was there really a real life WKRP?

[bb]

Wonder if there really was a WKRP ..someplace? Or at the least the basis of it? I heard a station in Atlanta ( WQXI )
and a Buffalo station ( WKBW ) were the stations WKRP was based on. Wonder if its true? Both were famous top 40 stations in the 60s and 70s.

Wonder if there is a radio ( or tv ) station someplace that uses the call letters WKRP, and do they air WKRP for that matter?

[Slippery Dan]

Channel 42 in Washington DC http://www.metronet.com/cgi-bin/cgiw...pl?target=wkrp

[theshark8777]

There was also a WKRP radio station somewhere in the south, I wanna say Texas, but I think that would start with a "K". I dont know if its still around or not though.

[Jamey Greek]

Originally Posted by theshark8777

There was also a WKRP radio station somewhere in the south, I wanna say Texas, but I think that would start with a "K". I dont know if its still around or not though.

I think it's actually in Dallas, GA outside of Atlanta.

[missy's pop pop]

The creator of 'WKRP in Cincinnati," Bill Dial, was once a radio station PD (program director) in Atlanta...

[Yong Fang]

Like the above poster stated, Bill Dial was a PD in a radio station in Atlanta, so he drew from the experiences of his life to make the series.

People in radio, and especially DJ's LOVED this show, because it was very realistic. Even Herb. Salesmen of the 1970's were a lot like Herb Tarlek. Basic car salesman and deal makers. A subculture of loud outfits, oversized personalities, drinking, back slapping etc.

Probably many DJ's of rock stations were a bit like Johnny Fever. Worked in many, many radio stations (people like Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern worked in many markets coming up), with a few with managable drinking and marijuana habits. There was even one jockey who was a cokehead who did payola (which I am sure happened in the 1970's).

I dont know (I was a child of the 1970's) of "wake up crews" were common, where there were several morning DJ's telling jokes, doing whatever mixed in with news reports. Fever and Flytrap would make a great "Wake Up Crew". The episode where Fever and Venus were drinking with the cop to test reflexes would be a great morning crew gag. Less Nessman was sort of the unrealistic person in the show, but he was so incompetant, that he would have been the butt of jokes and humor with the listening audience who might have thought him a comedian instead of serious.

I am sure probably pre-1980's that a lot of radio stations were mom and pop outfits owned by private companies. Mr. Carlson was not as dumb as he looked either, and he trusted his programming director to do his job. Andy was overworked and underpaid and had to be a manager of all things in the office, the music played, the accounts payable and recievable, promotions, keeping up with the times and the goings on of the employees.

This show was sort of realistic to what a real radio station in a mid sized market would have been like in the 1970's. The one glaring error I can see is that the DJ's could play their own stuff, that there was rock in the daytime, and Johnny played literally all kinds of stuff, from Jerry Lee Lewis to the 1980 era, while Venus played Soul music at night. It was sort of like a college station in that regard. I think in real life, people tune into a station to listen to a certain genre all day. My hometown radio station Rock 103 from Memphis www.rock103.com basically plays the same 75 to 100 songs over and over all day long and they have done this for over 30 years. Playing all different kinds of stuff would be too confusing.

I love this show. Very realistic. Should have lasted longer than it did.

[missy's pop pop]

Incidentally, in the opening sequence showing the radio tower (just before the "WKRP in Cincinnati" title flashes onscreen), the tower is actually fhat of WKRC, a very real television station in Cincinnati!

(The same tower is also seen in the opening sequence of "The Edge of Night." As the "night" sweeps down from the upper left to the lower right on your TV screen, the tower lights come on as they normally would at...well..."night!"

[RetroTVNitekatt]

There were stations like 'KRP - AM Stations still playing Rock or Top 40 in the late 1970's-early 1980's that were at 5000 watts in the mid-west.

[Jamey Greek]

Originally Posted by Yong Fang

Like the above poster stated, Bill Dial was a PD in a radio station in Atlanta, so he drew from the experiences of his life to make the series.

People in radio, and especially DJ's LOVED this show, because it was very realistic. Even Herb. Salesmen of the 1970's were a lot like Herb Tarlek. Basic car salesman and deal makers. A subculture of loud outfits, oversized personalities, drinking, back slapping etc.

Probably many DJ's of rock stations were a bit like Johnny Fever. Worked in many, many radio stations (people like Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern worked in many markets coming up), with a few with managable drinking and marijuana habits. There was even one jockey who was a cokehead who did payola (which I am sure happened in the 1970's).

I dont know (I was a child of the 1970's) of "wake up crews" were common, where there were several morning DJ's telling jokes, doing whatever mixed in with news reports. Fever and Flytrap would make a great "Wake Up Crew". The episode where Fever and Venus were drinking with the cop to test reflexes would be a great morning crew gag. Less Nessman was sort of the unrealistic person in the show, but he was so incompetant, that he would have been the butt of jokes and humor with the listening audience who might have thought him a comedian instead of serious.

I am sure probably pre-1980's that a lot of radio stations were mom and pop outfits owned by private companies. Mr. Carlson was not as dumb as he looked either, and he trusted his programming director to do his job. Andy was overworked and underpaid and had to be a manager of all things in the office, the music played, the accounts payable and recievable, promotions, keeping up with the times and the goings on of the employees.

This show was sort of realistic to what a real radio station in a mid sized market would have been like in the 1970's. The one glaring error I can see is that the DJ's could play their own stuff, that there was rock in the daytime, and Johnny played literally all kinds of stuff, from Jerry Lee Lewis to the 1980 era, while Venus played Soul music at night. It was sort of like a college station in that regard. I think in real life, people tune into a station to listen to a certain genre all day. My hometown radio station Rock 103 from Memphis www.rock103.com basically plays the same 75 to 100 songs over and over all day long and they have done this for over 30 years. Playing all different kinds of stuff would be too confusing.

I love this show. Very realistic. Should have lasted longer than it did.

Hugh Wilson was also as salesman in Atlanta too