Buzz Brainard doesn’t call himself a radio guy. And that might be exactly why the radio industry just handed him one of its biggest honors.
Earlier this month, the Country Music Association named The Highway Hot 30 Countdown with Buzz Brainard its Weekly National Broadcast Personality of the Year. Brainard will be recognized at the Pre-Telecast Ceremony ahead of The 60th Annual CMA Awards on Nov. 18.
For a guy who once lost his job in a format flip, it’s been quite a ride.
From the Cafeteria to the Big Apple
“I was lucky enough that they let me do the announcements every morning,” Brainard said of his days at Clio High School outside Flint, Michigan. “So that was the beginning.”
The cafeteria had a full sound system on its stage. “I said, ‘Hey, can I like do like a radio show here?'” he said. “So I figured out how to basically just over the PA system broadcast and plug in a cassette player thing so I could play music.” He called it WCHS Radio, “beaming out of Flint, Michigan.”
College at Central Michigan led to a paid acting gig at a professional theater in Lansing. Then it was off to New York with almost nothing. After paying his first month’s rent and a long night at McSorley’s, he woke up with $36.
“Took the train up to Columbus Circle and walked up Amsterdam Avenue and had a bartending job by the time I got to 84th Street,” he said.
The Voice You Already Know
Acting work followed: soap operas, commercials, TV roles and the first line in Clear and Present Danger. Then his agency’s voiceover department opened another door.
“The timing was perfect. I had the right voice,” Brainard said. “I started landing VO jobs like crazy. I was the voice of Intel, and I got some car companies.”
He took over as host of This Week in Baseball on Fox after Mel Allen died. Then came 17 years as the announcer for Disney Channel. “Hannah Montana, coming up next”? That was Buzz.
“You’re talking to somebody like Kelsea Ballerini, and she’s like, ‘I can’t even look at you because you raised me,'” he said.
Mornings in L.A. — on Day One
After moving to Los Angeles, Brainard took a side job DJing at Denim and Diamonds during the line-dance craze. “I didn’t know how to like DJ, but it was easy because I just would play music and then count down for the 5-6-7-8 for the line dancers,” he said.
Once a month, KZLA broadcast live from the club. Then-PD R.J. Curtis, who now runs Country Radio Seminar, liked what he heard when the station’s jock put Brainard on the air.
“He goes, ‘Man, you’re good,'” Brainard recalled. Two weeks later, he walked in “with a little folder” and said, “I want to join your station. Here’s what I could do.”
He started as the morning show’s roving cell-phone guy and soon moved into the room. “People are like, what was your first job? Oh, mornings in L.A.,” he said. “Doesn’t happen.”
Radio also taught him a hard lesson. When KZLA flipped formats, the news came right after his shift. “It’s happening tomorrow, and you don’t have a job anymore,” he recalled. “I was pretty naive about it.”
The Road to SiriusXM
A syndicated alt-country specialty show caught the ear of Scott Lindy, who ran country for Sirius before the merger. That became The Alternative. Brainard then moved to Nashville, where an ISDN line in his home studio kept the Disney and baseball work flowing.
After the merger, new country chief John Anthony called him in. Brainard expected the worst.
“I went, ‘I get it. I totally get it. You got to merge the staffs,'” he said. “And he goes, ‘No, no, I’m going to keep you.'”
So is he still naive about the business? “I would hope that I’m schooled in it to do things properly, but not make it look like I am,” Brainard said. “I think that’s what’s working for what we’re doing — because I’m not a radio guy.”
How a Countdown Became a Party
The magic started when Brainard moved to afternoons and the Friday countdown. He’d bring visiting fans into the studio to announce the song positions. When the countdown shifted to a recorded weekend show, he asked to keep the guests.
“Then it took off because I wasn’t having them like read something,” he said. “Then I went, ‘Tell me about yourself.'”
Soon there was a line every Friday, with groups of 30 rotating every half hour. Eventually, a new boss shut down the studio party — then decided, “We have to take it to a bar.”
Margaritaville had an empty upstairs room until 7 p.m. “I’m like, ‘Boy, I hope people show up,'” he said. The first day was packed. “I never forget the GM going like, ‘Oh my God, we made an unbelievable amount of money for a room that has been empty.'”
Today, the Friday happy hour lives at Eric Church’s Chief’s on Broadway, where fans line up as early as 3:45 a.m. Post Malone, Luke Bryan and Church himself have dropped in.
“It’s three to seven on a Friday in Nashville,” Brainard said. “You’re really not doing anything till 7 o’clock. So … we’re your pregame.”
Meet the Buzzards
Monday through Thursday, Brainard is live from 3 to 7 p.m. Central on The Highway, and the show is almost entirely caller-driven.
“They call themselves the Buzzards, and so everybody wants to be a Buzzard,” he said. “They call in Monday through Thursday, and then they show up on Friday. And it’s always all about them.”
The name came out of a mascot conversation. “I’m like, we can’t do that, buzzards. That’s kind of weird,” he said. “But it just quickly caught on. Now I get little kids going, ‘I want to be a Buzzard.'”
‘Yes, And’
His technique comes from years in improv comedy. “There’s a rule in improv that everybody pretty much knows: it’s ‘yes, and,'” Brainard said. “I think that’s what some people lose in radio sometimes.”
Fans fill out cards, but the best moments rarely come from them. “If they’re talking and I’m listening to them, and they say something, I go, ‘Wait, wait, wait! Tell me more about that.'”
There’s a business case as well. “We are supported by our subscribers,” Brainard said. “Anybody who’s been on the air or been at the happy hour … they’re going to be subscribers for life because of the experience.”
SiriusXM is now replicating the model in other formats. The show travels, too, from a bar across from Madison Square Garden to Resorts World in Las Vegas. “We had 900 people for a radio show,” he said.
The Trophy Nobody Expected
Brainard and his SiriusXM colleagues had piled up CMA nominations for years. He never expected to win.
“I said it’s nice, but we will never get it because you know who votes on this,” he said. “We don’t have anybody voting.”
Then the call came. “I was blown away that we got it, but I was blown away that all the terrestrial people were calling me, like, ‘Man, that’s great for you guys for SiriusXM,'” he said.
Still, he spreads the credit around: producer Nick Elliot, aka “Nick Ultra,” the support staff and engineers, the crew at Chief’s and boss Johnny Chang. “Every time I bring something up, he’s like, ‘Yeah, yeah, do it, do it.'”
For a guy who swears he isn’t a radio guy, Buzz Brainard is doing what radio has always done best: making the listener the star of the show.
Barrett Media produces daily content on the music, news, and sports media industries. Sign up for our newsletters to stay updated and get the latest information right in your inbox.
