For the first time ever — and 48 years after the fictional WKRP in Cincinnati sitcom premiered on CBS in 1978 — there will be a radio station called WKRP in Cincinnati.
“We have come to an agreement with one station in the Cincinnati market,” says D. P. McIntire, executive director of the nonprofit Oak City Media, which operates low-power WKRP-LPFM (101.9) in Raleigh, N.C.
“I won't disclose which one, nor the details, but one station has an agreement in principle with us to being ‘WKRP’ to the Queen City market. I wish I could say more and when the time comes, with their permission, I will. But I'm pleased to say that WKRP ... is at least partially coming home to where it belongs,” says McIntire, general manager of WKRP-LPFM, branded “101 nine WKRP.”
No Cincinnati broadcaster has ever used the iconic WKRP call letters — although WBQC-TV (Channel 25) rebranded its low-power station as “WKRP TV” (no hyphen) in 2008.
McIntire received inquiries from Greater Cincinnati — and other broadcasters — after my Feb. 9 story about how the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization was auctioning off the call letters by April 30. The sale would generate funds for the nonprofit, and help other low-power FM stations “in need of funds to stay afloat,” he said.
The call letter auction “didn't quite produce the desired result . . . and as a result our sister organization won't quite be seeing as much as we had hoped,” McIntire tells me. A deal to sell WKRP-TV and WKRP-DT (digital television) fell through when the prospective buyer defaulted on the agreement, he tells me.
"So I'm putting out an APB [all points bulletin] to all Cincinnati television stations: WKRP-TV and WKRP-DT are now on the market. No complicated bidding process involved. The first one to contact me ... with numbers even close to what the broadcaster that had been the successful bidder for the -TV and -DT suffixes, can secure one or the other, or both for the city," he says.
WKRP in Cincinnati, which aired four seasons on CBS (1978-82), was a beloved ensemble comedy about a struggling low-rated station which had just switched from “easy listening” music to rock ‘n’ roll. The cast of crazy characters included stoner morning man Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman); late-night DJ Venus Flytrap (Tim Reid); nerdy newsman Les Nessman (Richard Sanders); program director Andy Travis (Gary Sandy); salesman Herb Tarlek (Frank Bonner); station manager Arthur “Big Guy” Carlson (Gordon Jump); and receptionist Jennifer Marlowe (Loni Anderson).
Creator Hugh Wilson based the sitcom on a station in Atlanta, where he worked in advertising. Hesseman’s “Johnny Fever” character was based on Atlanta DJ “Skinny Bobby” Harper — who worked at WSAI-AM in the 1960s, and was one of the five DJs who brought The Beatles to Cincinnati Gardens in 1964.
The fictional WKRP was located in the old Enquirer building (now a Hampton Inn) at 617 Vine St., Downtown.
After he sells the call letters, WKRP-LP will shut down after 10 years. “We’re in a position where the older members like me who started the station are turning the leadership over to younger members. They’re not interested in radio,” says McIntire, 56.
Who’s getting WKRP? Stay tuned.
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