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.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.