99-5 WOW-FM 1993

Alright, I am a big radio buff, and I was wondering if there is anyone out there who can remember the on-air lineups to 99.5 WOW-FM from January-May 1993. I don't know how many lineup changes there could have been in that short of a time, but I was wondering if anyone knows what the lineups used to be, and who used to be apart of the shows. I remember Doc in afternoons, with a guy named Todd Fowler and someone else. And Mark Elliot with someone in the mid-day shift. I don't know the rest of the lineup, or when they made the on-air changes. So if anyone knows, that would be awsome. And Is there a place where they keep records of this stuff?

R.C. Bauer from Tampa worked there during that time. You can see what he might remember... all I can recall is that WOW-FM was dead 6 months after it started and it sucked from day one.

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Answers

naughtytalker said:

R.C. Bauer from Tampa worked there during that time. You can see what he might remember... all I can recall is that WOW-FM was dead 6 months after it started and it sucked from day one.

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WOW-FM had a great news department, but they made the silly mistake of using reverb 24/7 in a lame attempt to be hip. One of Scott Meier's many stupid moves. And most of the jocks thought they were funny - with the exceptions of Dr. Don, Mark Eliot, Steve Monkevich - they weren't. And they also kept running WJR down, trying to pull some of that station's audience away, which was stupid. The talk shows were generally infantile, and that's why the ratings were poor. The solid news department had to try to work around all the silliness. Bob Schuman was news director, Casey Conley and myself, James Gemmell, were on in the morning drive. I anchored overnight news, and then would either stay in studio and do news reports with Bob in the morning, or go out into the field and street-report. RC Bauer was the Assistant News Director. Toni Kayumi, Karen Dinkins, Tom Corbett were some of the other news staffers. We had about 9 people in the news department, if memory serves.

WOW-FM had an almost impossible task. WJR was still in its prime, albeit in the late stages of it, with JP still doing mornings, and WXYT also having a strong talk lineup. Further, it only had a fuzzy identity. I wasn't in the area much then, so I can't answer the OPs question. Dr. Don and Mark Eliot did go on to have pretty good careers in the market.

WOW-FM's consultant was the legendary Randy Michaels. As I recall explaining WOW-FM vs. WJR, it was something along the lines of "WJR was your grandpa's station, this is wow, WOW-FM" (or something close to that.....)

EDwalker said:

WOW-FM's consultant was the legendary Randy Michaels. As I recall explaining WOW-FM vs. WJR, it was something along the lines of "WJR was your grandpa's station, this is wow, WOW-FM" (or something close to that.....)

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I have an old video of Randy doing a session at some radio conference. It was after WOW-FM launched, but before it was blown up. It's been years since I watched it, but I remember him talking about trying to reposition WJR as old and stuffy. They tired turning WJR's "The Great Voice of the Great Lakes" into "The Great Voice of your Great Grandfathers". I'll have to pull that video. It's a very entertaining hour.

Thanks for the shout out James.