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Worst blunders in Cincinnati radio history

> How about when 1320 WCLU went all Elvis all the time.

Every format they had in the late '80s/early '90s was a disaster.

They did a great job in the mid-'80s with top 40, and the gospel format they've had for the past 12 years or so has been the most successful format they've had in a while. But everything in-between top 40 and gospel was a blunder to be reckoned with.

I'm trying to remember all the formats they had from about 1987-93. I think it was: oldies, country, all-Elvis, business news, then country again. I may be missing one or two formats towards the end. I don't think they had ANY listeners with any of those formats (except occasionally someone would tune in when it was all-Elvis just for the novelty of it). Throughout all those years, I kept thinking to myself, "Geez, switch back to top 40 already. At least then they had more than 3 listeners."
 
> > WTSJ was actually pretty good through the 80s when Jacor
> > owned them. Although there were a few clunkers, it was
> > mostly a nice blend of down-to-earth Christian teaching
> > programs with Christian AC in the afternoons and evenings.
>
> > Good job of imaging for a Christian station back then too.
>
> >
> > Things seemed to go downhill when some nut from California
>
> > bought them around 1990 or so. His name was David
> something
> > or something David if I recall. The extreme pentecostal
> and
> > militia mentality began to creep in at that point. Salem
> has
> > since cleaned it up.
>
> I didn't know Jacor ever owned WTSJ (I thought Jacor owned
> WLW and WEBN, which met the 1 AM/1 FM limit). I don't ever
> remember knowing about WTSJ's existence until about 1989. I
> think the David guy's name was Richard David. He did this
> show on WTSJ called "Conservative Forum" in the mid-'90s.
>
> Another nutty thing they had on WTSJ was their tirade about
> how zip codes were part of a communist plot.
>
> I was told that WTSJ used to be WZIP, which was a very
> popular station in the '70s. I don't remember WZIP at all.
>
WTSJ was the first station Terry Jacobs owned in Cincinnati. The call letters came from his name-Terry S Jacobs. This was before Frank Wood and Terry Jacobs hooked up. WZIP also was gospel for the past several years of its existence. The late Tom Knox was one of the announcers, and also doubled as an announcer on its sister station at the time WWEZ-FM, which was formerly WZIP-FM.
Wes Howard was another one of the DJs on WZIP, starting withthe station while it was still country, and continuing thru its gospel format. I believe the name change came about in 1979 or 1980. Does anyone remember when Bob Braun's nephew, Bucks Braun, worked at WCLU in 1967 as Jack Braun? He must not have been any older than 20 years old at the time. I always thought WCLU sounded ok as a country station in the late 60s thru late 70s.
 
Lindner was part owner of WTSJ

Carl Lindner was a minority owner in what I think was Guardian Communications when they owned WTSJ until it was sold to Salem. Yes, that was Carl Lindner owning a station with the likes of Bob Larson and Brother Stare.

Salem immediately dropped the modulation down to legal levels! DOes anybody else remember WTSJ splattering all the way down the dial to 1230 and 1160? If you were anywhere near downtown (the tower is, of course, right next to the Brent Spence) you could hear their modulation beats up and down the dial. It made for a pretty good night signal with 275 watts.
 
WCVG 1987-1993

When WCLU became WCVG in 1987, they shut the station off for two weeks. What a mistake! They then debuted their new "Kwick Sell Classifieds" format. The problem was, nobody was calling with classified ads because the Enquirer wouldn't run ads for "free" classified in their own classifieds section! (Follow that?) Inbetween the classifieds, they played carts from the JOY 107 music library. So they were a "by default" Soft AC station.

When that didn't work, they went country. Marty Thompson was actually the PD for like a week, when he realized it was going nowhere. Former WDJO/WSAI guy Scotty Jackson then took over. He was let go when they went All-Elvis in 1989? After the All-Elvis thing tanked, they went to the Business radio format. Bruce Collins was PD of WCVG and sister station WAQZ-FM..."The Heat 107.1!"

Then around 1991, some Northern Kentucky guys tried to create the area's first All Sports station by calling it "Sports Country 1320 WCVG." They ran a satellite country format and did northern KY high school sports, but from what I heard they lost a lot of money. I think Richard Skinner may have been one of the hosts. He was doing a mainly NKY sports show then.

Then in 1993, it took on the Gospel format it currently has. They called it "Cincinnati's Victory Gospel" after the WCVG call letters. Now it's just called "The Gospel."

