💜🙏💛Our hearts go out to the Altobelli, Bryant, Chester, Mauser & Zobayan families🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️Rest in peace.
Sunday morning, January 26, 2020 our week started off with some really sad news. The Black Mamba, Laker Legend, Kobe Bean Bryant passed away in a tragic helicopter crash in Calabasas, California. However you knew him, he was known to be a wonderful family man, Oscar winner and Laker GOAT. Kobe Bryant and 8 other passengers, including his own daughter Gianna Maria Onore (aka Gigi) were on board to The Mamba Academy in Newbury Park, California. All 9 passengers on the helicopter died at the scene and have been identified as:
Kobe Bryant
Gianna Bryant
John Altobelli
Keri Altobelli
Alyssa Altobelli
Sarah Chester
Payton Chester
Christina Mauser
Ara Zobayan (the pilot)
The cause of the crash is still being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. Kobe Bryant’s known to fly to and from places in his Sikorsky S-76B helicopter since he played for the Lakers. Audio reports reveal the helicopter pilot, Ara Zobayan was given clearance to fly under worse-than-normal conditions. The Sikorsky S-76B costs approximately $13-million and can seat up to 12 people. Sikorsky tweeted this (see above):
Prayers going out to all the family’s involved. May they all rest in peace.
The entire sports world is in mourning. Read some of the reactions on social media, click here.
Watch the Grammy awards this Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 5pm on CBS.
The Grammy Awards is music’s biggest night honoring achievements in the music industry. Alicia Keys is returning as the host of the 62nd Grammy Awards and takes place this Sunday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Ken Ehrlich returns as the Executive Producer of the Grammys, making this his 40th year producing the show! As for Ellen K, this will be her 11th consecutive year voicing the the Grammy awards!
Watch the Grammy awards this Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 5pm on CBS.
Fun fact: Did you know the Grammy award used to be called the Gramaphone award?
This is really INSIDE HOLLYWOOD, Ellen K hosted Kevin Hart’s ceremony at TCL Chinese Theatre. Watch the video above to see the Emcee of the TCL Chinese Theatre Levi Tinker introduce Ellen K, who than introduces Will Ferrell, who than introduces Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who than introduces Kevin Hart! Alongside his wife, family, friends and colleagues Kevin Hart thanked the crowd with a grateful heart and went on to step on some cement! Congratulations Kevin Hart on ending the year in a pretty fantastic way!
Ellen K had a blast this morning with her friends at KTLA 5 Morning News sharing all of the holiday events coming up!
In case you haven’t heard, Christmas music on KOST 103.5 is returning this Friday afternoon with Mark Wallengren at 5:00pm PT. Following the big music switch, Gwen Stefani is joining us this Friday night to kick off the holidays at the iHeart Radio Theater in Los Angeles! Giveaways for that private show are happening now throughout the day. You can only win your way in for the biggest holiday flip party we’ve ever thrown!
Last but definitely not least, the annual KOST 103.5 Private Holiday Party at Disney California Adventure Park is happening on Thursday, December 5, 2019 from 9:00pm-1:00am PT. **Major disclaimer: This year our guests will get earlier access to the park starting at 5:00pm! The tickets for the Disney party started this morning at 6:20am on the Ellen K Morning Show and will continue everyday until 9:20pm PT. You have 15 chances a day to win your way in! Also, our street team will be doing giveaways at select Smart & Final locations. See below for more info!
Ellen K, IHeart Media, KOST 103.5, Ellen K Morning Show , Ellen K Weekend Show, Photographed by Michael Becker
TV’s biggest night and no, it’s not the Super Bowl, it’s the Emmys! The award show celebrating and honoring television shows (including streaming shows) will not have a host this year for the first time ever, but they will have the glorious voice ofEllen Kleading! The leader of our morning show at KOST 103.5’s, the Ellen K Morning Show knows a thing or two about voicing award shows, she’s been the voice of the Grammys for the past decade, the Oscar awards and now the Emmys! All she needs is to voice the Tony Awards so she can be an EGOT Voice! Tune in to the 71st Emmy Awards on Sunday, September 22, 2019 at 5pm broadcasting live from Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, on FOX. “All Ellen needs to do now is add the TONY AWARDS to her resume to be an EGOT voice.”
Thank you All Access for all of the support! Read the full post, here!
