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Charese Fruge’ (@MCMediaonline) Talks To Zann Fredlund
October 25, 2022
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Zann Fredlund is currently the Assistant Program Director for iHeartMedia Top 40 KBKS (Hits 106.1)/Seattle. She describes her role as everything from music rotations, maintaining label relationships, writing/creating branding imaging, promotional writing, research projects, coaching new talent, helping to develop social media strategies, and hosting three shows on air. “I have zero time for a hobby or passions outside of that,” she says. “I also have extreme A-D-D, so it’s not that I don’t want a hobby, I just get bored easily.”
I follow Zann on Instagram. Not only is she funny and smart, but she is also inspiring. I am fascinated by her commitment to weight loss and her focus on her health, and so happy to see it really paying off. It’s a long-term commitment and a complete lifestyle change, and most people would have given up by now.
I am also fascinated by her career path and the success she’s currently seeing as not only talent, but a young woman on her way to becoming an incredible programmer. Here’s how it all started for Zann. “My first internship was at Wired 96.5 in Philadelphia while in college at Temple,” she says. “I finished there as executive producer of ‘Chio and Shila In The Morning,’ got picked up in New York City by CBS to do nights and then eventually afternoons at then 92.3 NOW. From there I went to Dallas-Fort Worth to work for Cumulus and WW1 doing nights, then middays and then eventually getting picked up by iHeartRadio in Seattle, and now am APD, afternoon drive on KBKS, KKRZ and middays on KSLZ.”
“This whole career of mine has been craaaaaaaaaay,” says Zann. “From winning ‘Best Radio Personality’ in New York, to getting emails from people like Bob Pittman or Tom Poleman telling me they are a fan of me and the work I’m doing in Seattle, to being on a jury with Matt Pinfield for the ‘America’s Next Song Contest’ TV show…I mean say wha? Then there’s this whole becoming APD thing. I’ve worked really hard for this gig. Years of sweat, tears and being looked over. That’s the role I’m most proud of.”
Despite her success, Zann’s career path hasn’t come without its challenges. “I’ve worked through major catastrophes like hurricanes, mass shootings, the Phillies winning the world series (YouTube it), launching a morning show and new brand in the middle of a pandemic, but all those things have a starting and end point,” she says.
“The on-going challenge: myself. Somebody once described me as one of the most ‘self-aware people they’ve met.’ It’s true, I am. I mean, I just named myself as the biggest challenge in my own career over hurricanes and pandemics,” explains Zann. “While it is my greatest gift because it allows me to pivot quickly when I need to, as well as pickup on things I need to grow in, it is also my greatest weakness. Too much self-awareness brings insecurity and where insecurity lives, so does distrust and stress.”
“Luckily for me, I have a lot of new compassionate people in my life, both personally and professionally (those people haven’t always existed) and more recently, I’m on the other side, trying to be self-aware when it matters (my growth professionally and personally) and not so much self-aware when it comes to things that are rooted in insecurity and distrust. I’m not perfect at it by any means, but A for effort on my part for sure.”
Zann has a strong desire to mentor women in the business, especially when it comes to developing more female programmers. She’s got great advice. “As women looking to get into programming, we need to stop looking at all the men in current programming leadership as people who want to keep women out, and find the ones who are actively trying to bring us in,” she says. “Yup, they exist. I have a front row seat to some of the most amazing male leaders trying to bridge that gap and not from a ‘check a box’ standpoint, but from a realization that the people before them were the ones that made that mistake, and they need to fix it because they have left a very creative, talented, empathetic and intelligent pool completely untapped. They are not the problem; they are part of the solution just as much as we are.”
“Some of the amazing male leaders I currently work with that empower the growth of female leadership in programming: Maynard Cohen, Tommy Austin, Mark Adams, Tony Coles, Brad Harden, Bob Pittman, Tom Poleman, Kage, Keith Allen, Zac Davis…I think that’s a pretty good start,” says Zann. “Reach out to them, tell them you want to get into programming. Careful what you wish for though because they’ll take you up on it.”
“Secondly, find a female mentor,” she adds. “Sometimes, it does get a little crazy in there being the only female, especially when you feel like a gorilla is pounding on your insides (aka your period)…it is the one thing I tell every female in radio…lean on each other cause there be dudes in these parts still wildin’ you and sometimes you just need another female to understand how it feels to be in those situations as a female and not as a male.”
As an up-and-coming Programmer, one of Zann’s main responsibilities is to figure out how to grow the radio audience on the younger end and create engagement and loyalty so the business continues to grow and expand. I asked her how we do that. How do we win over Gen Z? “Listen to them, without judgement and empower them to be involved in radio, whether working in it or experiencing it, by giving them ownership,” says Zann. “We get so caught up in judging them for the things they do, listen to…. but they are mighty. Look at music in Top 40 and you will see how mighty they are. They’ve completely derailed the linear equation of a hit by making Kate Bush’s song from 1985 a #1 record in 2022. It’s crazy. Just like any relationship, if we spend too much time talking about ourselves and too much time only listening for things to judge with the person we want to care about us, they will eventually go away. Want them to stay? Understand what they love and why they love it.”
