For decades, WKRP was just the name of a fictional radio station on the 1978 sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati.” Now it’s a real station on the air.
A group of stations in Cincinnati, northern Kentucky, and Dayton, Ohio, formerly known as “The Oasis,” switched over to the WKRP call letters this year. Owner Jeff Ziesmann says it made more sense than any other name in town, since the stations already play the kind of classic rock and pop music the show’s fictional DJs used to spin. The stations picked up the rights to the call letters from a small nonprofit station in North Carolina that had held them for years.
To mark the switch, the stations played the show’s theme song for six hours straight before going live under the new name. Gary Sandy, who played station manager Andy Travis on the original show, recorded new promos for the launch. Cast member Richard Sanders, who played news anchor Les Nessman, joked in a statement that his character was “hopeful” about getting his old job back.