What will the next format be when this one runs out of money? That could happen soon, too, from what I hear.
 
Re: WCVG 1987-1993

> When WCLU became WCVG in 1987, they shut the station off for
> two weeks.

I actually thought they were going to return as the same old Clu 132 (with "Famous Shovelhead" and all) after that. Back then, I was so naive about how the radio business worked.

> They then debuted their new
> "Kwick Sell Classifieds" format. The problem was, nobody
> was calling with classified ads because the Enquirer
> wouldn't run ads for "free" classified in their own
> classifieds section! (Follow that?) Inbetween the
> classifieds, they played carts from the JOY 107 music
> library. So they were a "by default" Soft AC station.

WCVG repeated the exact same songs in the exact same order each day.

And it's not like Joy 107 was anything spectacular either, in my opinion. Seems like they were gold-based AC or something. Not exactly the type of thing I found very interesting, considering how many other AC and oldies stations there were.

> Then around 1991, some Northern Kentucky guys tried to
> create the area's first All Sports station by calling it
> "Sports Country 1320 WCVG." They ran a satellite country
> format and did northern KY high school sports, but from what
> I heard they lost a lot of money.

They did have some high school sports around the time they were all-Elvis or business news. I remember this because there was a real big fight after the basketball homecoming at my school. Supposedly the whole thing got broadcast on WCVG. I don't remember any high school sports when they were WCLU, however.

> What will the next format be when this one runs out of
> money?

It would be cool to bring back Clu 132 as a Jack-type format - and include all the songs they played back in the '80s. I'd love to hear this, even on AM.
 
I'm not sure. I really didn't listen to the station after I left in 1994.

I used to co-host a show called "Beacon" in the late 80's where we played everything that could be considered "radical" in Christian music. That was a lot of fun to do.


> > WOW!!!! Those call letters brings back some memories. I
> was
> > PD there in 1993 and the GM there was going in the
> "militia"
> > mode with Randall Terry, Bob Larson and company. I left a
> > year later because I couldn't put up with it. Maybe the
> > blunder was that I was PD of that mess.
>
> Seems like they used to play Christian rap music in the
> early '90s. By 1995, they replaced the music with right-wing
> talk. They kept broadcasting all this anti-Jewish propaganda
> and defending Timothy McVeigh. I think Salem put a stop to
> that, because it was too extreme even for them.
>
> Did Fred Phelps have a radio ministry? I remember how back
> around 1995, WTSJ kept running some anti-gay ministry that
> was based in Topeka, but this was before anyone outside
> Topeka ever heard of Phelps.
>
 
The "nuts" from California was Mark McNeil and Richard David. Richard and I butted heads many times on how the station should sound. Richard was the idiot of that duo.


> WTSJ was actually pretty good through the 80s when Jacor
> owned them. Although there were a few clunkers, it was
> mostly a nice blend of down-to-earth Christian teaching
> programs with Christian AC in the afternoons and evenings.
> Good job of imaging for a Christian station back then too.
>
> Things seemed to go downhill when some nut from California
> bought them around 1990 or so. His name was David something
> or something David if I recall. The extreme pentecostal and
> militia mentality began to creep in at that point. Salem has
> since cleaned it up.
>
 
Re: Lindner was part owner of WTSJ

The way I remember it, Lindner loaned the "idiots" 2 million and could call for full payment on the loan at any time. Soon after I left, Uncle Carl called for the loan to be paid, resulting in the sale of the station.


> Carl Lindner was a minority owner in what I think was
> Guardian Communications when they owned WTSJ until it was
> sold to Salem. Yes, that was Carl Lindner owning a station
> with the likes of Bob Larson and Brother Stare.
>
> Salem immediately dropped the modulation down to legal
> levels! DOes anybody else remember WTSJ splattering all the
> way down the dial to 1230 and 1160? If you were anywhere
> near downtown (the tower is, of course, right next to the
> Brent Spence) you could hear their modulation beats up and
> down the dial. It made for a pretty good night signal with
> 275 watts.
>
 
Huge blunder in Dayton Radio...

I'm not sure how many years it's been for sure, maybe five...Mix 107.7 WMMX did an evening show, back when they were still live. They promoted it as something like "The best party songs". It ran from 7-Midnight, seven days a week. I don't know how many songs were used for the five hour show, but you would actually hear a few repeat during the same show, and then hear it again the following night. And none of these songs were current. They were all like 70's and early 80s songs. They did it for three months or so. Anybody recall this horrible bit of radio?
 
