January 9-16, 2003
More Cincinnati AMs on the Kentucky Side
Last week, we showed you the magnificent
old site of WSAI (1530, ex-WCKY) in Villa Hills, Kentucky.
But WSAI is just one of many interesting AM sites on the Kentucky
side of the Cincinnati market.
 Take, for instance,
the site shown at left. The three towers you see here are actually
part of a sprawling five-tower site along Kentucky 9, the "AA
Highway" south of Highland Heights.
This is WKRC (550), a big 5000-watt signal at the bottom of
the dial that's heard for hundreds of miles around the Ohio Valley.
Heritage calls? Absolutely - but with a twist.
As we mentioned last week, the 550 spot on the dial was part
of a confusing swap of calls and formats in the Queen City in
the early nineties, when Jacor built an AM duopoly by purchasing
550 from the remnants of the old Taft Broadcasting group to add
to its WLW (700). The WKRC calls stayed with the TV side on channel
12, then an ABC affiliate, so 550 became WLWA, a sort of complementary
talk service to WLW. Promoted as "WLW 550," the real
calls were cleverly disguised at the top of each hour, when a
promo proudly proclaimed, "550 WLW A Cincinnati Radio Station!"
Sound confusing? Well, yes...it was. And so Jacor was happy to
swap calls again a couple of years later, when it bought the
intellectual property of WCKY, then on 1530, and moved that heritage
call down to the bottom of the dial. WCKY at 550 carried a lineup
of local and syndicated talkers that has continued pretty much
right to the present day, albeit with one more call change. When
Clear Channel, which by then had purchased Jacor, had the chance
to add WKRC-TV to its Cincinnati lineup, it didn't hesitate -
and the WKRC calls came home to 550. (WCKY was parked up the
dial at the old WSAI on 1360; we'll see that site next week!)
 Whatever its calls
are, 550 uses two towers by day - one of the three shown above,
plus a second tower quite a distance away across this horse field
- and four towers at night (the three shown above plus a fourth
that's part of that in-line array, which was simply too big to
get in a single frame!)
Head back up the AA Highway, then cross the Licking River
into Covington, and behind a shopping plaza on Winston Avenue
you'll see these three towers: Covington's own local radio station,
WCVG (1320).
This signal has had many owners and formats over the years;
right now it's doing gospel, but we remember it fondly for a
late-eighties stint as "all-Elvis radio." It was more
than just a format-changing stunt - it was an actual format that
lasted for at least a few months, as we recall. And with 500
watts day and 430 watts at night, it gets out better than you'd
expect!
(We later heard from WCVG owner Dick Plessinger, who tells
us he's actually just the second owner of this station, which
signed on in 1965 under owner Irv Schwartz as WCLU and competed
in the top-40 arena for some years; Plessinger changed the calls
and added that middle tower for night service when he bought
the station.)
Another signal that's actually licensed to northern Kentucky
is Newport's WNOP (740), which for many years played jazz music
for Cincinnati from studios built in - yes, in -
three oil storage tanks welded together, painted bright orange
with the calls on top (in big white light bulbs you could see
from Riverfront Stadium), and set afloat, anchored to a pier
in the Ohio River. (No, really!) WNOP's transmitter is over on
the Ohio side near Delhi Hills, right across the river from WSAI.
I've never been there - and the station is doing Catholic programming
instead of jazz these days, in any case.
Still another signal targeting Cincinnati from northern Kentucky
is Florence-licensed WBOB (1160), which operates from four towers
south of Florence on a side road off US 42, the Dixie Highway.
 WBOB has a decent
day signal, with 5000 watts aimed right up at Cincinnati, but
its 990 watts at night don't go very far on a crowded channel.
It's a fairly new facility, too; the Florence signal signed
on only in 1984, as a directional daytimer on 1180 with 1000
watts. The move to 1160 didn't come until the early '90s, along
with the WBOB calls and a sports format.
(At one point, WBOB even had a sister service, "WBOB
2," that used what was then WUBE 1230 in Cincinnati to complement
the main WBOB programming.)
Today, WBOB is owned by Salem, and it just ceded the sports
battleground to Clear Channel's WCKY (1360) in favor of talk,
including simulcasts of news from Fox affiliate WXIX (Channel
19).
We'll wrap up our Queen City tour next week, as we head down
the famous hill on I-71/75 and ask, "Baby, if you ever wondered,
wondered whose tower they were showing on WKRP..." See you
then!
 Want to see more neat sticks all year
round? Nashville's WSM (at left) is one of the more than
a dozen Tower Site images featured in the 2003 Tower Site Calendar,
coming this fall from Tower Site of the Week and fybush.com.
If you liked last year's edition, you'll love this one: higher-quality
images (in addition to WSM, this year's edition includes Providence's
WHJJ; Mount Mansfield, Vermont; Buffalo's WBEN; KOMA in Oklahoma
City; WTIC, Hartford; Brookmans Park, England; WPAT, Paterson;
Four Times Square, New York; WIBC in Indianapolis; WWVA in Wheeling,
W.V.; WGN Chicago and more), more dates in radio history, a convenient
hole for hanging - and we'll even make sure all the dates fall
on the right days!
This year's edition is back from the printer, and shipping
is underway. Orders placed now will be shipped within 24 hours!
And this year, you can order with your Visa, MasterCard,
Discover or American Express by using the handy link below!
Better yet, here's an incentive to make your 2003 NERW/Site
of the Week subscription pledge a little early: support NERW/fybush.com
at the $60 level or higher, and you'll get this lovely calendar
for free! How can you go wrong? (Click here
to visit our Support page, where you can make your NERW contribution
with a major credit card...)
You can also order by mail; just send a check for $16
per calendar (NYS residents add 8% sales tax), shipping included,
to Scott Fybush, 92 Bonnie Brae Ave., Rochester
NY 14618.
Thanks for your support!
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