Miguel Fuller and Holly O’Connor meeting at a conference in Charlotte held by local radio legends “The Ace & TJ Show” in 2008 is a full-circle moment.
Fourteen years later, the burgeoning radio duo has their own daily morning show being heard across the same Hits 96.1 airwaves David “Ace” Cannon and Ritchie “TJ” Beams occupied for nearly a decade.
New “The Miguel & Holly Show” listeners will hear fun, authenticity, and a friendship vibrating through their car speakers, Fuller told the Observer on Thursday.
“We’re just real people who are trying to have a good time and get through life together,” O’Connor said.
Although only on-air since March 7, the pair is already beginning to build their “fam” here in Charlotte, said Fuller.
“Charlotte has very much felt like home,” he said. “This city is thriving and growing, and we want to be a part of that story.”
The Miguel & Holly Show airs on iHeartRadio’s Hits 96.1 weekday mornings from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.
The creation of the show comes almost a year after Cannon and Beams signed off from Hits 96.1 to create their own daily morning show now available on streaming platforms.
Ace & TJ have had an “underground influence” on their careers, so it’s an honor to come into the spot they manned for 9 1/2 years, Fuller said.
‘Bitten by the radio bug’
Fuller said he has always loved radio, even as a little kid growing up in Atlanta, Georgia. Back in the day, he would lock himself in his bedroom and record the self-titled “Miguel Show” on cassette tape, he said.
“I’d be the host, co-host and the callers,” said Fuller.
Radio not only helped Fuller overcome a speech impediment, but it became a viable career path for him when he met on-air personality Steve Kramer while both attended Georgia Southern University.
“We both were radio obsessed,” he said.
In 2007, Kramer got a job hosting mornings on Island 106 in Panama City, Florida, Fuller said. That’s when O’Connor learned about him, he said.
O’Connor, a Cleveland, Ohio native, got hired with Kramer to co-host the morning show. O’Connor worked at Ohio Northern University’s licensed radio station, WONB 94.9: The Beat before becoming an on-air personality on Clear Channel Radio in 2004.
“I was the student that got ‘great student but talks too much’ on their report card,” O’Connor said. “I was like ‘This is great, I can just talk and stuff.’ Everybody in radio gets bitten by the radio bug.”
Kramer would often talk about Fuller at the station, but the two didn’t meet until the conference in Charlotte, O’Connor said. The second time they met, Fuller was moving into her apartment because he got hired by Island 106 and needed a roommate, she said.
They lived and worked together in Panama City until 2015 when they got an opportunity to co-host their own show on “The Body” on HOT 101.5 in nearby Tampa. The two hosted the Cox Media Group show until they got a call from iHeartMedia Charlotte a couple of months ago.
“We just left Tampa and it was like leaving family,” O’Connor said. “We’re hoping to establish that with our new Miguel and Holly fam in Charlotte by inviting them into our conversations.”
Replacing radio legends
Although their show now occupies the popular Hits 96.1 morning time slot, “no one can talk about Charlotte without talking about Ace & TJ,” O’Connor said.
“We were taking notes,” she said.
Fuller said he and O’Connor filling the morning slot is “kismet” because they have known Ace & TJ for years.
“It was such a cool honor,” he said. “And they’ve been awesome in reaching out to us and saying, ‘Hey, ask us for whatever you need. We want you you to be as successful as possible.’”
Just like Ace & TJ, they want to create “a safe space in radio,” Fuller said. Whether that’s discussing something serious, dramatic, silly or random. The show wants to establish a genuine connection with listeners, he said.
“We’re going to make you feel something,” O’Connor said. “The listeners are family.”
This story was originally published March 15, 2022 9:00 AM.