“If we have authentic interest in who they are, follow their lead when it comes to music consumption and engaging with one another, we’ll be alright as an industry,” she adds. “As a female programmer it is my goal to bring up young women in this industry as themselves and empower them to find their lane in radio just as I have, but remain authentic to who they are and what drove them to be here.”
That being said, I asked Zann if we’ve moved the needle at all when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the broadcast industry. “In short, yes. But only a smidge,” she says. “I think it’s going to be a bit before we really see the effects of the work our male leaders are putting into bringing female leaders in, as it’s just really begun. I almost gave up on my dream of being a programmer before I met my current boss/mentor Maynard. It wasn’t really until I began working for him that I felt like being a female programmer was a possibility. I was introduced to an entire slew of programmers who are working to move radio into the 21st century.”
“But I’d be lying if I said a lot of my programming meetings don’t still feel like the middle school dance where boys and girls stand on opposite sides of the room until two of them start dancing and everybody’s having a good time, but I just know somebody is gonna start dancing any moment now.”
If you’ve listened to Zann on air recently or had a conversation with her lately, you’d be surprised to know this about her too. “I used to be super religious. This always seems to throw people off,” she says. “Yup, from about age 12 to 19, I was totes down with Jesus and 100% thinking I was going to be a youth pastor. I even spoke in tongues during youth group one time and the youth pastor translated it. I’m sorry, I’m like seriously laughing writing about this. I was also a part of a Jesus dance team, as well as in the worship band.”
What keeps Zann up at night? “Dead air alerts and macros. Just kidding. That’s a little programmers’ joke I like to tell to keep the attention of the people in khakis,” she says.
“Honestly, the team here in Seattle. They have weathered quite a few storms since the launch of Hits 106.1, from pandemics to people just downright wanting them to fail, which is super gross by the way. We have a very talented group at KBKS in Seattle. My #1 goal is to make sure the environment they work in remains as positive as possible so they feel they can thrive in creating content that connects our listeners to not only the Hits brand, but to them. So, anything that threatens that, keeps me up.”
As far as finding balance, it’s a work in progress for Zann, “Anybody that works with me will tell you that I’m the worst at this. Even my workaholic boss works less than me,” she says. “My self-growth in this current moment is finding balance. I feel a lot of regret not seeing my parents more often before they passed because I was moving around the country, chasing after this radio dream. I feel a lot of guilt wishing my entire life to find a guy to love me unconditionally only to find him and have him sit next to me night after night while I work long into the night.”
“Taking once again the lead of a lot of my mentors, I’m trying to start shutting off at more appropriate times to be more present with the people I love and letting go of things that just aren’t that big of a deal. While in true Zann fashion, I’m not perfect at this…but I get an A for effort.”
I mentioned earlier that I was inspired by Zann’s personal health journey. I wanted to know what her inspiration was, and how she committed to the discipline of a complete lifestyle change. “Right before the pandemic, my dad passed away. A year and a half before that, my mom. Cue the pandemic, everybody now working from home and completely isolated, your girl becoming severely depressed and now trying to cover her depression with work and food,” she explains. “Fast forward to 2 years into the panorama and your girl is on her way to five hundred pounds and having a hard time even walking from her car to inside work. I started to become scared I was on the fast track to death, especially because news was starting to come out that Covid was a ticket to death if you were in the shape I was in.”
“I reached out to our sales department to see if we had any clients that’d be interested in working with me as a way to keep myself accountable,” says Zann. “An AE reached out and that is where I met the doctor that would change my life. What started out as me forcing myself to lose weight by attaching to the thing I love most (my job), turned into me finally meeting a doctor who had been studying for the last few decades why people struggle with weight and others don’t. He also empowered me to realize that no matter my weight, if I don’t think I’m worth the time to go to the gym and prepare meals that will turn my ass around on this train headed straight towards death, then we have bigger problems than my weight.”
“What motivated me? That,” she says. “Finally having the people around me tell me that I was worth fighting for just as much as the people I fight for on a daily basis that aren’t me. So, I did. I held tight to that…I was worth putting aside 45 minutes a day to work out, no matter how many emails still needed to be answered or how many shows needed to be tracked. I was worth putting food in my body that helped it verses hurt it. It’s pushed me every step of the way to losing 150 pounds so far and being the healthiest I’ve been since elementary school.”
“I now work to help bridge the gap that exists between the medical field and the plus size community, educating people on treatments for obesity by medical professionals in a field where they have been ignored and blamed for their weight struggle their entire life.”
That’s one hell of a healthy commitment. It’s a journey I want to follow and go along with her on, not only personally, but professionally. And there’s a lot to keep up with moving forward for Zann. Her main priorities: “I’ll be running my first 5K before 2023, making an epic return of New Year’s Eve at the Space Needle and lastly, but most importantly, being the #1 CHR station in Seattle.”
Follow Zann @chillinwithzann on IG, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook
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