WEBN
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| WEBN | |
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| City of license | Cincinnati, Ohio |
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| Broadcast area | Cincinnati, Ohio |
| Branding | 102.7 WEBN |
| Slogan | The Lunatic Fringe of American F.M. |
| Frequency | 102.7 (MHz) |
| Format | Rock |
| ERP | 16,000 watts |
| HAAT | 264 meters |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 29734 |
| Owner | Clear Channel Communications |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | www.webn.com |
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This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (November 2007) |
WEBN (102.7 FM) is an American radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. The station plays a rock format, and pioneered the concept of "album-oriented rock" or AOR. WEBN is the longest running album oriented rock formatted station in the United States, first airing this format in 1967. The station is owned and operated by Clear Channel Communications. It broadcasts with an effective radiated power of 16,000 watts. Its transmitter is located in Cincinnati.
With an HD Radio capable receiver, WEBN-HD2, a digital sub channel of WEBN, plays Classic Rock mainly from the 80's. Bands such as Def Leppard, Metallica, Motley Crue, Quiet Riot and Guns N' Roses. The HD1 channel is the analog channel converted into a digital format.
WEBN is known for its irreverent attitude, with such shows as "The Dawn Patrol," "Lunchmania," "Big Hair Wednesday," and "The Rubber Room". The station plays a mix of old and new rock, focusing on the more hard and metal rock than many "oldies" stations.
Beginning with the 2008 regular season, WEBN has become the FM flagship station of the Cincinnati Bengals.[1]
According to the radio industry website, RadioStats.Net, WEBN's website is the most visited Rock radio station site in America.
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[edit] History
[edit] Launch of WEBN
When it initially went on the air on August 30, 1967, it was owned by Frank Wood, Sr., a Cincinnati attorney. WEBN broadcast classical music daytimes and an all night jazz program. The night programming was managed by a bank of 10 1/2 inch Scully reel to reel tape machines in an early instance of station automation. However, in the late evening hours of Saturdays and Sundays, it also broadcast a program hosted by Frank's son Frank Jr. ("Bo" Wood - or known by his air-name, Michael Xanadu), called "The Jelly Pudding Show". The show featured many album cuts by both popular and somewhat obscure artists, other than the recognized hit songs or radio edits, tagged "rock, jazz, folk and ragas." The program and its music proved to be so popular that the station eventually made this "album-oriented" rock the bulk of its programming, much to the chagrin of the older Wood.
However, it honored its roots as a classical music station by broadcasting classical music on Sunday mornings from 8 a.m. to noon, with Frank Wood, Sr., as the host. This proved to be one of the station's most popular programs, until Wood retired from the air on June 30, 1985. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the program was Frank's weekly tradition of always playing a very long work, which he preceded by announcing that the length of the work would give him enough time to eat a pie from Graeter's, a popular Cincinnati ice cream parlor that specializes in ice cream pies, confectioneries, and other baked goods. After Wood's retirement (he died in 1991), the classical program continued for a few years with new host Larry Thomas, and later began to include new age music. Its time was shifted to 6 to 10 a.m., and the show was eventually dropped in the late 1980's.
In its early days, WEBN broadcast from a bright blue old house in Cincinnati's west-side Price Hill neighborhood, referred to on-air as "Price's Mountain." Anyone, at anytime, 24 hours a day, could visit the station and walk right into the studio/home and watch on-air personalities broadcast their programs. Visitors were separated from station personnel by Plexiglas panels, but could walk through the premises, nonetheless. The house wasn't hard to spot - it had what appeared to be a cocker spaniel sitting in an old barbershop chair on the front porch. The taxidermied dog had been Frank Wood Sr.'s pet, named Miles Duffy. Wood, being basically a one-man show when he began the station, decided to name "Miles Duffy" as the station's Program Director to give the impression that WEBN had more employees than just himself. This joke continued officially for some years even as the station continued to grow.
An early voice at the station was Robin Wood, daughter of Frank Wood Sr. and sister of Frank Wood Jr. In 1973, the station moved to the east-side's Hyde Park Square, referred to on air as "Hyde's Meadow." In 1988, the station moved to the neighborhood of Mount Adams (this time calling it "Frog's Mountain), joining with several other stations purchased in recent years by their corporate parent, Jacor Communications. In 1999, Jacor was purchased by Clear Channel. Finally in 2004, all Cincinnati Clear Channel stations moved to the northern neighborhood of Kenwood. WEBN continued to call its location "Frog's Mountain."
[edit] Early pranks
During its early years, its irreverent attitude extended to its newscasts as well, which blended almost seamlessly into the music. For example, a late afternoon newscast led off with the "Big Bozo Birthday Book" of notable individuals born on that day. Likewise, every April Fool's Day, the station featured the broadcast of a mythical April Fool's Day parade as if one were marching by. Among the marchers was the band from "Our Lady of Perpetual Motion." The station featured commercials that sounded authentic, but the products being promoted were clearly fictitious, such as the "Indianapolis Academy of the French Accent." The broadcast was so realistic, some listeners actually drove to the Hyde Park neighborhood where the parade was supposedly being held (in order to watch the parade) only to find there was no actual parade. Programming also extended to carrying syndicated shows like the National Lampoon Radio Hour and Doctor Demento.
