{"id":786959,"date":"2026-05-10T17:11:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T17:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/786959\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T17:11:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T17:11:17","slug":"a-real-life-wkrp-in-cincinnati-has-radio-listeners-stoked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/786959\/","title":{"rendered":"A real-life WKRP in Cincinnati has radio listeners &#8216;stoked&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CINCINNATI (AP) \u2014 WKRP isn\u2019t dead \u2014 as of Monday, it\u2019s living on the air in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n<p>The call letters from the fictional radio station featured in a CBS sitcom were adopted by a trio of real \u201cadult hits\u201d stations in time for Monday\u2019s morning drive, and co-owner Jeff Ziesmann described listeners as \u201cstoked.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur phones have been mobbed this morning, as I\u2019m sure you can imagine,\u201d Ziesmann said.<\/p>\n<p>Three stations in Cincinnati, northern Kentucky and Dayton, Ohio, simulcast the station\u2019s programming and listeners are now hearing them all identified as WKRP. They will continue to follow the format \u2014 music from the \u201860s to the \u201980s, with an emphasis on the 1970s \u2014 they\u2019ve had under \u201cThe Oasis\u201d brand.<\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"AnchorLink\" id=\"audio-4c0000\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"AudioEnhancement-description\">AP correspondent Julie Walker reports a real WKRP radio comes to Cincinnati, decades after the sitcom about a fictional station.<\/p>\n<p>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 <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/wkrp-cincinnati-radio-station-902d9b9b59481b18fb1aad4da47bb1ff\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WKRP-LP in Raleigh<\/a> is considered a separate class of station under federal regulations.<\/p>\n<p>He said the nonprofit donation wasn\u2019t a direct purchase of the call letters \u2014 it was a purchase of the right to apply to the Federal Communications Commission for the call letters with the North Carolina group\u2019s cooperation.<\/p>\n<p>The show \u201cWKRP in Cincinnati\u201d ran from 1978 to 1982 and starred Loni Anderson, Howard Hesseman, Tim Reid and Richard Sanders as bumbling newsman Les Nessman.<\/p>\n<p>Sanders provided a very Nessman-like comment by email, with the actor saying: \u201cI 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.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we can all hope that WKRP will return to the airwaves with more music and Les Nessman,\u201d Sanders said, echoing a running joke on the comedy series. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI (AP) \u2014 WKRP isn\u2019t dead \u2014 as of Monday, it\u2019s living on the air in Cincinnati. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":786960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,10595,171,57,73132,321633,73124,57119,975,521,519,15228,1574,1573,422,293212,399,73129,61,67,132,68,145625],"class_list":{"0":"post-786959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cincinnati","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-howard-hesseman","13":"tag-jeff-ziesmann","14":"tag-loni-anderson","15":"tag-media-and-entertainment-industry","16":"tag-music","17":"tag-nc-state-wire","18":"tag-north-carolina","19":"tag-oddities","20":"tag-oh-state-wire","21":"tag-ohio","22":"tag-radio","23":"tag-richard-sanders","24":"tag-television","25":"tag-tim-reid","26":"tag-u-s-news","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-walter-cronkite"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}