Richmond Country radio woke up different today, because K95 did something far more meaningful than rearrange a schedule. WKHK has moved Brand Manager Carletta Blake into morning drive, ending an eight-year run for The Bobby Bones Show and replacing a national morning franchise with someone who already lives inside the station, already knows the market and already carries responsibility for the K95 brand itself. That is not a minor daypart adjustment. That is SummitMedia making a statement about what it wants 95.3 to sound like when Richmond wakes up.
And the statement sounds pretty clear to me:
MORE K95
MORE RICHMOND
MORE OWNERSHIP OF THE DAMN MORNING
THIS IS A REAL PROGRAMMING DECISION
The Bobby Bones Show is not some random syndicated filler.
It is one of the biggest Country morning brands in America.
Putting it on your station is easy to understand.
You get scale.
You get national stars.
You get national content.
You get a polished morning product.
K95 did that for eight years.
Then today it stopped.
That matters.
Because stations do not walk away from an established morning franchise unless they believe there is something else worth building.
And Summit has decided the something else is Carletta Blake.
THE BRAND MANAGER IS NOW THE MORNING HOST
That is the part I keep coming back to.
Carletta is not simply the person doing mornings.
She is the person responsible for the brand.
That changes everything.
She now hears the station from the exact chair where a huge portion of K95’s daily relationship with the audience begins.
Traffic.
Weather.
Local conversation.
Country music.
What happened last night.
What Richmond is talking about.
What listeners are doing today.
She does not have to wait for a programming memo explaining what mornings should feel like.
SHE WRITES THE MEMO.
😂
That can be powerful when it works.
AND SHE ALREADY KNOWS THE PRODUCT
Blake joined K95 in 2025 and spent the past year in afternoons.
The station’s own biography paints someone deeply rooted in Country radio and community work, with about two decades in the format and significant involvement with organizations including St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
That is useful in Richmond.
Country listeners can smell fake connection immediately.
You do not walk into this format and simply declare:
HELLO FELLOW COUNTRY HUMANS
😂
You have to live it.
Music.
Family.
Community.
Concerts.
Charities.
Local events.
That is the ecosystem.
Carletta has already been doing that.
AND RICHMOND IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF MARKET WHERE LOCAL MORNINGS CAN MATTER
Look at the city.
Richmond is a fast-growing regional center with universities, major employers, suburbs expanding outward and a culture that blends old Virginia with a younger urban population.
Summit itself describes Richmond as a city where traditional Southern character intersects with a modern urban economy, major universities, food, craft beer and a central location between Washington, Virginia Beach and the Blue Ridge.
That gives a morning show material.
A lot of material.
You do not need to manufacture life in Richmond.
It is already happening.
AND K95 IS ALREADY DEEPLY INVOLVED IN THE LOCAL COUNTRY WORLD
Look at the station’s event calendar.
Jon Pardi in Richmond.
Koe Wetzel.
Priscilla Block.
Blackberry Smoke.
Brad Paisley.
Hudson Westbrook.
Clint Black.
Midland.
Farm Aid nearby in Virginia Beach.
That is not some generic national Country playlist.
That is a station sitting in the middle of a very active regional Country ecosystem.
So why would mornings not be tied directly into that?
That is the opportunity Carletta has.
THIS IS WHERE K95 CAN SOUND MORE LIKE K95
National shows are excellent when they fit.
But the tradeoff is obvious.
The national show cannot spend forty minutes obsessing over the Richmond commute.
It cannot build its entire morning around something that happened in Chesterfield County last night.
It cannot react in real time to every local concert announcement.
It cannot spend an hour talking about some ridiculous thing that happened at a Short Pump grocery store.
Carletta can.
That is the difference.
AND THAT DIFFERENCE HAS VALUE
This is the fight radio is in right now.
Spotify has Country.
Apple has Country.
Amazon has Country.
YouTube has Country.
SiriusXM has Country.
Everybody has Country.
So what does K95 have that those platforms do not?
RICHMOND.
That should be the answer.
SUMMIT ACTUALLY PREACHES THIS
The company’s own marketing material argues that local radio builds trust because of its community connection and local relevance.
Fine.
Then this move is where you prove it.
You cannot spend years telling advertisers and listeners that local connection is radio’s advantage and then make every important daypart sound like it came from somewhere else.
Putting your Brand Manager into mornings is a pretty direct way of putting your money where your mouth is.
AND AFTERNOONS CHANGE TOO
There is another piece here that matters.
K95’s current site now has a page for Dingo in afternoons from 3 to 7.
That means Carletta’s move is not occurring in isolation.
This is a broader lineup reset.
Morning drive changes.
Afternoons change.
The station is reshuffling the daily rhythm around personalities.
That is worth paying attention to.
DINGO BRINGS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ENERGY
The station describes him as a Country personality built around family, faith and humor, with twenty years behind the microphone and a decidedly Southern identity.
That creates a very different afternoon feel from Carletta.
Good.
It should.
Dayparts should not sound interchangeable.
Mornings should wake you up.
Middays should move with the workday.
Afternoons should decompress.
Nights should feel different again.
That is programming.
THE WEBSITE IS STILL CATCHING UP
And this is one of those wonderfully radio things.
