DC107.3FM’s new voice in the morning.
Photo courtesy of Paul Barrios Photography.
Tune to the new DC107.3 and you’ll hear a familiar voice. Yes, Sarah Fraser is back in the DMV. The station reached out to her in March to revive their morning show, replacing the syndicated Bert Weiss from “The Bert Show.” She’s now on the air with her new co-hosts Ty Bentli and Mel Glazener, and she’s promising no more thorny wars. —Lynn Norusis
How does it feel coming back to the area and going up against your old show?
It is really very exciting. We’re definitely all new, but the idea and the concept is to do something very different than what “The Kane Show” is doing. We want to focus on entertaining and inspiring stories to help live, and have the listener live, “anything goes.” We’re working on real segments. With radio there is a lot in the business with this kind of staged calls and actors, and we really want to get away from that and focus on the positive. It’s all about uplifting the listener … bringing them to a better place instead of tearing them down. The listener is the fourth
cast member.
One of the ongoing segments you’ll have is “Confessions of the One that Got Away.”
The idea is everybody’s had this person in your life that you dated, maybe it was a weekend or a week or a one-night stand, and you always have been wondering about that person. We want [listeners] to send us their story and we’re going to try to track them down and see if the two can connect on the show.
How would you describe the difference in audiences, going from HOT99.5 to DC107.3?
We want the exact same audience. If you can believe it, there has never been two Top 40 radio stations in Washington, D.C. It used to be that [DC107.3] went through a little bit of an identity crisis—it used to be MIX107.3. Jack Diamond was a heritage morning show [and] Bert didn’t work out. They were trying to keep that MIX formula, but now we’re totally Top 40. When you tune in, you’re going to hear Arianna Grande, Iggy Azealea, Rhianna. We’re really seeking 18- to 34-year-old women.
Do you still keep in touch with Kane? Did you tell him about your return?
I didn’t. Unfortunately, we have not stayed in contact. My mom is battling breast cancer and was diagnosed in February, and I did receive a text from Kane and his wife and a couple other members of the show.
Any lessons you’ve learned being in the radio business?
I continue to learn. I would say my tortured relationship with radio is it is a very, very difficult business for women [and] very, very hard for a woman to get her own show, [especially] a morning drive show. The lesson is no matter how big a brand or name you’ve built for yourself, you really have to hustle hard and all the time.
Anything you think you can do differently on a morning show than a man could?
I hope to really lead our morning show as a woman speaking to women. The part of morning radio that never made sense is every single morning show I’ve ever been on, their target audience is women, and yet it’s men leading the show. I’ve never understood how a man was set in charge to talk to me, a 28-year-old woman, about what was going on in my life. So that filter alone is so different. That is the part that I feel the most responsibility and that is part where I hope to have the most impact; to really lead by example and encourage women to go for it and take a risk. A risk paid off big time for me.
(September 2014)