It’s been another interesting chapter in the saga of women in radio. Like every industry, broadcast radio has diversity challenges — and we saw that up close and personal at Morning Show Boot Camp 31 this month in Chicago, as well as in the charts and graphs in AQ2, our talent on talent survey we’ve now conducted for the second consecutive year.
On the surface, the environment appears to be improving for women in radio. But when you start digging a little deeper, you can’t help but encounter some of the same congenital issues. As our AQ study shows, men outnumber women on the air by a 3:1 ratio — same as last year. And that starts an important conversation about the state of the medium, whether it’s in morning radio or even when it comes to voiceover work.
To be sure, some women are hitting it out of the park. Those seeking a shining success story should look no further than the trajectory and accomplishment of KOST/Los Angeles morning star, Ellen K. As most people in radio know, Ellen was the sidekick for two morning show superstars — Rick Dees and Ryan Seacrest — before striking out on her own.
While those partnerships were no doubt an important part of Ellen’s learning curve, she sought to go solo in 2015 — and hasn’t looked back.
Like many in radio, Ellen got her start while at college, and interned at WXUS in Lafayette, Indiana. While the beginnings of her career were in a small market, she makes no bones about the need for women to think big — the majors:
“The biggest payday should always be in the biggest markets simply because the ad revenue is so large, but the biggest payday isn’t always the path to happiness. I’ve been happy in the smallest market I’ve worked in because I love the radio business.”
But whether in L.A. or small towns, Ellen K has always relished the personal connection, whether it’s on the studio lines or out in public, connecting with her audience.
Kudos to Ellen for carving out a great career in a tough business. But then there’s the rest of the radio world.
And judging by the “Women’s Forum” at Morning Show Boot Camp, the radio industry has a long way to go.
Led by the solid and steady moderation of Elizabeth Kay (WMYX/Milwaukee mornings), the panel was comprised of outspoken women in radio who discussed how they navigate the many speed bumps they’ve encountered over the years — and today.
And of course, there’s the gap between how men behind the mic think about women’s chances to advance are — and how women approach the same question. As you can clearly see below, they see two very different industries and disparate realities:
Not surprisingly, that gap we saw in 2018 continues today, underscoring the challenges radio has to provide not just diversity, but opportunity.
Much of the way in which women perceive their chances has to do with support — and where it comes from. In AQ2, we asked the entire sample about where they derive the most support across the spectrum of people, co-workers, and managers in which they have contact. While the answers don’t deviate greatly among the genders, it is clear that women feel their co-hosts and other women at the station are most likely to have their backs.
On the opposite end, they point to upper management, corporate, and sales as least likely to be supportive. That’s not a great set of circumstances.
Interestingly, Ellen K provides advice for fledgling broadcasters;
“Find a top seller to give you tips on ways to keep a long-term advertiser or land a new one. Finding creative ways to bring revenue is always a top priority.”
Connecting with revenue and how it is generated came up at Boot Camp, too. As the radio industry struggles to reach its financial goals, women — and all on-air personalities — have a chance to prove their ROI and become even more valuable to the enterprise.
That’s all well and good, but this issue of a lack of support among management may, in fact, be the central theme behind women’s frustration. And while it came through loud in this year’s AQ2 study, it may be one that air personalities in general — and women specifically — have felt for eons.
But at this important junction in the country’s trajectory — and the ways in which people are presented and represented in the media — support needs to come from the entire organization, especially those in influential and power positions.
I felt that sting in my AQ opening session at Morning Show Boot Camp. Elizabeth Kay asked a question about the fate of aging female on-air personalities and whether they have a fair shot at continued success. While I provided a truthful answer, I did so hastily, moving to get to the next questioner and to stay on time.
After having a post-MSBC conversation with Elizabeth, I realize that like so many others in positions of power in radio, I have to be a better listener, especially when it comes to hearing from those who are striving to advance but often are unheard or ignored.
Radio personality Ellen K. is the host of the Ellen K Radio Show on KOST 103.5 FM in Los Angeles. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Radio host Ellen K says she was deep into a particularly intimate examination of a pregnant cow when it struck her that the life of a veterinarian might not be for her.