Parts of K95’s current website still show the older lineup with Bobby Bones in mornings and Carletta in afternoons, while the newer Dingo page already shows him in the afternoon slot.
Translation:
THE DIGITAL FURNITURE IS STILL BEING MOVED
😂
That is not unusual during a same-day lineup transition.
But it is another signal that this is a real reset, not a temporary fill-in.
EIGHT YEARS IS A LONG TIME
Let that sink in.
The Bobby Bones Show had been part of K95 mornings for eight years.
That means many listeners have never known the current version of K95 without Bobby in morning drive.
Habits formed.
Listeners built routines.
Advertisers knew the product.
Promotions were built around it.
Now all of that changes.
That is risky.
And I like that.
RADIO NEEDS MORE CALCULATED RISK
Not stupid risk.
Calculated risk.
If you believe local personality is part of your future, then eventually you have to create space for local personality to actually matter.
You cannot keep saying:
WE NEED MORE LIVE LOCAL RADIO
and then never put anybody in the most important chair.
K95 just put somebody there.
CARLETTA HAS TO MAKE THIS FEEL DIFFERENT QUICKLY
Here is the challenge.
If the new morning show simply becomes:
Song.
Liner.
Weather.
Song.
Contest.
Commercial.
Then what was the point?
The opportunity is to create something that could not exist anywhere except Richmond.
Use the city.
Use the callers.
Use the concerts.
Use the community.
Use the charities.
Use her life.
Use Country music culture.
Use Virginia.
Let people hear the market.
THE MORNING SHOW SHOULD BE THE FRONT DOOR OF THE STATION
That is how I look at it.
You wake up.
You walk in.
The morning show introduces you to the house.
If the morning show feels disconnected from the rest of the station, the brand feels disconnected.
Carletta being Brand Manager could actually solve that.
She can make mornings reinforce the station rather than exist beside it.
AND COUNTRY RADIO IS BUILT FOR THIS
Country is still one of the formats where storytelling matters deeply.
Listeners care about artists.
Families.
Communities.
Faith.
Veterans.
Local events.
Concerts.
High school sports.
County fairs.
Charity drives.
That gives a local Country morning show endless material.
Use it.
CARLETTA’S COMMUNITY BACKGROUND FITS
Her K95 biography talks openly about growing up around community assistance, later supporting children’s charities and serving in leadership with St. Jude’s radio advisory organization.
That is not some random bio detail.
That can be part of what makes the show matter.
Richmond radio should not simply talk about community.
It should participate in it.
AND K95 ALREADY DOES
Summit’s Richmond stations produce a public-service feature called Focus Richmond, highlighting nonprofits and organizations operating across the region.
That is the kind of thing the new morning show can amplify.
Take those relationships and make them bigger.
Make people know that K95 is involved.
THIS IS THE BEST PART OF THE MOVE
K95 is not importing someone who needs three months to understand Richmond.
Carletta has already been there.
She already knows the station.
She already knows the team.
She already knows the artists.
She already knows the promotions.
She already knows the advertisers.
She already knows which printer in the building jams every damn Wednesday.
😂
That matters.
AND SHE KNOWS WHAT THE STATION IS TRYING TO BE
That may be the biggest advantage of all.
She is the Brand Manager.
If the morning show does not sound like K95, she cannot blame the PD.
😂
She is the PD.
That creates accountability.
And creative freedom.
ON THE DIAL PERSPECTIVE
I like this move.
A lot.
Not because Bobby Bones is bad.
That would be ridiculous.
He has built one of the biggest Country morning franchises in the country for a reason.
But this is not about Bobby.
This is about K95 deciding what K95 should be.
And after eight years of national morning programming, Summit is choosing to put a person already embedded in the station into the most visible daypart of the day.
That is significant.
THIS IS A TEST OF LOCAL RADIO
Not simply Carletta.
Local radio itself.
Can a locally rooted morning show create a deeper relationship than a national product?
Can Richmond connection outperform national scale?
Can a Brand Manager use mornings to make the entire station stronger?
Can a new lineup make K95 feel more alive?
We are about to find out.
AND I HOPE THEY GO ALL IN
Do not half-ass it.
If you are making the move, make the move.
Marketing.
Billboards.
Social.
Video.
Events.
Caller interaction.
Concert access.
Local businesses.
Charities.
Schools.
Everything.
Make Carletta impossible to miss in Richmond.
Because if you replace an eight-year national morning habit with a local show, you better introduce the hell out of it.
RICHMOND NOW GETS ITS OWN MORNING SHOW
That is the headline.
Not simply:
Carletta Blake moves from afternoons.
That undersells the story.
This is:
K95 RECLAIMS MORNING DRIVE
A station that has spent eight years starting the day with a national program now has its own Brand Manager sitting in the chair.
That creates risk.
Opportunity.
Pressure.
And excitement.
Exactly what radio needs.
THE CLOCK HIT SIX AND K95 CHANGED
Carletta moved upstairs in the lineup.
Dingo moved into afternoons.
The Bobby Bones era ended.
And one of Richmond’s major Country brands suddenly became more locally controlled in the most important daypart of the day.
Now comes the only question that matters:
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH IT
Carletta has the microphone.
She has the brand.
She has Richmond outside the studio door.
Open it.
Let the city in.
And make sure tomorrow morning sounds like something no satellite feed in America could possibly duplicate.
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