The call letters made famous by the television sitcom \u201cWKRP in Cincinnati\u201d are set to return to the Ohio city, according to the head of a nonprofit organization that has controlled the brand for more than a decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot, by contract, tell you when. I cannot tell you who. But I can tell you, direct to the camera, WKRP, after 48 years, is coming to Cincinnati,\u201d D.P. McIntire, who leads the media nonprofit that has been auctioning the call letters, tells The Associated Press<\/a>. \u201cBook it! It\u2019s done!\u201d<\/p>\n The WKRP call sign became widely known through the CBS sitcom that aired from 1978 to 1982 and featured fictional radio station employees, including disc jockeys and a hapless newsman. The show helped launch the careers of several actors and remains remembered for a comedic Thanksgiving episode involving live turkeys dropped from a helicopter.<\/p>\n McIntire said the program influenced his own career ambitions. \u201cAnd at the end of the 30-minute episode,\u201d he said, \u201cI got up and I proclaimed, \u2018I\u2019m going to be in radio. And if I ever have the opportunity, I\u2019m going to run a station called WKRP.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He began working in radio as a teenager and, in 2014, his North Carolina-based nonprofit acquired the WKRP call letters from the Federal Communications Commission. The designation had previously been used by stations in Georgia and Tennessee.<\/p>\n The nonprofit launched WKRP-LP, a low-power FM station, in 2015. Broadcasting at 101.9 FM, the station featured a mix of music formats and locally oriented programming. Low-power FM stations, limited to nonprofit operators, typically cover a small geographic area with reduced transmission strength.<\/p>\n McIntire described the station\u2019s approach as a throwback to earlier eras of radio. \u201cOur format is what radio used to be 35 years ago in small-town America,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n