With the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo ramping up for the 2025 season, I thought it was time to check in on Houston's newest country morning radio program, the "Frito & Katy Show" which debuted on 100.3 The Bull KILT in early January, taking over for "The Morning Bullpen with George Mo and Erik" which signed off in December.
Tucker "Frito" Young and Katy Dempsey are both from around the area and grew up listening to Houston radio.
Now, they return to their roots and are out to prove to Houston radio listeners they are ready for the H-Town radio dial.
In this mikemcguff.com exclusive interview, I ask them everything from their early Bryan-College Station radio days to their extensive radio industry award wins to how they plan to win over Houston country radio listeners.
MIKE MCGUFF: What is it like growing up in Spring and now being on the air in your hometown?
KATY: The crazier thing is working with and for the people I grew up listening to. I actually worked in Houston briefly in 2011. I got hired by COX Radio after interning with the Q Morning Zoo. I saw Tim Tuttle & Kevin Kline every morning and ran into Scott Sparks in the hallways. In San Antonio, Christi Brooks was our boss. Erin Austin once applied to work for us at Bryan Broadcasting way back when, and I actually hired Atom Smasher to come co-host with me at Candy 95 when Frito fancied himself a real estate mogul for all of two months… truly, it’s a small world and an even smaller business.
Growing up in Bryan, I assume you also grew up on Houston radio. What were some Houston stations that inspired you in your radio career?
FRITO: So many. KRBE in the Sam Malone era. The Box was so so so good in the late 90's. It was crazy. Moving into the 2000s, I listened to a ton of The Buzz and absolutely adored Buzzfest. On the country side, having both KILT and 93Q right down the road was amazing. Just seeing how the stations presented themselves and how they could create these larger-than-life brands was incredibly inspiring. Doing mornings across from Rod Ryan, Roula and Ryan, and being in the same market as Michael Berry is just... it's weird. In no universe will they care, but they continue to be an incredible influence on me and how I do radio.
When you first teamed up at Candy 95 KNDE College Station nearly 15 years ago, did you ever think you'd be a morning show in Houston one day?
FRITO: Honestly, no. It just wasn't something I thought would be in the cards. We never focused on getting to any one market. We just wanted to do great radio and build great radio stations. If that had only ever happened in College Station, I would have been more than fine with that. If we had stayed in San Antonio for 20 years, that would have been great, too. We've just been extremely lucky to be presented with some amazing opportunities that were almost impossible to say no to.
KATY: 15 years ago, I never would have believed I’d be working at Candy 95 for almost 1/3 of my life, that’s for sure. My plan was to do a few years of full-time radio to build my resume and hone my skills, and then start working my way back to bigger markets, but I’m glad it didn’t play out that way. Bryan Broadcasting is where I truly learned what radio had the capacity to be. It’s where I learned a lot about myself and my desire to serve my community, and like Frito said, if we’d ended our careers there, it would have been a very fulfilling one. When we started winning national awards, we did have people call from time to time to see if one of us might consider working elsewhere. We were always adamant that if we left Candy 95, not only would we leave together as a show, but the conditions of the new gig had to be damn near perfect. It just worked out that both San Antonio and now Houston essentially were.
What was it like to transition from Top 40 (CHR) pop to country when you moved to Y100 KCYY San Antonio?
FRITO: I know this is going to fly in the face of what most people say about the country audience being "different" than pop, but we really didn't have that experience. I fully believe that 20 years ago, they were probably completely different universes, but today’s culture has become so much of a blend that generally if something is relevant to one, it's probably relevant to the other. We made some adjustments here and there, but the fact that we've done small market pop and large market country with essentially the same formula and had the same success shows there are more similarities than differences.
KATY: To me, good radio is good radio. If you do it right, it should transcend genres. Anything that is too tailored to one particular format can feel almost forced, and I think listeners are smarter than we give them credit for. It also helps that we’re doing radio in Texas. We didn’t have a lot of pop acts come through Bryan/College Station, but you can bet when Cody Johnson was doing his “Back to School Bash,” our listeners were beating down the door for those tickets. The Candy 95 listeners were just as excited for those as the fans from our country properties, and in some cases, even more so.
You replaced longtime country morning shows in San Antonio and now in Houston. How do you win over the listeners in these situations?
KATY: …Bribery? That and some combination of self-deprecation and desperation, probably. No, I think it’s mostly the show itself. I think beyond the content and design, it helps that we’re actually friends, and we’ve been doing this show for years. You can hear that natural chemistry, and it’s not something all shows have. We’re also both really hard workers, and we’re gonna put in the hours to prove to Houston – just like we did in San Antonio – that we’re invested in this city.
FRITO: Yeah, I don't think there's a secret strategy. We try to just be ourselves and hope for the best. The truth is, it's largely out of your hands. I think it's an incredible thing that people are so passionate about radio that when you change it up, you get such a pronounced reaction. Honestly, I'd prefer never to go through this again. Filtering through a thousand "you suck" comments is something I'm ready to be done with. That said, I wouldn't want to do this if the audience wasn't that passionate.
KATY: And people are already starting to come around. It helps when they can meet us in person and see we aren’t “characters” or anything like that. We know that change is really hard, but we also know we grow on people over time… especially if we are out getting in front of them as a team.
How would you describe your show to new listeners? What kind of segments do you have, and what topics do you cover?