> > WTSJ was actually pretty good through the 80s when Jacor
> > owned them. Although there were a few clunkers, it was
> > mostly a nice blend of down-to-earth Christian teaching
> > programs with Christian AC in the afternoons and evenings.
>
> > Good job of imaging for a Christian station back then too.
>
> >
> > Things seemed to go downhill when some nut from California
>
> > bought them around 1990 or so. His name was David
> something
> > or something David if I recall. The extreme pentecostal
> and
> > militia mentality began to creep in at that point. Salem
> has
> > since cleaned it up.
>
> I didn't know Jacor ever owned WTSJ (I thought Jacor owned
> WLW and WEBN, which met the 1 AM/1 FM limit). I don't ever
> remember knowing about WTSJ's existence until about 1989. I
> think the David guy's name was Richard David. He did this
> show on WTSJ called "Conservative Forum" in the mid-'90s.
>
> Another nutty thing they had on WTSJ was their tirade about
> how zip codes were part of a communist plot.
>
> I was told that WTSJ used to be WZIP, which was a very
> popular station in the '70s. I don't remember WZIP at all.

I can remember WZIP when I was just a pup, about 40 years ago and I guess it had what you would call a format that was considered a beautiful music station.
I can also remember it was a daytime only station because the old man would get mad when they went off the air at night. Midwest Gas in Highland Heights has a neon lighted clock with WZIP and 1050 kc on it. Wish I could talk them out of it.
>
 
Re: Huge blunder in Dayton Radio...

> I'm not sure how many years it's been for sure, maybe
> five...Mix 107.7 WMMX did an evening show, back when they
> were still live. They promoted it as something like "The
> best party songs". It ran from 7-Midnight, seven days a
> week. I don't know how many songs were used for the five
> hour show, but you would actually hear a few repeat during
> the same show, and then hear it again the following night.
> And none of these songs were current. They were all like
> 70's and early 80s songs. They did it for three months or
> so. Anybody recall this horrible bit of radio?
> Huge blunder in dayton radio as there have been many has to be kicking Bucks Braun and the standards format out for poorly done sports.There was a comfortable level of sports talk.They had tried it years before when they dumped Lee Riley.Next has to be oldies 103.9 changing to country thinking their audience liked country.Resulting in The River which failed quickly going against K 99
 
Re: Huge blunder in Dayton Radio...

I certainly don't believe the owners of 103.9 thought their existing audience liked country. They wanted a diferent audience, though they had little chance of knocking off K99.1. The standards probably could have lasted another year or two on WONE.









> > I'm not sure how many years it's been for sure, maybe
> > five...Mix 107.7 WMMX did an evening show, back when they
> > were still live. They promoted it as something like "The
> > best party songs". It ran from 7-Midnight, seven days a
> > week. I don't know how many songs were used for the five
> > hour show, but you would actually hear a few repeat during
>
> > the same show, and then hear it again the following night.
>
> > And none of these songs were current. They were all like
> > 70's and early 80s songs. They did it for three months or
>
> > so. Anybody recall this horrible bit of radio?
> > Huge blunder in dayton radio as there have been many has
> to be kicking Bucks Braun and the standards format out for
> poorly done sports.There was a comfortable level of sports
> talk.They had tried it years before when they dumped Lee
> Riley.Next has to be oldies 103.9 changing to country
> thinking their audience liked country.Resulting in The River
> which failed quickly going against K 99
>
<P ID="signature">______________
I'll get back to you when I think of a cute quote</P>
 
Re: Huge blunder in Dayton Radio...

> I certainly don't believe the owners of 103.9 thought their
> existing audience liked country. They wanted a diferent
> audience, though they had little chance of knocking off
> K99.1. The standards probably could have lasted another year
> or two on WONE.
> it was rumored that 103.9 air staff was told that many people who liked oldies liked country.if that were true or not is hard to determine.i did hear that from the staff at that time.if i recall the ratings were still good prior to the switch to country
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > > I'm not sure how many years it's been for sure, maybe
> > > five...Mix 107.7 WMMX did an evening show, back when
> they
> > > were still live. They promoted it as something like
> "The
> > > best party songs". It ran from 7-Midnight, seven days a
>
> > > week. I don't know how many songs were used for the
> five
> > > hour show, but you would actually hear a few repeat
> during
> >
> > > the same show, and then hear it again the following
> night.
> >
> > > And none of these songs were current. They were all
> like
> > > 70's and early 80s songs. They did it for three months
> or
> >
> > > so. Anybody recall this horrible bit of radio?
> > > Huge blunder in dayton radio as there have been many has
>
> > to be kicking Bucks Braun and the standards format out for
>
> > poorly done sports.There was a comfortable level of sports
>
> > talk.They had tried it years before when they dumped Lee
> > Riley.Next has to be oldies 103.9 changing to country
> > thinking their audience liked country.Resulting in The
> River
> > which failed quickly going against K 99
> >
>
 
