Charese Fruge’ (@MCMediaonline) Talks To Casey Carter

She’s about to dive headfirst into New Orleans Mardi Gras. Good thing Casey Carter is experienced. She’s currently the PD and PM Drive Host for iHeart’s Country station there, WNOE, and this is her second tour in the Crescent City at the same radio station. She’s a pro, and knows all the secrets to the city.

We’ll get to that, but first, in addition to her role at WNOE, Carter is also the lead on approximately 75 of iHeart’s Custom stations, where she assists stations as needed, shares information, acts as the liaison between Custom programming and Custom Talent, and a handful of other duties. She also hosts middays at WCKT/Fort Myers, does Saturday and Sunday mornings on one of the Custom channels, and holds down weekend air shifts at WCOL, WKKT, WUBL, WGAR, WNCB, and KWNR.

That’s an enormous amount of responsibility for a radio programmer, but she’s got the experience, and got it locked down. Here's how Carter’s radio career began. “I grew up playing saxophone, won a bunch of awards for my playing in high school, and was planning to go to college to study music. I changed my mind at the last minute, went to broadcasting school, got my first radio job at 17, and here I am!” says Carter.

“I got my radio start in Marion, OH, then on to Charlotte and Norfolk/Virginia Beach, all Top 40. My first Country job came in 1994 at WCOL in Columbus, which had just flipped to Country, then on to the former WHOK/Columbus, WNOE/New Orleans, WROO & WQIK/Jacksonville, KXKC/Lafayette, WZZK/Birmingham, WSTH/Columbus and WOBB/Albany GA, WKKT/Charlotte, WTQR & WVBZ/Greensboro, and finally back to WNOE/New Orleans. I’d like to think I’m done moving.”

New Orleans is one of those cities. You either love it or hate it because both the culture and potential chaos are so different from the rest of the world. And if you choose to live there, you must commit to both. Carter says she had no problem doing that. “To back up to 2004, I was the APD/MD at WNOE and was offered my first programming job in Jacksonville,” she says. “I remember thinking ‘how can I leave New Orleans? I LOVE it here!’ But ultimately Jacksonville won out and it was a great opportunity for my first PD job, and I would’ve been really dumb to not seize the opportunity. But there was always something in me that felt like I just wasn’t done with New Orleans, like I had some sort of unfinished business there.”

“The PD job at WNOE opened up several times over the years but I never applied…it was just never the ‘right” time,’ says Carter. “Fast forward to late 2019…my boyfriend and I didn’t love living in Greensboro, which is a lovely place for some but not our kind of town at all. The PD job at WNOE had been open for quite a while and I ended up calling Angela Watson, the SVPP of Programming there. I found out that she had offered the job to someone else who had just backed out…I said ‘perfect! Can I come back?’ We talked, she flew me in, we talked some more, and here I am!”

Before we move on to Carter’s career, let’s get to the important stuff. Yes, she knows all the secrets of the city. But you’re going to have to work for them. “I know plenty of secrets! But then they would no longer be secrets if I told you, would they?” Asks Carter. “Actually, I LOVE showing people around here and have even devised a fun little walking tour for out-of-town guests. I joke that someday I’ll probably end up as a tour guide here, so come on down, take my tour, and I’ll show you all the secrets! I know where to find the good drinks, too.”

As far as the industry goes, and her career over the years, Casey has learned some pretty important lessons. “I have had numerous amazing experiences along the way and have accomplished a lot, for which I am very grateful! But I am also one of those people that have taken a beating from the business, too… I’ve been budget cut three times, another time I got fired when the station brought in a new PD who cleaned house and brought his own staff with him,” she explains. “I once had a PD who told me that I was such a bad DJ that he would never let me on the air if it was ‘light outside’ and he used to berate me so bad in aircheck sessions that I would sob uncontrollably (and I’m a tough girl! He was just…mean. Yeah. We’ll say ‘mean’). I had a GM tell me that I was not attractive enough to fit in with the rest of his cluster.”

“I could go on and on. But all of the negative experiences actually pushed me and lit a fire under me, which helped me grow, made me work smarter AND harder, and above all, I learned to appreciate all of the good,” says Carter.” I’ve had some really good times and I have great management and peers around me right now, which I appreciate so much! So, I think that simply surviving and thriving and still loving every single moment of being in radio is probably my biggest accomplishment so far.”

