Veteran Radio DJ Kid Kelly Leaves SiriusXM
Kid Kelly, the veteran radio personality and programmer who has broken numerous pop stars at influential stations such as New York's Z100 before landing at SiriusXM, has abruptly left the…
Kid Kelly, the veteran radio personality and programmer who has broken numerous pop stars at influential stations such as New York’s Z100 before landing at SiriusXM, has abruptly left the satellite-radio giant. A SiriusXM spokesperson said vps Alex Tear and Lou Simon would take over his programming duties and “we wish him the best in his new endeavors.”
Kelly, who declined to comment, participated in a Billboard radio roundtable last summer, in which he recalled crossing over Taylor Swift from country to pop radio and contending with challenges from on-demand streaming and Internet radio. “We offer the opposite … ‘I want to experience this at the same time everybody else is experiencing it,'” the Brooklyn-raised Kelly said. “There’s always going to be a place for radio, but I think that we — I — need to do better at making it someplace you never want to leave.”
SiriusXM’s majority owner, Liberty Media Corp., was recently reported to have interest in buying a controlling stake in broadcast-radio giant iHeartMedia — which laid off hundreds of employees throughout its 850 stations earlier this month. Kelly, who has worked for SiriusXM for 18 years, also hosts the popular Hits 1 show Backtrax USA.