The morning show grind isn’t for everyone. Yet Brady Marks has built a career around it — first as a street team member, then weekends, and now as Program Director of 107.3 Alternative Cleveland. The trajectory from college radio at Oberlin to leading a flagship Rubber City Radio Group station happened fast. That hustle, though? It never stopped.
When I caught up with Brady in the late afternoon, she was already running on fumes from another early start. Still, her energy about the station and its future remained unmistakable. Clearly, this is someone who genuinely believes in what alternative radio can do — especially in a market like Cleveland.
Rising Fast, Learning Faster
Brady’s path to the PD chair is unconventional. “This is my only commercial radio job,” she says. Everything else — the foundation — came from college radio at Oberlin. “I did a college radio at Oberlin College. I had a few shows there. I was there. I was involved in the radio all four years.” She pauses, trying to frame it. “I like to think that that was like a you know cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Very I don’t know. You know, Oberlin is very hippy dippy, and there was it was a lot. It it prepared me in unique ways for this job, but I just think of it as you know a totally different thing.”
Specifically, she started with 107.3 Alternative at its launch in January 2022, just under five years ago. “I started on weekends, and I was a street team member before that.” The learning curve moved fast — partly because she was hungry, but also because she surrounded herself with mentors. Ray Horner, the operations manager and morning host at sister station WAKR, became one of them.
That mentor relationship isn’t always smooth. “We get in heated arguments,” Brady admits. However, there’s a clear logic to it. “Like I get in heated arguments with him, or just with anybody at work. And it’s, but you know, like you both want to win. You have the same goal, so it’s never in bad blood.”
The Anti-Nine-to-Five
Here’s where Brady plants a flag. She’s technically Gen Z. She knows the stereotype about her generation wanting work-life separation, remote work, and phones off at five. Ultimately, she rejects it entirely.
“I’m technically Gen Z, and I get told a lot that like Gen Z, you guys want to work from home, and you know you want to be turn your phones off when you go home and nine to five. And I am a firm believer against that. I don’t think it works for this job. I think you got to be collaborative, you got to be flexible, and you got to want to win.”
It’s a refreshing stance in an era where burnout gets romanticized and boundaries are supposedly sacred. For Brady, the work environment at 107.3 Alternative isn’t transactional. Instead, it’s communal. “We’re tethered. We’re all tethered to the same goal,” she says, resisting the “family” label that gets thrown around too loosely. “A community” feels far more honest.
That culture permeates decisions — from talent development to sales strategy. There’s a midday opening at the station, and Brady’s approach is to develop from within. “We have a big belief in that we can teach radio at Rubber City Radio Group. Like I was taught a lot at the station, so I’m a big believer in it. I’m a product of it.”
Local Music, Local People
The music research matters most. Brady is clear about that priority. Yes, talent is important. But in her framing, the hosts are holding up the music, not the other way around. “The music is what the average person is is appealing to the station with. So as the more we can commit to local research and playing music that not just people like, but the people of Cleveland like, and our listeners like.”
This local-first approach shows up in the events strategy too. Additionally, it showed up in a partnership idea that came from sales, which would’ve been easy for programming to dismiss. Instead, Brady leaned in. “We have to be the the first salespeople,” she explains. “I try to keep the creativity with the programming staff,” but the collaboration matters more than defending turf. When a local business owner loved the station’s locally-owned positioning, the team created a local business feature he could sponsor. “Okay, well, I guess we’ll put in the morning. We need one in the morning anyway. So it’s it’s collaborative in that sense.”
Digital as an Extension, Not a Separate Thing
The social media operation runs through Justina Seraldo, who coordinates across the whole cluster. However, Brady has a specific vision for how digital storytelling should work. It’s not about posting for posting’s sake.
“I want in the same way that every break should have meaning and should have a purpose. I think it should be similar social media approach.” That means artist interviews get a visual component — short-form clips, YouTube versions, social tiles — rather than just pointing people to a radio stream. “I’m making sure I get a visual element and making short form content as well as the YouTube and the radio aspect.”
There’s a cadence to it. “We have biweekly trending meetings at our station at our company that Justina leads, and we all get in a room and we talk about what’s going on, what’s trending, what’s on your algorithm, like what could we hit on, what’s what are people talking about that we could do on air and online.”
The Grunge Moment
Brady believes alternative radio is at an inflection point. She points to a New York Times piece about the resurgence — the Dexter and the Moonrocks moment that signaled something bigger. “I think we’re in an alt grunge era. I think the there was like a an article or a New York Times article or that one of their pop life their music podcast. They talked about the song Dexter and the Moonrocks freaking out, freaking out, and how it kind of its huge moment kind of signified this moment for grunge and for alt, and how it’s it’s in the mainstream now, and we’re kind of seeing this resurgence like we did in the ’90s.”
That’s the macro opportunity. Meanwhile, the micro one is simpler: “I believe alt is having a moment. I believe radio is going to have another moment.”
The Hardest Part of Getting Here
Early in her career, Brady felt compelled to prove herself constantly. “I think because I’m young and because I lack a lot of the experience than the people around me, like I get the most advice out of anyone I that I think in the building. Like everyone’s like, I’ve been doing this for you know, and I’m and I love the advice. I wouldn’t be here without the advice. But I think it’s caused me to feel like I need to prove myself even more.”
That feeling drove her forward. “The hardest thing has been believing that I’ve done the work, and so in in that case I just keep doing more work, and then I you know that’s probably what led me to to move up because I never felt like I was doing enough.”
Looking ahead five years, Brady sees expansion. “I see myself with the station, and I see us having like a web throughout the community that is completely brand new for a station in the modern day. I would really love to be just yeah bigger and better, and and to also give people faith back in radio because I believe alt is having a moment. I believe radio is going to have another moment.”
The station’s biggest opportunity? “In our talent and in our music research, really, the music is the main thing.”
But it’s more than that. Brady is betting on something the industry has chased for years — a return to genuine community radio, powered by people who actually care about the market they’re in. At 107.3 Alternative, that’s not just a tagline. Ultimately, it’s the whole operation.
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David Hill serves as a Music Radio Editor, Columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. A radio lifer with more than 30 years behind the mic, in the control room, and in the program director’s chair, David’s career spans influential stops at brands such as WIYY 98 Rock, WBAL-AM, and 99X. He has worked across multiple formats and ownership groups, including iHeartMedia and Cumulus Media, developing talent, breaking music, and navigating every major industry shift from diary to PPM and terrestrial dominance to streaming disruption. When he’s not writing or analyzing the industry, Dave runs The Tune Farm, a marketing firm built to help artists and brands grow audience the same way great radio always has—by creating connection, not just impressions. He can be reached at David@BarrettMedia.com.