[edit] Early advertising
The attitude also extended to actual advertising, led by production directors, Don Goldberg, Jay Gilbert, and Tom Sandman. Ad time on WEBN was extremely desirable to local merchants, but the station wasn't about to permit the staid and often amateurish production values that often permeated American radio. The majority of local spots were WEBN-produced, and bore the same outrageous wit and audacity that the station was known for. (Schoenling Breweries' beloved "Little Kings" cream ale was pushed with a long-running series titled "Biggest is Not Always Best".) And, as they had already promoted non-existent events, the station advertised products by "Brute-Force Cybernetics", also the name of the corporate holding company for the station. Brute-Force Cybernetics featured a logo of three monkeys based on the theme "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." The station broadcast tongue in cheek ads for products such as "Negative-Calorie Cookies" (eating them actually burned calories), "Stereo-Vision" TVs (a television mounted on a short track that bounced back and forth so quickly as to simulate 3D), and "Portable Holes" (Peel it off its backing sheet, place on wall, make your stash, then remove).
Other spots were for the "White Rose and Lilac Virginity Restoration Clinic", "Tree Frog Beer" ('it doesn't taste like much but it gets you there faster'), and a spoof on the Rambo movies entitled "Sambo: Real Blood Part Fo" featuring a black super-hero driving a rescue Cadillac and yelling "Hey, Chin Ho, Ronnie Reagan says you can kiss his white a..." before a jet fly-over drowns out the last word. A cross-over between these spots and reality occurred in 1972, when Hudepohl Beer allowed some of its product for the Cincinnati area to be wrapped in faux labels for "WEBN Tree-Frog Beer". (The Frog, and his sidekick Tyrone, soon became universal symbols for the station. The station markets tee-shirts and sweatshirts with the station's frog mascot - with a July-August version just before the annual fireworks, and in November-December with a holiday version). The tag line for Brute-Force Cybernetics was "We create a need, then fill it." The station began referring to itself as "The Lunatic Fringe of American FM".
[edit] Commentaries
In the late 1970s, the station featured commentaries by then-Cincinnati Council Member (and eventually Mayor), Jerry Springer, under the banner "The Springer Memorandum", the program's popularity helped launch his broadcasting career. But not all politics was serious. WEBN promoted its own fictitious candidate and mascot, Frog, for Cincinnati City Council and for President. To everyone's surprise, except those at the station itself, Frog actually received write-in votes on Election Day.
[edit] Local artists
WEBN was always passionate about promoting local artists, allowing the young local kids that were to form the national country-rock band Pure Prairie League to record the first demo of their hit "Amie" in their studios. Roger Abramson, the legendary rock n roll manager and producer took the demo to RCA where they were signed to a major recording contract. Abramson was also the manager of the Cleveland based group the James Gang, and WEBN and a Cleveland station were the two stations that broke their album. In 1968 Abramson's Squack Productions was sponsored by WEBN and promotted many major concerts including The Doors, which became a controversial event due to Jim Morrison's arrest at his concert in Miami. Also, the concept of national artists (who happened to be in town for shows) performing live in the radio studio began at WEBN.
[edit] Fireworks show
WEBN also presents an annual fireworks display, a spectacular exhibition on the Riverfront, on Labor Day weekend in conjunction with Cincinnati Bell and Rozzi's Famous Fireworks. The seventeen year agreement with Toyota came to an end in 2007. The show is set to music broadcast by the station. The first WEBN fireworks show happened in 1977 as a one-time celebration of the station's tenth birthday, but it was so well-received that it has been repeated every year since. The event routinely draws over 500,000 people to the Cincinnati Riverfront.
The event has been broadcast live on local TV stations since 1984 when WXIX-TV aired the fireworks. In 2008, the show was broadcasted in high definition for the first time on WLWT-TV.
[edit] Controversy
In years past, before being acquired by Clear Channel, WEBN's on-air antics and several of its billboard and TV ad campaigns have drawn organized protests and calls for advertiser boycotts. WEBN was also one of the few radio stations in America that would play most songs uncensored. This ended abruptly after the Janet Jackson "Nipplegate" incident at the Super Bowl resulted in much tighter restrictions and threats of higher fines from the Federal Communications Commission.
[edit] External links
- Station website
- Ken Glidwell (MR.K) Tribute Page http://www.myspace.com/ken_glidewell_tribute
- Bird, Rick (2002-08-30). "'EBN: 35 years of rockin'". The Cincinnati Post (E. W. Scripps Company). Archived from the original on 2005-05-26. http://web.archive.org/web/20050526003720/http://www.cincypost.com/2002/aug/30/webm083002.html.
- Query the FCC's FM station database for WEBN
- Radio-Locator information on WEBN
- Query Arbitron's FM station database for WEBN
