WKRP in Cincinnati, once TV’s fictional radio station, may become real

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For decades, “WKRP in Cincinnati” has been a familiar TV fantasy of radio broadcasting. Now the WKRP call letters that the sitcom made well known may get a real-life run in Cincinnati, after a nonprofit in North Carolina put the identifiers up for bids, its director said.

D.P. McIntire, who runs Oak City Media, told The Associated Press that “WKRP is coming to Cincinnati — for real this time,” while also saying he cannot, “by contract,” disclose when the change will happen or who will end up operating under the call sign. “Book it! It’s done!” he said, describing the decision as finalized but not ready for full public detail.

The sitcom that made the WKRP brand famous aired on CBS from 1978 to 1982, and it followed staff at a fictional station during storylines that often used Thanksgiving promotions for comedic effect. McIntire said he remembers watching the show’s first episode featuring disc jockeys Dr. Johnny Fever, played by Howard Hesseman, and Venus Flytrap, played by Tim Reid, with family.

McIntire said his path to owning WKRP began years before he secured the call letters through the Federal Communications Commission. He said the nonprofit acquired the call sign in 2014, after the FCC process, and that stations in Dallas, Georgia, and Alexandria, Tennessee had previously used the letters.

He said the organization’s WKRP-LP station, 101.9 on the FM dial, went live Nov. 30, 2015, with “LP” standing for “low power,” a class created to serve smaller local audiences. McIntire described the station’s technical limits, saying its broadcast capacity is limited to 100 watts and that typical range runs roughly “between … 4 and 12 miles” depending on terrain and other conditions.

McIntire said Oak City Media structured its programming around an “irreverent” approach that he framed as similar to the sitcom’s tone. He pointed to a two-hour show called “Weird Al and Friends,” featuring the satirical work of Weird Al Yankovic, and he said the group has held events including an annual Thanksgiving turkey giveaway that he said does not involve discarding birds from helicopters.

He also described how the station is set up at his home, with the transmitter in a corner of his garage and the broadcast antenna on a 25-foot metal flagpole in the backyard, while the studio equipment sits on the first floor of his home. The arrangement, he said, reflects both the low-power constraints and the budget realities of operating a nonprofit radio service.

McIntire’s comments arrived as the U.S. media landscape shifts in other radio directions as well. He said the news came “hot on the heels” of a separate decision to shutter CBS News Radio after nearly a century, and he said his own leadership transition at Oak City Media is part of a broader handoff to younger members who he said are not as interested in radio operations.

Oak City Media issued a call for bids to use the WKRP identifiers on FM and AM radio, and also for television and digital television suffixes. McIntire said the proceeds are intended for a new nonprofit venture called Independent Broadcast Consultants, which he described as geared toward helping new broadcasters get up and running and obtain the consulting they need to succeed.

He said Oak City Media had planned to transfer television-related suffixes to another group when an agreement fell through after another party defaulted, but that the Cincinnati radio deal is “in the bag” in the sense that it is secured—he just cannot legally discuss the details at this time. “It will be radio,” he said, adding that is all he could say.

A professor at Syracuse University who teaches a television history class using an episode of “WKRP” said it reflects a broader appeal in which audiences find meaning in a fictional station and the characters attached to it. Robert Thompson said people see value in “a fictional station whose call letters invoke the word ‘crap,’” describing that value as stemming from “the love of the characters for each other.”

McIntire said his hope is that whoever takes on the WKRP call sign in Cincinnati will preserve the legacy that drew fans in the first place. “It has a special place in the hearts of an awful lot of people,” he said, adding that his nonprofit is “very, very, very proud to have been a steward of that legacy.”