With Radio One buy, urban radio landscape in Cincinnati changes again

By Rick Bird
Cincinnati Post
(September 18, 2006) A new Cincinnati radio station launches next week with some familiar call letters. Therein lies a complicated story of major corporate radio deals and clever engineering feats.

Radio One, owner of hip-hop WIZF-FM (101.1) and talker WDBZ-FM (The Buzz 1230), has bought the intellectual property (essentially the call letters) of "jammin' oldies" station WMOJ-FM (94.9), from Cumulus Media.

Cumulus also owns soft rocker WRRM-FM (Warm 98) and country station WYGY-FM (Star 96.5).

Radio One plans to use the MOJO call letters on its new Cincinnati station that will launch at midnight Thursday at 100.3 FM.

"Basically we bought our competition," said Rick Porter, Radio One regional vice president. "It's going to be an urban adult contemporary station."

Earlier this year Radio One, the largest black-owned radio chain, purchased Connersville, Ind., station WIFE-FM (100.3), which did not reach the Cincinnati market. But Radio One engineers and FCC lawyers figured out how to make that work. Radio One got permission to move the station's tower, transmitter and license to Norwood. Two months ago its WIZF changed frequencies from 100.9 to 101.1 and that made it technically possible, Porter said, for the new station to be heard throughout Greater Cincinnati at 100.3 FM. The signal is currently dark until the Thursday launch.

Radio One had been planning to launch the station for months as an urban adult contemporary format, which would compete to some extent with MOJO. In just the past three weeks, Cumulus and Radio One officials opened talks.

"It was a nice situation for us," Porter said. "We were going to launch the station and the opportunity came up from Cumulus to acquire the MOJO call letters and to shift it into what we wanted to do."

Porter said the current "jammin' oldies" format will evolve over the next month to target 25-54-year-old African-American women with such acts as Luther Vandross, Tony Braxton, Lionel Richie and Alicia Keys replacing older artists like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and the Bee Gees.

"The model for Radio One in about every market we are in is to have a hip-hop station and an urban adult contemporary station," Porter said. "So, now we have it here in Cincinnati with the benefit of established call letters and an audience that's already there."

Meanwhile, Cumulus officials are mum on what their plans are for the current MOJO frequency, saying there will be an announcement soon. Radio insiders speculate Cumulus may move country station Star 96.5 to the 94.9 MOJO frequency since it is a much stronger signal and could more effectively compete in the tri-state region with heritage country station WUBE-FM (B105).

As for possible new formats for Cumulus' vacant frequency, speculation ranges from smooth jazz to adult alternative.

Porter said it's likely the syndicated "Tom Joyner Show," owned by Radio One and heard currently on The Buzz, will move to the new MOJO. That would open up the possibility of The Buzz launching a locally-based morning show.


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