“You have to get in there and make sure everything is in the right place, and then you get outta there,” she says of the barnyard epiphany that hit her one cold and snowy Indiana day in her sophomore year at Purdue University in the early ’80s. “It was a very dramatic day, actually, that I’ll never forget, and it was my turning point.
“I realized at that moment, I love people a lot more than I think I’m going to love examining animals like this,” Ellen K continues, laughing as she talks in the empty Burbank studio where a few hours earlier she’d hosted the “Ellen K Morning Show” on KOST-FM/103.5.
It turned out to be a very smart move.
Radio personality Ellen K. is the host of the Ellen K Radio Show on KOST 103.5 FM in Los Angeles. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Today, after years as a co-host on shows led by celebrated men such as Rick Dees and Ryan Seacrest, Ellen K is one of the few women ever to have her own morning show on Los Angeles radio. She’s got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, hosts the celebrity hand-and-footprint ceremonies at the Chinese Theatre, and is the unseen omnipotent voice of the Grammy Awards.
“It was dream come true stuff,” she says of the journey so far.
Radio personality Ellen K. is the host of the Ellen K Radio Show on KOST 103.5 FM in Los Angeles. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Transistor radio days
She was born Ellen J. Thoe in Palo Alto, where her father was a doctoral student at Stanford University, but grew up in Indiana where the high-powered AM radio stations in Chicago were home to superstar DJs such as Larry Lujack and John Landecker.
“I listened to John Landecker every single night with a transistor radio,” Ellen K says. “I’d share a room with my sister because there were so many of us and I had to keep it kind of low. So I put it under my pillow and then I could hear. He did this thing called Boogie Check and he’d have celebrities on and it was so much fun. I never missed a night.
“And then in the morning, when I’d wake up to get ready for swim practice before school, there’s Larry Lujack,” she says. “I constantly had them on and loved their shows even before I knew that I would fall in love with radio.”
Looking for a new direction soon after the bovine baby business, Ellen K spotted an internship at a local radio station, applied for it, and soon found herself inside the funhouse world of FM radio in the early ’80s.
“I loved the atmosphere of the radio station,” she says. “Everybody just seemed to be goofing off but yet they’re working. I was like, ‘Oh my god, not only is this a fun job surrounded by music and people who are loving what they’re doing, but all those flashing lights (on the request lines) you could answer and talk. There’s a different person on every line. I loved that connection, and I still love it today.
“To me that was magical.”
After the intern semester ended the station, WXUS-FM in Lafayette, Indiana, hired her as the overnight DJ, changing her air name to Ellen Thomas to protect her privacy.
Sometimes she’d invite her sorority sisters over to keep her company and do homework as she played music for the night owls. Once she fell asleep in the wee hours as a record played, and woke only after the station manager raced to the station to rouse her.
“He laughed it off, and it was my first learning curve experience,” Ellen K says. “Even the mistakes are great memories.”
Go West, young woman
Vacations in San Diego after her younger brother moved there convinced Ellen K that she wanted to live there, too.
“I’m sitting on the beach in La Jolla, watching my baby brother surf, and I said, ‘I don’t want to leave,'” she says. “I love this radio station they have in San Diego. I want to be in this beautiful Southern California.”
For a year or two she sent audition tapes, building a bridge with the boss at KFMB-FM/100.7 who eventually hired her – after she briefly worked at a station in Modesto – for a late-night shift on air from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. In the dark, a row of phones blinking, she took calls from listeners about different topics each night, some dark, some uplifting, all of them fascinating, she says.
“I knew right then this is what I’m meant to do,” she says of the way she moved past spinning records to engaging listeners in more meaningful ways. “It was amazing.”
At the end of the ’80s, though, she landed a job in San Francisco, a bigger market, which was great until a month or two after she started when the station announced a format change along with the layoffs of all its staff, including Ellen K.
K for a Kiss in LA
Ellen K says she believes in saying what it is you want – “If you say it out loud, you’re going to do it,” she says – so when in San Francisco she ran into the producer of radio legend Rick Dee’s morning show on KIIS-FM. She moved to LA. after an audition with Dees led to job in 1990 as his co-host.
It’s Dees who is responsible for her current name. Ellen Thomas wouldn’t work, he told her, because his LA radio rival was Jay Thomas on Power 106. Dees suggested she use her middle initial instead.
