Former WTTF owner Richard Wright passes

[Radiofreewill]

Source: WTTF.com (cut & pasted from Tiffin Advertiser-Tribune)

Apparently he suffered a heart attack on New Year's Day.

 

[FredRichards]

A Wiki entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTTF tells a few tales, but the obit was in the Toledo Blade, (which I can't find at present). Bob was a nice guy, and loved radio. His heart wasn't it in after his brother died in an accident, and that's when he sold the station to Jacor.

 

[Radiofreewill]

Oops...there was supposed to be a link in that first post, but I coded it in HTML instead of BBCode. Sorry you had to dig there, Fred.

WTTF.com: In Memory of Richard Wright

 

[kirkiefan]

WTTF....a great station. Though I'm not a Clear Channel fan I must admit it stays as locally originating as possible despite running Fox Sports...WTTF is classic full service radio. I listen to it when I'm in the Findlay and Carey area. I wish the Wright family well in their time of loss.

 

[kenhawk1160]

I worked at WTTF in 1994, when Bob and Dick were both alive and well and very much in charge. It wasn't upgraded very much over the years, but I think they liked it that way. They gave the announcers lots of room to be creative, and they left you alone unless you really screwed up.

Two great guys...if there's radio in Heaven, Bob's doing "Sound Off", and Dick is setting up the equipment for the remotes and driving the van. Maybe Dick's building another "DW-76"?

 

[ChrisInMI]

I grew up in suburban Detroit and WTTF's FM signal used to DX into my area quite frequently. I always enjoyed listening to that station in the late '90s - a real classy operation. I can actually remember coming home from a class trip to Cedar Point in 1998 or so and keeping my Walkman tuned to 103.7 most of the time. The playlist was huge and varied, a mixture of AC, Easy Listening and Oldies that was very pleasing to my ears. I have a real fondness for true small-town full-service broadcasters (like WLEN in Adrian; some of you in northwest Ohio might be familiar with 103.9 FM) and WTTF certainly fit that bill at the time. I was heartbroken when the FM station became Buckeye Country, but of course I didn't know the whole story behind that at the time. WFRO in Fremont was another favorite of mine (the AM 900 signal came in like a local in parts of metro Detroit); seemed like they played the new hit music before any of the Detroit stations got hold of it.

I had heard BAS had taken control of WTTF-AM and planned to flip the station to ABC's Timeless Favorites. Has that happened yet or is it still local?

 

[kenhawk1160]

I grew up in suburban Detroit and WTTF's FM signal used to DX into my area quite frequently. I always enjoyed listening to that station in the late '90s - a real classy operation. I can actually remember coming home from a class trip to Cedar Point in 1998 or so and keeping my Walkman tuned to 103.7 most of the time. The playlist was huge and varied, a mixture of AC, Easy Listening and Oldies that was very pleasing to my ears. I have a real fondness for true small-town full-service broadcasters (like WLEN in Adrian; some of you in northwest Ohio might be familiar with 103.9 FM) and WTTF certainly fit that bill at the time. I was heartbroken when the FM station became Buckeye Country, but of course I didn't know the whole story behind that at the time. WFRO in Fremont was another favorite of mine (the AM 900 signal came in like a local in parts of metro Detroit); seemed like they played the new hit music before any of the Detroit stations got hold of it.

I had heard BAS had taken control of WTTF-AM and planned to flip the station to ABC's Timeless Favorites. Has that happened yet or is it still local?

BAS did take control of it, but they still have yet to make any changes, I'm told. I see them letting go of some people, because they had quite an inflated payroll when they had the FM in their portfolio. Considering the AM barely makes it out of the county, their revenue potential is going to be somewhat limited.

However, I've been told that BAS is a hometown owner that cares about its people. They do use satellite on most of their stations, but they take care of their people well.