It’s official: WKRP is coming to Cincinnati.
The Oasis, a three-station network serving Northern Kentucky, Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, has entered into a call-sharing agreement with North Carolina-based nonprofit Oak City Media. The deal allows multiple stations to use the WKRP call letters, popularized by the celebrated sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati,” owner Jeff Ziesmann confirmed to The Enquirer.
Ziesmann said the WKRP call letters are instantly recognizable and will help the station stand out while honoring the “only successful television show about radio.”
“Those are arguably the most famous call letters associated with Cincinnati radio, even though it was a television series about an imaginary radio station. It was extremely successful for a considerable number of years,” Ziesmann said.
WVXU reported that Ziesmann bought the call letters in April from Oak City Media’s WKRP-LPFM (101.9) in Raleigh, North Carolina. The low-power FM station announced in January it would auction them by April 30 as part of a fundraising effort.
Under the new agreement, 97.7 WOXY-FM, an independent rock station featured in the 1988 Oscar-winning, Cincinnati-filmed movie “Rain Man,” will soon be WKRP-FM, effective May 8.
WKRP-FM’s signal will broadcast from the old WPFB-FM tower in Middletown and will serve listeners from Cincinnati to Dayton, per WVXU.
While all three stations will get the WKRP branding and programming, the WOXY-FM call letters will replace the former WYDB-FM (94.5) in Englewood, a northern suburb of Dayton. The WYDB call letters will be retired, Ziesmann said. No changes were made to WNKR-FM (106.7) in Dry Ridge, Kentucky.
Ziesmann added that it has taken him and his business partner, Randy Michaels, about a month to complete the rebranding. However, fans of The Oasis won’t notice changes on the air.
WKRP will keep the same personalities, including Dave Mason, Earnie “The Fat Man” Brown and John “BMAN” Beaulieu. The network will also continue to play its signature oldies hits from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.
“We had a pretty good existing underlying radio station, and we’re not really changing that,” Ziesmann said. “We’re not jettisoning The Oasis brand completely.”
Ziesmann, who’s been running a three-station network since 2002, said The Oasis has been successful, garnering 135,000-145,000 listeners weekly. By acquiring the WKRP call letters, he hopes to increase the station’s profile and recognition, while also drawing new listeners who might be familiar with the famous sitcom.
“This is a rebranding. It’s not a format replacement,” Ziesmann said. “We’ll keep The Oasis branding there just to make sure that everyone who already has listened to our radio station stays comfortable, and musically, it’s the same thing that it’s always been.”
What is ‘WKRP in Cincinnati’?
“WKRP in Cincinnati” was a sitcom that ran on CBS for four seasons from 1978 to 1982. The show followed a cast of wacky characters at a struggling radio station. Some people might be familiar with the show from one line alone: “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
No Cincinnati broadcaster had ever used the WKRP call letters before, according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: WKRP in Cincinnati is finally real. This station has new call letters
Reporting by Haadiza Ogwude, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