WLWS / Stereo 96 (PD...Allen Matthews while they were Stereo 96 and Fred Slezak in News)...changing format from A/C Oldies to Disco and name to Kiss 96. I think Tom Rivers took over as PD to initiate the change.

Allen Matthews left for WPFB where he changed the FM from the Hodge Podge format to A/C Mello 106 and the A/M band from M.O.R. (with exception of Moon Mullins) to Spirit of the Country 91PFB.
 
RE: The Beaver

The newly formed Jacor couldn't own more than two services on a band so 96.5 was spun off to country to help deflate WUBE and help WLW. Once that happened and Jacor had WEBN, the signal was sold.

The worst blunder in Cincinnati history was adding "W" to 55KRC, 55WKRC. Once that happened in the late 80's, the station spun out of control. Of course, Randy Michaels and the crew at 700 WLW didn't help life at 1906 Highland Ave. 55WKRC just didn't sound right and when they finally took the "W" away (including editing the jingles) it was too late.
 
Great moments in Cincinnati Radio History:

Casey Petrowkski
YES 95 - didn't Jim Scott do mornings?
WEBN playing DISCO in the late 70's ("I'm Robin Wood.. here's Donna Summer with Bad Girls on WEBN" - don't laugh I heard it)
and then the all disco station (I think it was 103.5) with Pat Barry doing afternoons.

Pat's last day at Q102.. leaves an old pair of shoes in Mark Sebastian's box with the note: "Just try to fill these!"

WEBN suing WKRQ because it wasn't 102, it was 101.9 FM.

The biggest blunder though was never on air. Taft has a Federal tradmark/copyright on "Q102" and never enforced it.
 
radioboymark said:
WEBN playing DISCO in the late 70's ("I'm Robin Wood.. here's Donna Summer with Bad Girls on WEBN" - don't laugh I heard it)
Click to expand...

I do laugh. If you did hear it, it had to be a joke.

"Bad Girls" was released in May of 1979. That's exactly when WEBN had just made a major shift to rock even harder than before. Spring 1979 was when WEBN hired famous consultant Lee Abrams, dropped artists like Joni Mitchell, John Denver, Randy Newman, America, Carole King, etc. from its playlist, and started using the slogan "The Rock & Roll Station."

This was also when they hired an artist to create a new logo for the call letters. The familiar WEBN logo we all know today, and the commitment to play an even higher percentage of hard rock, happened at precisely the time "Bad Girls" came out. If you heard that song on WEBN, it was played as a gag.
 
You may be correct. I was pretty distracted in the summer of 1979..

Was Abrams brought in Spring or Fall '79? I did hear Bad Girls on 'EBN.. I was getting gas and monitoring so I rolled the window down to keep listening.

I'd love to see an 'EBN timeline. When did they drop the Sunday classical? When did Frank Sr. pass away and Bo take over? I never worked there, but we always hung out after work with those jocks and lied to each other while drinking beer.
 
The BIGGEST Blunder!

The sensless firings of 21 programming people from Clear Channel just before Christmas.

Why are programming people and not (rarley) sales or general office staff fired? A lot of programming people have a bitter taste in their mouth about radio because they give up their lives for the job. When was the last time someone from the sales or general office staff worked an airshift on a major holiday? How many gave up a weekend with their kid to cover an airshift when there was no one else to do it? How many have gone on vacation, but instead of relaxing have spent their time monitoring the station and thinking of ways to improve the sound? I'm taking a guess here, but I'd say never. It's the programming side that does those things and they do it because they love it. Nothing says thank you like getting the axe.

Like the people who got fired or not, the bottom line is that it could have been you. It could have been you trying to scrape together a decent Christmas for your family after being fired and given a laughable severence. Try to see it from that angle before you bash this thread to bits.
 
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