Exclusive: ‘Ace would have been thrilled,’ TJ says of new talk-radio show on WBT
As one half of the popular long-running “Ace & TJ” radio show, Ritchie “TJ” Beams says there were numerous times when the management told him he was in the wrong — simply because he was clearly on the right.
Or, more specifically:
“Anytime I would say something that’s a joke at the expense of a person on the left, the complaints would come in,” Beams says, “and when our affiliates got a complaint, they were like, ‘We don’t need any complaints about politics. Don’t do politics.’ I could say something that I was serious about with a conservative view, and nobody would do anything.
“It’s just when I would make a joke, it would get under their skin ... and the general managers are letting us know.”
His newest bosses, however, are taking the opposite approach. When his live, two-hour “The TJ Ritchie Show” launches on WBT’s radio stations (1110 AM and 99.3 FM) on May 27, poking fun at those with a liberal lean will be the point.
It’s also a huge step for Ritchie in the wake of a series of professional and personal blows — starting with the departure of his longtime partner and friend David “Ace” Cannon from “The Ace & TJ Show” last September (yielding to “The TJ & Riggins Show” with former third wheel Bryan “Riggins” Weber) followed by Cannon’s death in February.
A huge step because Ritchie, 55, will simultaneously continue on with the syndicated “TJ & Riggins” broadcast; and a huge step because the WBT program will mark the first time he’ll host a show solo since he started in radio, back in his home state of Louisiana.
We spoke with him this week in his Mooresville office about his old friend, his new show, and the ways in which he plans to focus his energies on both moving forward.
The conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q. The first time I interviewed you, back in 2017, you were doing a weekly after-show podcast on your own — “TJ’s Courageous Conservatism” — that had a politics bent. Did that prime you for this, or put a seed in your head that maybe you’d like to do this someday?
Well, it did. But I’ve wanted to do a conservative talk show since I was in my early 20s. I mean, being in top-40 radio for as many years as I was, I’d get to where I don’t want to hear the songs anymore. People would say, “Oh, y’all play that song too much.” Think about us having to listen to it every time! So I’ve always looked for other content.
I started listening to talk radio when I was really young. I grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh, and Neal Boortz out of Atlanta — he’s more of a Libertarian. But I always thought that that would be my transition, because you can’t do top-40 when you’re in your 60s. You can’t stay relevant. Anybody in their 60s that would want to still be doing top-40 radio — playing what they play now and being all into it — needs to have their head examined, I believe. (Chuckling.)
So this is what I always figured my transition would be, and now I get to still do what I do on the morning show and do this at the same time.
Q. Did WBT come to you?
Actually, to (manager) Adam (Goodman). The program director (at WBT), Mike Schaefer, said, “I have a crazy idea. If you’re not connected to any radio station in the market” — which we’re not — “we’d like to do something different to jazz it up at night a little bit.” So we just started talking.
And I’ve always wanted to do a conservative talk show more geared toward people who are not wanting to hear about what went on in the House and the Senate today — not the nuts and bolts of politics all the time — but kind of combining a top-40 night show with news talk. More on a level of somebody who is just getting into politics, maybe, and wants to know how to spot this, or how to decipher what this person says, or what it means, or history that can show why people do this now, how it started with this, and it progressed or regressed to that.
So, doing that in a fun atmosphere — and not having to be dragged down into the angry politics of things — is what I’m shooting for. ...
A lot of times liberals don’t think that conservatives point out, using humor, how they may be wrong or whatever. Conservatives, in their minds, are just always evil, mean, greedy, bad demons. So I want to just bring a lighter side to that, and show that we’re fun, dammit! (Laughing.)
Q. What’s an example of a topic you’d take on if you had to go on the air tonight?
Bill Belichick is always fun. You know, since he’s been with his young girlfriend. Discussing the cultural differences.
Then there was a story today where this lady married an AI robot she built. I’d bring that up just to point out how some people in our culture have tried to just tear down the family unit at all costs. Well, this is a result of that. You have people now who have been so withdrawn from society — and all along the way, people telling ’em that it’s OK — to where now they think they can be married to AI dolls. Or there’s this guy that we keep up with from time to time who had a really expensive dog costume made, and he walks around pretending to be a dog. Those kinds of things about our culture now that you would have never seen before, but are a byproduct of the political mindset of certain groups of people who want to tear down the family unit of America. So, fun topics like that.
I’m not saying I won’t cover things that come out of Capitol Hill, and executive orders and things like that. I just want it to be informative and high-energy, for the most part.
And there’ll be some times when it’s not about anything. There was a clip today that went viral, of a teenager asking his dad, “What’s one thing every man should experience in his life at least once?” And the dad said, “Walking up and swiping everything on top of a table off to the floor, throwing a map onto the table and saying, ‘Look, this is our plan’ — like they do in movies.” So maybe ask what every person should have to experience in their life. Fun, lighthearted stuff.
