For the first time in more than 23 years, Ramona Holloway — longtime co-host of WLNK-FM’s old “Matt & Ramona Show” — is not working in a job for a radio company.
Holloway, 58, announced Tuesday on social media that she had been laid off from her job as community affairs manager for Radio One Charlotte, which owns WLNK and several other area stations. She also no longer will make guest appearances twice a week on 107.9’s “The Morning Mix with Matt Harris & Liz Luda,” something Holloway had been doing since she moved into the community affairs role in the spring of 2023.
Radio One did not respond to requests from The Charlotte Observer for comment on Holloway’s departure.
But Holloway said by phone Thursday that when she was abruptly let go from the company during a meeting with her boss on Tuesday morning, she was told the decision was being made due to “budget cuts.” The position was originally created for her and, she said, “it was just, they felt, time to uncreate it, to save money.”
She said she was told in the meeting that her dismissal was effective immediately.
During the roughly 15 months Holloway had spent in the role, she said she spearheaded or pursued partnerships on behalf of the company — among other community entities — Breast Cancer Awareness Month; the Walk to End Alzheimer’s; Village Heartbeat’s Bridge to Better Mental Health program; Gaston Community Foundation; and the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission’s alcohol prevention and rehabilitation programs.
“I really wanted to make it work. And it didn’t,” Holloway told the Observer.
“Actually, no, that’s not true. It did, and it didn’t. On one hand, the work that I signed up to do is at the core of everything that I believe, which is helping people who need help, connecting them with the help that they need, and using storytelling to help people see their problems through somebody else’s eyes.”
She recently helped close a six-figure deal, she said, with one of those organizations.
Then, “Literally a few weeks later, it’s like, You know what? ‘Budget cuts,’” Holloway said. “I was like, ‘Well, wait a minute. I more than made my salary. … And the budget cut is me? That’s weird. That’s really, really weird. But it’s not my company.”
She added that “it is not my will to change this. It is, I believe, God’s will for me to just accept it, and keep moving forward. So I would like to wish Radio One Charlotte the best in its future endeavors — and I’m working on really believing that, because there’s a part of me that’s like, ‘Are you serious??’
“(But another) part of me saying, ‘Ramona, it’s not about you. It’s not about you. There is a bigger purpose. There’s a bigger plan. And it’s not about you.’”
Holloway and Matt Harris had been teamed together since 2000, first at “Z104” (WNVZ-FM) in Norfolk, Virginia, and then at WLNK starting in 2001. They moved from afternoons to mornings in April 2021, when “107.9 The Link” relaunched as “Mix 107.9.” She then ended their full-time partnership in 2023. She also had done stints on local TV, serving as co-host of “Charlotte Today” for WCNC and “Fox News Edge” for WCCB.
Radio One Charlotte is paying her a severance of two months’ salary, Holloway said, during which time she’ll do some resting and relaxing before seriously considering next steps.
Asked if she is open to an on-air job, she said: “absolutely” — for a different radio company.
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