Nearly 50 years after the iconic “WKRP in Cincinnati” premiered, the call letters have finally found their way back to the Queen City.
The voice of Gary Sandy — who played program director Andy Travis on the CBS sitcom — welcomed listeners to the new WKRP(FM) 97.7 on the Cincinnati radio dial at 6 a.m. on Monday, according to a report filed by John Kiesewetter of Cincinnati’s WVXU(FM).
The pair of Randy Michaels — whose many decades in the radio industry include time as the former CEO of Jacor and Clear Channel — and Jeff Ziesmann operate the three-station oldies-formatted network known as “The Oasis.”
Michaels’ Radioactive LLC bought the rights to use the call sign in April. Lance Venta of RadioInsight was first to report the move of the calls.
As a result, the calls are now held on 97.7 FM, licensed to Mason, part of the three-station network that also includes 94.5 — now WOXY(FM) — licensed to Englewood, near Dayton, and 106.7 WNKR(FM) licensed to Williamstown, Ky.
The call sign was put up for sale by an LPFM in Raleigh, operated by nonprofit Oak City Media.
But WKRP(LP) in Raleigh is not giving up its callsign, as FCC rules allow applicants in different services — full-power FM versus LPFM, for example — to share call signs if authorization is granted from the holder of the primary call sign.
The sale generated funds for the nonprofit to “stay afloat,” WKRP(LP) General Manager D.P. McIntire told Kiesewetter.
Back along the Ohio River, the three-station simulcast teased the switch in the wee hours of Monday morning by airing the WKRP theme song continuously since midnight, WVXU said. It took a month to prepare the transition, according to Kiesewetter, including getting the voice of Sandy to record the liners heard between songs.
Ziesmann said that the new WKRP’s music library of approximately 1,800 titles from the 1960s–1980s — and not so much a parody of the sitcom — is what the new branding will reflect most.
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