin Adkins, the 21-year producer of the Fish’s Kevin & Taylor morning show, later joined Ratcliffe as co-host. Southerland took afternoons himself, alongside co-host Asa Jones.
“I hadn’t been on the air in 20 years,” he said.
The Message Is in the Music
The format is easier to hear than explain. Martina McBride’s “Blessed” rolls into Brooks & Dunn’s “Believe.” Thomas Rhett’s “Beer with Jesus” sits next to the Gaither Vocal Band, Crowder, and Steven Curtis Chapman.
“We’re going to encourage, edify, entertain, and inspire,” Southerland said. “The message is going to be in the music, not in the DJs.”
“If you don’t edify and entertain, inspire and encourage — and have an emotional connection — radio is not going to work,” he said. “You might as well be Spotify.”
Interestingly, the loudest pushback came from Southern gospel. His answer to those record labels was blunt.
“People don’t even know who you are,” he told them. “When we put Jeff and Sheri Easter or Jason Crabb up against George Strait, all of a sudden you become equal to George Strait.”
“If I was to bring you to the courthouse square up here in the mountains to sing, I may have 200 people show up for a free concert,” he said. “But if I brought Alan Jackson up here to sing his hymns album, the sheriff is calling me asking me what I’m going to do about bathrooms and security.”
Meanwhile, mainstream country keeps drifting his way, from Jelly Roll to a Grand Ole Opry that he says “might as well be a church singing.”
Back in the Streets
The Pulse positions itself the way WSM does in Nashville — a heritage-style brand people know well beyond its ratings footprint. Its line: “Where faith, country, and gospel unite.”
The station also lives on the road, with a jock out doing a live broadcast about three days a week. A wrapped 37-foot RV serves as its mobile studio, with more setups in Cartersville and Dalton.
Being out of radio during COVID, he says, helped him see the business clearly.
“COVID cost radio a bunch of bad ideas. People got lazy,” he said. “When I realized a 15-year-old didn’t even know what radio was anymore, that’s when I said we got to get out in the field.”
The Pulse also carries the Atlanta Braves and Georgia Bulldogs, while his AM and two translators run sports talk.
The competition has noticed. Southerland says the Bull is coming up from Atlanta and US 101 is coming down from Chattanooga.
“I just keep laughing,” he said.
Why Nobody Else Is Doing It
Southerland doesn’t know of anyone else running the format full time. Some stations dabble in it part time. He believes the faith component makes it a format that has to be managed by people who live it.
He sees room to grow, too. Southerland thinks the format could be syndicated into markets with a classic country station or a No. 2 country player, taking shares from K-LOVE and the big country stations alike.
His influences tell you exactly how he got here: Ludlow Porch, Moby, Rhubarb Jones, Frank Reed, Chris Dimino, and Kevin & Taylor.
“Period,” he said. “That’s what we mean.”
If you grew up in Atlanta in that era, you know exactly what that sounds like. Now North Georgia does, too.
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