In Cincinnati, WKRP is back on real radios—decades after the CBS sitcom made the call letters famous as part of a fictional station. The station began airing Monday under the “The Oasis” brand, with its WKRP identity carried across multiple markets through simulcast broadcasts.
Jeff Ziesmann, a co-owner of the real station, described listener response as immediate and intense, saying, “Our phones have been mobbed this morning, as I’m sure you can imagine.” The outsize reaction came as the station’s programming went live and listeners began hearing the WKRP identification across its coverage area.
According to the report, three stations in Cincinnati, northern Kentucky and Dayton, Ohio simulcast the same programming so that listeners in those regions are hearing it identified as WKRP. The station said it would continue the format it describes as “The Oasis” playlist, drawing from music spanning the 1960s to the 1980s, with emphasis on the 1970s.
The fictional show “WKRP in Cincinnati” ran from 1978 to 1982 and featured Loni Anderson, Howard Hesseman, Tim Reid and Richard Sanders as characters including newsman Les Nessman. In a comment that played into that legacy, Sanders provided a “very Nessman-like” message by email about the brand’s revival.
Sanders told the outlet: “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.” He added, “I think we can all hope that WKRP will return to the airwaves with more music and Les Nessman,” echoing a running joke from the sitcom.
The station owners said they obtained the call letters through a donation to a North Carolina nonprofit that had held the WKRP call sign for a low-power station since 2014. Ziesmann said the arrangement was not a straightforward purchase of the call letters, but rather the purchase of the right to apply to the Federal Communications Commission for the call letters with the nonprofit’s cooperation.
Ziesmann also said that a full-power station can use the same call letters even though a low-power station uses the WKRP-LP designation—because federal regulations treat the low-power station’s license class separately. The result is a real-world station that takes on a fictional brand and, as of Monday morning, invites listeners to tune in as WKRP’s “resurrection” moves from TV punchline to radio dial.