RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Grab those Thanksgiving turkeys! WKRP is really coming to Cincinnati this time.
“Contractually, I can’t tell you when. I can’t tell you who. But I can tell you straight into the camera that 48 years later, WKRP is coming to Cincinnati,” DP McIntyre, the media nonprofit responsible for auctioning the famous phone letter, told The Associated Press. “Booking! It’s done!”
This call sign was made famous by the CBS sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati” which aired from 1978 to 1982. It made stars of actors like Loni Anderson and Richard Sanders, whose Thanksgiving promotion hosted by bumbling news reporter Les Nessman went sour when a live, flightless turkey fell from a helicopter.
McIntyre remembers watching the show’s first episode – starring disc jockeys Dr. Johnny Feaver (Howard Heseman) and Venus Flytrap (Tim Reed) – in the living room with his parents and sister.
“At the end of the 30-minute show,” he said, “I stood up and announced, ‘I’m going into radio. If I get the chance, I’m going to run a station called WKRP.'”
McIntyre said he got his first broadcasting job at age 13 as a news anchor for WNQQ “Wink FM” in Blairsville, Pennsylvania.
Fast forward to 2014, and his North Carolina-based nonprofit received a call sign from the Federal Communications Commission. The letters were previously posted at stations in Dallas, Georgia, and Alexandria, Tennessee.
McIntyre laughed as he recalled a conversation he had with a woman in the agency’s audio department.
He had two sets of calling letters in mind. She told him he needed a third one.
“Being the joker that I am, I said, ‘Well, if you need three and there’s one, we’ll go with WKRP,'” he said. “Ninety seconds later, she came back and said, ‘Mr. McIntyre. Congratulations. You are the general manager of WKRP in Raleigh, North Carolina.'”
WKRP-LP (101.9 on the FM dial) went live on November 30, 2015. LP stands for “low power” and is a category of stations designed to serve a larger local audience that does not require mass-market content.
“Our format is the format of small town radio in America 35 years ago,” he said. “There’s the greats of the ’80s, the sounds of the ’70s, the throwbacks of the ’90s.”
LPFM is limited to nonprofits like his Oak City Media, and it’s decidedly local.
“Broadcast capacity is limited to 100 watts,” McIntire said. “So depending on your terrain and environment, your average range is between 4 and 12 miles (6 and 19 kilometers) in any direction. That’s enough to cover a small town.”
And, it was bound to be a low-budget affair.
The transmitter is located in a corner of McIntyre’s garage, between recycling bins and cleaning supplies. The broadcast antenna is located in the backyard on a 25-foot (7.62-meter) metal flagpole. The studio is located in McIntyre’s basement, complete with microphones and a mixing board connected to a computer.
Like TV’s WKRP, McIntyre and company were “irreverent” from the get-go. One of their shows was a two-hour show called “Weird Al and Friends,” which focused on the satire of Weird Al Yankovic.
They even host an annual Thanksgiving turkey giveaway. But don’t call the ASPCA—they’ll give out gift certificates to your local grocery store.
“We don’t throw them out of helicopters,” he said with a laugh.
After 10 years in broadcasting, McIntyre, 56, decided it was time to hand over the reins.
“We are now in a situation where older members like me who started the station are handing over leadership to younger members,” he said. “They’re not interested in broadcasting.”
They issued a tender for the use of call signs on FM and AM radio as well as television and digital television.
They intend to use the proceeds for a new non-profit venture called Independent Broadcast Consultants. He said the IBC would be “specifically focused on helping these new broadcasters get up and running, getting the advice they need to be even more successful than we were.”
McIntyre said Oak City Media was preparing to drop its television-related suffixes — WKRPTV and WKRPDT — when another organization defaulted. But he said the Cincinnati deal was a done deal and he just couldn’t legally discuss it.
“It’s going to be radio,” he said. “But that’s all I can tell you right now.”
No matter what they do with the call sign, he wants them to stay true to the show that inspired it.
“It holds a special place in a lot of people’s hearts,” he said. “We are very, very, very proud to be stewards of this legacy.”