Our First Anniversary!

It's hard to believe, but History of WOWO.com has been online for one year!

We had no idea at the enthusiastic response this site would generate, or the sheer number of rare airchecks and photos that would be submitted by visitors like you. We've heard from many old WOWO staffers and people who listened to WOWO Radio literally across the globe.

As a bit of a celebration of our anniversary and the beginning of summer, we're spotlighting one of the newest additions to the site's airchecks page, a true gem. Former WOWO Program Manager Bob K explains:

"Every year in the ‘70s, WOWO produced a special Memorial Day weekend, including a countdown show to the start of the Indianapolis 500 race.  The show included special Indy 500 Weather forecasts, Traffic Reports and “Countdown To Indy” reports with Dugan Fry.  Dugan would go down to the track when time trials began and would produce features every weekend in May on the time trials.  He would also record pieces to be used on the actual race day morning countdown show.  The WOWO sales department made a bundle by packaging the whole month of reports and the whole countdown weekend to national and local advertisers. 

The only problem was, until the early 1970s, WOWO didn’t carry the actual network race broadcast.  It was carried by the old WKJG AM until 1971 when the AM/FM combo was sold to Federated Media. Only after the old MOR/block format of 1380 was changed to top 40 WMEE (and the FM 97.3 to beautiful music WMEF) was WOWO able to acquire the rights and air the 500 for the first time in 1972. (It was also in 1972 that WOWO got the rights to IU football and basketball.) The first "WOWO Top 500 Countdown" list was issued that year, and the countdown was done every year before and after the race for many years. Along with the countdown show, we would produce a whole thematic weekend that would start at 3pm on Friday and go through 6pm on Monday. 

In 1977, the TV show “Happy Days” was a monster hit, so we came up with the “WOWO Happy Days Weekend.”  We pulled out old WOWO jingles from the ‘50s and ‘60s, and Music Librarian Sam DeVincent and I put together a weekend music list that represented the “Happy Days” era.  We gave all the WOWO airstaff 1950s style Disc Jockey names and cranked up the Fisher Space Expander reverb unit to sound like ‘50s and ‘60s radio stations.  Executive Producer Neil McGinley produced hourly openers and promos, featuring Ron Gregory, me as Wolfman Jack and my teenage girl voice. 

Here you will hear two hours of Bob Sievers Saturday morning show, with everything intact, except the music is scoped.  You’ll also hear two complete hours of Chris Roberts' Saturday show  (all commercials, all newscasts and all music).  Also included are two hours of Carol Ford’s actual Indy countdown show, in total (all commercials, all newscasts and all music)."

The audio quality of these airchecks is excellent. So let's turn the dial on the Wayback Machine to -33 years and go back to a "WOWO Happy Days Weekend" from Memorial Day Weekend, 1977!

"Big Daddio" Bob Sievers from May 28, 1977, 8am hour

"Mad Dog" Chris Roberts from May 28, 1977, 11am hour

"Mad Dog" Chris Roberts from May 28, 1977, 12pm hour

"Howlin'" Carol Ford from May 29, 1977, 12am hour

"Howlin'" Carol Ford from May 29, 1977, 1am hour

It's also worth noting that we have had many requests for Carol Ford airchecks and these are the only WOWO airchecks of Carol known to exist--so far!

Thanks again to Bob K, and special thanks to site visitor Mark Erdman for additional historical information about the Indy 500 network broadcasts!!

One more rare item from the Bob K collection, a promotional photo of the airstaff from May 1973! (L-R: afternoon man Stu Collins, Farm Director Jay Gould, Mr. WOWO Bob Sievers, WOWO News Director and Indy reporter Dugan Fry, brand-new evening jock Ron Gregory, midday personality Jack Underwood, and nighttime jock Calvin Richards.)