FRITO: I've been trying to describe the show since we started, and I've never come up with one I like. The best summary I've ever heard was from someone who said what they loved about the show was that it wasn't "our show." “Our show” is a show about them. It's a show about our listeners. It’s their feedback, their stories, and their shared experiences. We're just the people in the room putting it all together. We've also become known as the show that has a thousand weird games. Minus the fact that Katy and I just love games, I’m not sure how that happened. Luckily for us, our listeners seem to be into that kind of thing, too. Maybe that’s a new summary for the show – weird stuff that we like that come to find out, other people like also.
KATY: Frito is talking about my mom. My mom said that bit about our show not being expressly “ours,” and I think that’s a great description. We don’t just talk to hear ourselves talk. We’re actually not all that funny or even very interesting, but we are pretty good at facilitating conversations with people from all walks of life. By inviting the audience in, we a) don’t have to work as hard and b) get some investment from the listeners by focusing on their stories as much (or more) as ours.
And like Frito said, the rest of our show is a mix of things we think are really funny or noteworthy mixed with a bunch of dumb games. We’re very good at coming up with games so bad they’re amazing. And it’s all evolving in real-time, right? That’s something no other medium can really say. At the end of the day, radio is supposed to be fun and dynamic, and I like to think that we do a good job of remembering that... most days.
Do you find Houston and San Antonio to be different radio audiences?
KATY: In San Antonio, the death threats were a bit scarier... I know that.
FRITO: I'll probably be able to answer this better in a few months, but both cities are very special. Each city has one of the most defined cultures you can find. Each city has an amazing level of diversity, and in every aspect you can think of. San Antonio has better sunsets, and Houston has better food (although San Antonio would probably fight me over that). I can't say enough good things about the listeners in San Antonio. It was a privilege to get to know them and be a part of their lives. As far as Houston goes, one of the benefits of starting right at the beginning of rodeo season is we're getting to meet so many listeners so quickly. I already feel exactly the same about them as I do about everyone back in SA. It is incredible how on fire for radio both cities are.
Is there a favorite moment (or moments) from your career together?
FRITO: The time we won 3 Marconi's for the stations we were programming in College Station in one day. We got a Personality of the Year for the show, a CHR of the Year for Candy 95, and a Small Market Station of the Year for WTAW. Technically, we won four, but taking credit for Ben Downs’ Legendary Manager award feels wrong (although we were the ones who convinced him to let us enter him). Minus that, in no timeline did I ever think we would be the CMA Major Market Personalities of the Year in our third year of doing country radio. I still don't think that's sunk in yet.
KATY: When it was announced we’d be moving to country, people were saying we weren’t country enough, and we’d never make it for one made-up reason or another. It made winning the CMA Award for Major Market Personalities of the Year this past year even better. That’ll be one of the most exciting experiences of my life, probably ever.
I also love that we were able to create a successful literacy program we could run in conjunction with a summer meals program to combat two massive issues affecting children in San Antonio. As these are also issues that our youth in Houston face, we’re hoping to be able to launch a version of this here.
The best moments are the ones we’ve created for others like when we gave over 200 local non-profits air time in one day of giving that raised millions of dollars. We also once sold pottery made by local kids to help stock entire school food pantries. We even helped raise awareness and funds for a rare form of pediatric brain cancer that successfully resulted in a clinical trial. And when COVID shutdowns threatened another holiday, we helped create a free Halloween event for an entire city. These are the things I’ll never forget.
Over the years, you have won many awards from the industry. What do you attribute to your success?
FRITO: I honestly have no idea. I'm just very grateful that whatever it is seems to be working, and I hope it continues because we both really love awards. Both of us are absurdly passionate about radio as a medium and about using it to give back. The result of this is that we overthink everything on the show and probably work a little too hard when it comes to finding meaningful ways to make life better for the people where we live. I hope that passion cuts through.
KATY: At the end of the day, radio is a public service. We can’t lose sight of that. It’s a way to directly connect a community with opportunities to serve it. That’s such a large part of how we program and create content.
Given the nature of our business and the flexibility of this medium, I believe we have a duty to go beyond merely entertaining audiences on their commutes. To be effective, we need to help where we can.
What other business allows you to see a problem and move an entire community to solve it?
I’m also a big believer in the idea that if something is worth investing time on-air to, it’s probably worth investing your time, too. Our jobs shouldn’t end with a donation link or a drop-off site – we should be hosting, helping, and volunteering at these events and for these causes. If we don’t care, why should our listeners?
I think it’s this mentality that cuts through to people in the industry, especially if they feel the same way.
You are very involved in your broadcast cities. Why is community service important to you?
FRITO: Radio is unmatched at storytelling. When you combine that with its reach, you get this incredible method of connecting people to needs in their community and ways to help. Legitimately, I don't know of any other medium that is as effective at this as radio is. Because of that, I think if you have access to a platform like that, you have an obligation to use it to help. Aside from the public mandate for broadcasters, it's just part of what you owe as a human being to try to use everything in your power to leave things better than how you found them. We are so blessed to have access to this gigantic megaphone, and if we weren't using it to make life better in the place we call home, then I don't really see the point. It would just feel like a massively missed opportunity. Entertaining people is a great thing, but there's nothing that compares to helping make a genuine impact when possible.
LEARN MORE AT: fritoandkaty.com
