Launched on May 4, 2026, Grant County Broadcasters officially rebranded its “Oasis” radio network in the Greater Cincinnati and Dayton areas as “WKRP in Cincinnati.” The station utilizes a nostalgic rock format as a tribute to the beloved TV series. To mark the occasion, the station featured series star Gary Sandy — who played program director Andy Travis — recording promotional announcements, and aired the show’s theme song for six hours leading up to the debut.
The Show That Started It All
WKRP in Cincinnati follows the misadventures of the staff of a struggling fictional AM radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. The show was created by Hugh Wilson and was based on his experiences observing at Top 40 radio station WQXI in Atlanta, with many of the characters inspired by real people at that station. Wilson once told The Cincinnati Enquirer that he chose WKRP as the call sign to stand for C-R-A-P.
Cincinnati was selected as the setting for a handful of reasons. Wilson and his team were adamant that the show take place in a sizable city, but not a top market like New York or Los Angeles. They also simply liked how “WKRP in Cincinnati” rolled off the tongue.
A Rocky Start That Became a Classic
WKRP in Cincinnati debuted in 1978 in CBS’s Monday 8 p.m. timeslot, competing against ABC’s Welcome Back, Kotter and NBC’s top-20 show Little House on the Prairie. The show initially earned poor ratings and was put on hiatus after only eight episodes — even though those episodes included some of the most famous of the entire series.
Thanks to strong reviews and positive fan reaction, especially from disc jockeys who hailed it as the first show to realistically portray the radio business, CBS brought WKRP back without any cast changes. It aired for four seasons and 90 episodes, ending on April 21, 1982.
Starting in the middle of the second season, CBS repeatedly shuffled the show around its schedule, contributing to lower ratings and its eventual cancellation. In all, WKRP changed time slots 12 different times during its four-season run.
Syndication Superstar
When WKRP went into syndication, it became an unexpected success. For the next decade, it was one of the most popular sitcoms in syndication, outperforming many programs that had been far more successful during their prime time runs.
Cincinnati Pride on Set
To help the show authentically represent the look and feel of a Cincinnati radio station, real-life local station WEBN-FM sent the production a care package of locally-branded items to use as props — including empty pizza boxes from a local restaurant, Skyline Chili bags, and bumper stickers.
The Turkey Drop: TV’s Most Infamous Thanksgiving
One of the most famous episodes of the series is the first-season Thanksgiving episode, “Turkeys Away.” In it, station manager Arthur Carlson attempts to pull off the greatest Thanksgiving promotion in radio history: dropping live turkeys from a helicopter. The plot is rooted in a true story — an actual promotion in which a radio station tossed live turkeys off the back of a truck at a Dallas shopping center parking lot.
A Launchpad for Rock and New Wave
The show was noted for acting like a real rock station, pushing the musical envelope by featuring a wide variety of artists, including punk and new wave acts, exposing them to a broader television audience. The show’s use of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” was widely credited with helping the song become a major U.S. hit. The band’s record label even presented the producers with a gold record for the song’s album Parallel Lines — which can be spotted hanging on the wall of the bullpen set in many episodes. The Cars, Toto, The Knack, and Devo also credited the show with boosting their popularity.
The Legacy Continues
A sequel series, The New WKRP in Cincinnati, ran from 1991 to 1993 in syndication. And now, nearly 50 years after the original debuted, a real radio station in Cincinnati is carrying the name forward — a fitting tribute to a show that helped define an era of American broadcasting.