“I said, ‘Well, you’re not going to like it, my middle initial is J, so I’m Ellen J. Thomas,'” she told him. “So he said, ‘That’s got to change, we’ll go to the next letter in the alphabet, K.'”
From 1990 to 1994 she was Dees’ sidekick on KIIS-FM, and when Ryan Seacrest took over mornings on KIIS in 1994 he kept her as his wing-woman, too.
“Being on the air in the morning, in this city, we experienced so many things,” she says. “So I really feel like I grew up in LA.”
That connection she felt with the Chicago jocks as a kid she now felt with those who listened to her on KIIS, or at sister station KOST where she jumped to launch her own morning show in 2016.
“It feels like family,” Ellen K says. “It’s that connection.”
And while she’s not as instantly recognized as a TV host or actor, there’s one thing that can always give her away.
“I’ll be in the grocery store with (my husband) and I’ll say something, ‘Oh, honey, could you get the milk’ or whatever. And then someone in line will say, ‘Are you Ellen K?’ Because they recognize my voice.”
KOST-ing solo
At KOST, Ellen K got to shape her own show, mixing celebrity interviews with topic-of-the-day discussions with her on-air team and listeners, often bringing her family and her own life into the show to create a sense of community. Her son Calvin’s broken arm led her to do the show as a fundraiser for Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles on Giving Tuesday the week after Black Friday.
When her mother Eileen was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago she launched a regular series titled “Meaningful Makeovers” to give women of all ages a bit of feel-good pampering as they deal with the disease.
Sharing her life – even when it’s difficult, such as the morning earlier this year when she went on air to let listeners know her mother had died – is important to her because of the community she has built and cherishes from her many years on the radio.
“I realize that everything I go through my listeners are going through or have experienced,” Ellen K says. “As far as kids and being in a hospital, it is every parent’s nightmare. And then cancer, there’s not one person I know who’s not touched by cancer.”
In addition to her weekday morning shows that air live from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m., the “Ellen K Morning Show” is now syndicated in 60 markets in a taped version that airs Saturdays at the same time. Earlier this year she started hosting the Chinese Theatre ceremonies in her new role as the historic venue’s official ambassador. She’s been the voice-over announcer for the Grammys for a few years now, too.
But still there’s more on her to-do list. She wants to make a TV show version of her radio show and has shot a pilot as that inches into development. She’s got plans to write a book, a mix of motivational essays and stories from her life and career. And she wants to do more work on cancer-related causes such as her partnership with Thrive Causemetics, which released a pink lipstick in her mother’s favorite shade and named it Ilene Pink.
“This is the feel-good station,” Ellen K says of the adult contemporary format at KOST, which has held the top spot in the Nielsen radio ratings for Los Angeles so far this year. “I was really attracted to that. And I really want to do positive, good things with my show.”
Still infatuated with the World Premiere of the Quentin Tarantino’s 9th film, “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.” Thanks to my wonderful partnership with TCL Chinese Theater, I was invited to attend and capture these moments I could share. Being on that retro red carpet made us all feel like we were stepping back in 1969. Speaking of that, KOST 103.5 is doing a super cool special running tonight at 6:00pm for an hour and playing all things from that magical year… 1969! Happy Quentin Tarantino Day! The movie is out today!
It was a very productive Friday eve on the Ellen K Morning Show. Just to give you an idea, here’s how Ellen’s morning played out.
3:30am – The morning started before the sun came up. Ellen K’s alarm went off at 3:30am (that’s right 3:30 AM!!) to make it into her studio dressing room by 4am!
4:00am – Hair and makeup by the fabulous @XoLoveMo makeup artist and friend Monique Vergara.
5:00am – 10:00am: Live in-studio for the Ellen K Morning Show!
With a little bit of radio & TV magic, Ellen K was also live on the TV with the beautiful ladies at FOX 11’s morning news show, “Good Day LA”
Watch and see all the juicy topics they went over:
To be sure, some women are hitting it out of the park. Those seeking a shining success story should look no further than the trajectory and accomplishment of KOST/Los Angeles morning star, Ellen K. As most people in radio know, Ellen was the sidekick for two morning show superstars — Rick Dees and Ryan Seacrest — before striking out on her own.
But at this important junction in the country’s trajectory — and the ways in which people are presented and represented in the media — support needs to come from the entire organization, especially those in influential and power positions.
