For decades, Cincinnati parents have feared the day when their pop-culture-loving children come home from school and ask, “Is there a podcast network in town called ‘WKRP in Cincinnati’? You know, like the situation-maxxing jesterslop from the ’80s?” After a quick perusal of Urban Dictionary and nearly half a century of terror, those poor, nervous parents with incredibly culturally literate children can answer in the affirmative. Following the purchase of those four beautiful call letters from a station out in Raleigh, N.C., Cincy now has a WKRP to call its own.
Fellow radio station and NPR affiliate WVXU reports that The Oasis, a three-station radio network serving Northern Kentucky, Dayton, Ohio, and, you guessed it, Cincinnati, has officially rebranded to “WKRP.” The agreement allows WOXY-FM, a locally beloved independent rock station, perhaps best known outside the area for appearing in Rain Man, to become WKRP-FM starting on May 8. To celebrate, DJs have been playing the theme song to the series, and the station invited Gary Sandy, who played station director Andy Travis, to record interstitials between songs.
The call letters hit the market in January, when a low-power, non-profit station out of Raleigh put “WKRP” up for auction. Oasis-owner Jeff Ziesmann thought it was a perfect fit. “We play essentially the same music that they played on WKRP. It made more sense for us to do this than any other station in town,” he tells WVXU. But Ziesmann isn’t throwing the baby out with the decades-old bathwater. This is “just a rebranding,” he says. “The presentation will be a tribute to the TV show — not a parody of a 40-year-old TV show that aired for only four years,” he continues. “For us, WKRP is more of an attitude.”
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