“I think the ever-changing landscape of radio with smaller staffs and smaller budgets but big expectations is currently the biggest challenge in the industry. Learning to adapt and not being afraid of change is critical to survive,” she says. “I hate the sentence ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it,’ because you MUST be open to new ideas and moving forward. If you are willing to try a different approach to things knowing you may fail, you can easily overcome any challenge. NEVER be afraid to fail!”

Casey has great advice for women who want to pursue leadership roles in the business. “I think there are more opportunities now for women than ever before! When I first got into radio, most of the women I worked with were either in sales or promotions. The few women on the programming side either did middays or had a tiny role on the morning show,” she says. “I was several years into my career before I saw a woman in a leadership role or a bigger on-air role. But now? Women are KILLING it! Take our cluster here in New Orleans, for example… Angela Watson is our Senior Vice President of Programming and she’s also an Executive VP for all of iHeart! Our Market President and Sales Manager are both women… and those three women are BAD ASS women! And there are plenty of other bad ass women in iHeart and radio in general.”

“Each woman is blazing a path for women coming up behind them and we’re just getting stronger and more of a force to be reckoned with!” Adds Carter “It’s nice to be in an era where gender is not nearly as important as whether or not you can do the job, because it hasn’t always been that way in my experience. So, the advice…take every opportunity and learn all you can. We’re finally getting to a time where the right person is more important than the gender!”

“In addition to Gender, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are also very important in our industry. I think we have moved the needle, but we certainly have a ways to go,” says Carter. “Being male, female, gay, straight, black, white, etc.…none of this should ever matter. A diverse workplace full of people with passion and fire who are the right fit for the situation…that’s what matters.”

As far as attracting and appealing to younger generations to grow and conserve traditional radio, Carter takes a stab at the million-dollar question. “If I had the answer, I’d have a million dollars!” she says. “Actually, I think this goes back to eliminating the sentence ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it.’ Gen Z doesn’t do things the way Millennials do. Millennials don’t do things the way Gen Xers do. And so on…so why should we as an industry? Being and staying relevant will always be key, but not being afraid of bobbing and swerving and trying different things is just as important. Above all, don’t lose focus. If you’re targeting a radio station for Gen Z, don’t do Gen X stuff, and vice versa.”

Now for the not so serious side of things. Over the years, Carter has experienced some pretty strange situations. She’s one of the few willing to spill the tea on such circumstances, and she doesn’t disappoint. “SO MANY things!” She says. “There used to be a lot of strange people calling radio stations back in the day. One of my favorite stories from the late, great Les Acree, was a time he got a call from an extremely pissed off listener yelling about how he was offended that the station (a Country station) would play a song endorsing a ‘gang bang.’ Upon further investigation, the caller was upset about Kentucky Headhunter’s ‘Dumas Walker,’ where they heard ‘let’s all go down to do Miss Walker.’ Imagine taking that phone call.”

“My first tour-of-duty here at WNOE,” she recalls. “Our sister station was out doing a remote with the lights flashing on top of the station van. A drunk guy stole the van, led police on a chase on I-10, and finally ran over spikes and wrecked the van (thank God nobody was hurt!). I also once worked with a guy who insisted on doing his show naked. He’d tape newspapers on the studio windows and do a live show completely in the buff,” she explains. “Speaking of nudists, I once worked at a station with a giant window that looked out into the lobby. While doing a live Saturday show, I had a rather obese coworker go streaking across the lobby and run belly first into the window and stand there…naked…while I was literally talking live on the air. I still can’t get rid of the visual in my head.”

What keeps Carter up at night? Not the lobby incident, but instead, “Making sure I did everything I needed to do that day,” she says. “I keep a running list but I am always afraid of something slipping through the cracks. I hate things that are left hanging and slipping through cracks.” What brings her balance? “What’s balance?” She asks.

The good news is, she’s taking a little break before the madness of Carnival season kicks in. “I’m going to the Caribbean next week… looking forward to that! And when we get back, we’ll be deep into Mardi Gras here in New Orleans. February 2023 is going to be a fun month!!!” She says.

Followed by French Quarter Fest, then Jazz Fest, Crawfish Season, LSU Football, Saints Football, the over 130 festivals held in the city and just the overall debauchery that goes along with living in the original “City of Sin.” Food comas, booze comas, sleep deprivation, parades, parties, beads. You know, the typical job requirements for a career in New Orleans. You got this Casey! We’ll be watching your success (survival) with envy.

Follow Casey Carter on Instagram and Facebook @CaseyCarterRadio, and Twitter @CaseyMCarter