Q. So both “TJ & Riggins” and this new WBT show are Monday through Friday. “TJ & Riggins” is on at 7 a.m., the new show ends at 9 p.m. That seems like a pretty deman —
Actually, “The TJ & Riggins Show” is recorded an hour ahead. So we do the segments, and then they get posted, and then the affiliates play them — what we record at 6 o’clock gets played at 7, and down the line like that. So, up early, yeah. 2:30 (a.m.). ...
I’m gonna have to grab a nap during the day or something, which is — you know, all of the sleep specialists say that’s so good for you, to split your sleep up into shifts. But I’ll have to just see how it goes, and if it starts to break me down, then I’ll try to figure out another time to record (“TJ & Riggins”).
I’m guessing I can do it. I’m gonna give it a shot.
I mean, I still love doing that show. But if one day in the next 10 years I just said, “I want to focus on this instead,” Riggins can completely take over — which I would love for him to do.
Q. How has that partnership with him been going?
He had a harder time with the transition, because he grew up listening to us. When he first came in as an intern, he was just wide-eyed and, “Oh, I’m working with Ace and TJ!” And even after he’s been on as many years as he has — as a personality on the show, playing a major part — he still kind of looked at the situation that way. So it took a little bit of convincing for him to have the confidence in himself to be comfortable.
He never, ever wanted anybody to say, “You’re trying to take Ace’s place!” And I told him nobody would think that. It was just gonna be a different show. Once he got that in his mind, it was pretty seamless.
Q. But right after Ace left — the day “TJ & Riggins” launched — the show was dropped here in Charlotte?
Yeah, it was. From our affiliate, 104.7. When Ace left, they just said they didn’t want the show anymore, because “The Ace & TJ Show” was a proven brand, and “TJ & Riggins” wasn’t. But all the rest of our affiliates across the country kept it.
Radio can be a cutthroat business. I mean, that’s where we first started working — at Kiss — when we started here 20 or 30 years ago, or whatever — 80 years ago. (Chuckling.) I didn’t like it, but they got a business to run. They can make the decisions how they want. But if it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have been available to go on WBT, ’cause that would have been on a radio station in the (same) market. ...
So, it worked out for a reason, I guess.
Q. Still, I’m sure that added to the hurt of Ace leaving the show. What was that like to have to part with him professionally?
It was the most difficult thing that I’ve ever had to do. To this day, I don’t tell people the ins and outs and the details of all that. He was going through a lot. I got a lot of flack about not coming in and telling the whole story. But I had been friends with him since, like, 1991, and the last thing I would do just to keep listeners from coming down on me would be to do something that would (violate his or his family’s) privacy. ...
I will say, we stayed in contact. We were friends, just like we always were. Best friends. I talked to him, and my wife talked to him all the time, so it wasn’t a bitter kind of thing. We still loved each other. Then when he died, obviously, it crushed me. It’s been since February, and now I still — sometimes I don’t even think about it being real. Because when it happened, everybody was coming to me, and, “We need to do this, and we need to do that, and you need to pay tribute here and tribute there.” I hate to use that cliche of “haven’t had time to grieve.” But it took a while for things to slow down to the point where I would stop and go, “Wait, this really happened.”
I still will be going about my day, and I’ll see something online, or a song will pop up on my Apple Music, and I’ll grab my phone to text him. I mean, you build your life with somebody for 30 years, or more, and then all of a sudden, things change and are never gonna be the same? It’s pretty difficult to accept. It’s been hard.
But I know for a fact that he would have been thrilled about this new opportunity. The first day I sat in for (WBT’s) Vince (Coakley), Ace was texting me, “Did I just hear you on WBT? Do you have a gig over there now? That is great!” And I said, “No, I was just sitting in for Vince Coakley. His mom died.” He was like, “Well, they ought to give you a job. I’ve said that for years, ’cause you would be so good at that.”
Q. Is it in some ways sad to do “The TJ & Riggins Show” every day because it has everything still except for Ace — and if so, do you view this new opportunity as a bit of a relief, simply by virtue of the fact that there’ll be fewer reminders of him around?
Yeah. But we’ve tried hard to kind of put the sadness aside. ...
There was a while when people were afraid to say anything about Ace. That happens, where people don’t know how to handle death. Now we mention him all the time.
And I decided that from now on, anything we do on the show or on social media that has to do with Ace should always be something that when people remember that situation, they smile or laugh, rather than cry. Because he was so great at taking a joke, laughing at himself, and he would love when we would just start rattling off at each other and joking and taking shots at each other. He loved it when somebody’d make a good joke about him. So I want everything about Ace, as far as I’m concerned, to be something that makes people smile.
But it’s dead-on, that I am so excited about this new project. It just would be more exciting and happy if he were still here to share it.
Because like I said, he knew — that this is what I’ve always wanted to do.
