A real WKRP radio comes to Cincinnati, decades after the sitcom about a fictional station
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $1.44 a week*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $5.77 plus GST every four weeks. After 52 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
CINCINNATI (AP) — WKRP isn’t dead — as of Monday, it’s living on the air in Cincinnati.
The call letters from the fictional radio station featured in a CBS sitcom were adopted by a trio of real “adult hits” stations in time for Monday’s morning drive, and co-owner Jeff Ziesmann described listeners as “stoked.”
“Our phones have been mobbed this morning, as I’m sure you can imagine,” Ziesmann said.
Three stations in Cincinnati, northern Kentucky and Dayton, Ohio, simulcast the station’s programming and listeners are now hearing them all identified as WKRP. They will continue to follow the format — music from the ‘60s to the ’80s, with an emphasis on the 1970s — they’ve had under “The Oasis” brand.
The owners obtained the call letters by making a donation to a North Carolina nonprofit whose low-power radio station had them since 2014. Ziesmann said a full-power station like his can use the same call letters because WKRP-LP in Raleigh is considered a separate class of station under federal regulations.
He said the nonprofit donation wasn’t a direct purchase of the call letters — it was a purchase of the right to apply to the Federal Communications Commission for the call letters with the North Carolina group’s cooperation.
The show “WKRP in Cincinnati” ran from 1978 to 1982 and starred Loni Anderson, Howard Hesseman, Tim Reid and Richard Sanders as bumbling newsman Les Nessman.
Sanders provided a very Nessman-like comment by email, with the actor saying: “I have spoken with Les Nessman regarding the resurrection of WKRP in Cincinnati. After the failure of his dream to replace Walter Cronkite on the CBS evening news, he is hopeful that he can resume his duties as the News, Sports, Weather, Traffic, and Farm Report Director at WKRP.”
“I think we can all hope that WKRP will return to the airwaves with more music and Les Nessman,” Sanders said, echoing a running joke on the comedy series.