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WOKV Disco Jocks?

Do you know who else might have been PD? I didn't listen in the morning more than once, but I'm pretty sure I hadn't heard of the jock.
 
There was a guy by the name of Duff Lindsay who took over as PD after Pat left. That's when
the station moved to more of an A/C-Oldies based presentation, using the catch phrase, "Making Friends and Making Memories", and leaned the station more toward Hamilton/Fairfield than a straight Cincinnati presentation.
 
I remember them broadcasting from their transmitter building for a day or so when they lost power to the studio at that time was in Hamilton. It was trainwreck radio at its best.
 
They flipped to urban around 1980 briefly simulcasting WCIN. They were Rock 104 briefly either after Disco 103 or after their simulcast with WCIN ended. The AC/Oldies format may have been when they simulcasted WMOH. 1978?
 
Actually, the format order after being separated from WMOH as I remember it was:

Flipped calls from WYCH to WOKV in 1978.

1978-79 -- Top 40 WOKV

1979-80 -- Disco as Disco 103 and a half.

1980 -- About a half year as AC/Oldies/Full Service. I remember they made a big splash about being full service on FM. Trying to take the successful AM concept at the time and try it on FM.

1980-81 -- AOR as Rock 104. This resulted in a brief period of Cincy having three AORs....WOKV, WEBN, and WSAI-FM. Kind of unusual at the time for this size market.

1981 or 82 thru late 80s -- Flipped calls to WBLZ and Urban/CHR format Simulcasted drive times with WCIN-AM. Mike Roberts was the PD. They sounded great during the early years of this format. Dropped the simulcast and gradually evolved into more straight ahead Urban format by 1984 or 85. I remember during the early Urban/CHR period morning drive was handled by Lord Snowden (I think it was Jim Snowden) and afternoons by John Monds. He had a great voice and smooth but upbeat delivery. WBLZ was a great sounding station in the early years.

Does anyone remember what year they gave flipped to Oldies WGRR? And now I'm really showing my age, but does anyone remember when 103.5 was WHOH back in the '60s and carried a lot of German programming?
 
I believe they flipped to Oldies WGRR GRREAT Oldies around 1990-91. Tony Micheals was doing news and commrntary in the mornings then as he was a holdover from WBLZ. Not sure who was the morning host was then.
 
stereolane said:
I know that the WOKV studios were in the First National Bank building on High Street in Hamilton, but where? Top floor?

Yes, that's where they originally were as of around 1977 or so. I know this for a fact, because I was paid by BENI Broadcasting to drive a U-Haul to Evansville, Indiana to an antenna company to pick up the broadcast antenna which they later installed on the tower.
 
microbob said:
I remember them broadcasting from their transmitter building for a day or so when they lost power to the studio at that time was in Hamilton. It was trainwreck radio at its best.

Wow! Thanks for mentioning that...I had completely forgotten.

And you should have seen the rig...If I remember this correctly, Kurt Farmer (their late engineer) owned a 1960's era Collins turntable console. (The ones with the two turntables and the mixer attached at the bottom. They came from WAVI/WDAO.) When the power to the studios went down, Kurt had to jerry-rig the Collins console directly to the transmitter in the transmitter building.

They had little else...which is why it was, as you correctly call it...trainwreck radio.
 
keys2 said:
Actually, the format order after being separated from WMOH as I remember it was:

Flipped calls from WYCH to WOKV in 1978.

1978-79 -- Top 40 WOKV

1979-80 -- Disco as Disco 103 and a half.

1980 -- About a half year as AC/Oldies/Full Service. I remember they made a big splash about being full service on FM. Trying to take the successful AM concept at the time and try it on FM.

1980-81 -- AOR as Rock 104. This resulted in a brief period of Cincy having three AORs....WOKV, WEBN, and WSAI-FM. Kind of unusual at the time for this size market.

1981 or 82 thru late 80s -- Flipped calls to WBLZ and Urban/CHR format Simulcasted drive times with WCIN-AM. Mike Roberts was the PD. They sounded great during the early years of this format. Dropped the simulcast and gradually evolved into more straight ahead Urban format by 1984 or 85. I remember during the early Urban/CHR period morning drive was handled by Lord Snowden (I think it was Jim Snowden) and afternoons by John Monds. He had a great voice and smooth but upbeat delivery. WBLZ was a great sounding station in the early years.

Does anyone remember what year they gave flipped to Oldies WGRR? And now I'm really showing my age, but does anyone remember when 103.5 was WHOH back in the '60s and carried a lot of German programming?

Shortly before the simulcast happened, I was News Director at WCIN. And you are right, they did sound great and Mike Roberts was the reason. He made significant changes to 1480 that, combined with the improvements we had made in the news department, started to solve a major problem that 'CIN had prior...namely, a lack of adult audience due to the fact that, to quote a former Cincinnati City Council clerk who once told me you couldn't "believe what you hear on WCIN."

Mike also understood that his targeted audience also liked crossover music, which is why so many potential WCIN listeners listened at the time to Q102, WLWS, etc. (sorry, I can't remember all the calls of all the A/C's back then). He took a lot of heat from the urban record tip sheets (who criticized him because they felt those playlist positions should have gone to black artists), but Mike's instincts were correct. The ratings went from 2's and 3's to almost 6's 12 plus. And that was on the AM by itself before the simulcast...
 
Jason Roberts said:
microbob said:
I remember them broadcasting from their transmitter building for a day or so when they lost power to the studio at that time was in Hamilton. It was trainwreck radio at its best.

Wow! Thanks for mentioning that...I had completely forgotten.

And you should have seen the rig...If I remember this correctly, Kurt Farmer (their late engineer) owned a 1960's era Collins turntable console. (The ones with the two turntables and the mixer attached at the bottom. They came from WAVI/WDAO.) When the power to the studios went down, Kurt had to jerry-rig the Collins console directly to the transmitter in the transmitter building.

They had little else...which is why it was, as you correctly call it...trainwreck radio.
One of the Jocks, I don't remember who, mentioned they were broadcasting from the transmitter site.
They were off the air for a few hours before they were able to rig things up as you mentioned. I wish I had a recording of it as it would've been a classic aircheck.
 
stereolane: I think we were on the 7th or 8th floor of the bank building at WBLZ (gee, my memory is getting old!). Piece of crap elevator. Sometimes when going in to work around 4 a.m. I'd hop in the elevator, press the button, go up, then stop and come right back down to the first floor without the doors opening at the correct floor! And some days you'd do this 2 or 3 times before it would actually stop and let you get off! And the people whio worked in that bank building during the day were a hoot. They'd get on the elevator in their business attire, look at us jocks, and all of them would move to the other side of the elevator like we were going to bite them or something. And they didn't react too well when groups like Ready For The World came strolling in either. "Juvenile delinquents alert"!!!
 
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