Former program director “Big Joe London,” né Luebbe, said he wanted to try and get the old crew out one last time.
“Our radio station then took great care to serve the community, but we had a lot of fun doing it,” he said. “We were in the right place at the right time, and even had a 30 percent approval rating, which is unheard of now, even.”
Former newscaster Dean Langevin and DJs Bob Berry, Bob Long, Johnny Wade, Dan Loftus, and London are just a few of the returning faces who are taking over the airwaves. From 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., London will be joined by Hamilton Mayor Pat Moeller and Fairfield Mayor Steve Miller to play their own favorite ’70s jams and read the current news.
London chose 1976 both to commemorate the United States Bicentennial year and the year of the WMOH “Keep the Spirit” contest, where station supporters had the chance to win prizes if they were spotted sporting red, white, and blue bumper stickers on their cars, the grand prize being the “Spirit Spotter” vehicle itself.
Langevin, who was born and raised in Hamilton and attended Ohio University before working for WMOH, credits the station’s success with such types of community involvement and the staff who helped put it together.
“There was a sort of synergy at WMOH that we didn’t find at other radio stations,” he said. “It was the people, the programming, and the listeners…they were thirsty for a local station that played the hits and that was news-active.”
Langevin and London both mentioned the friendly rivalry between WMOH and the Journal-News as being both a fond memory and great community builder.
“We had a professional rivalry,” said Langevin. “‘Who broke the story first?’ There were times that (the Journal-News) city editor would listen to (WMOH’s) noon newscast to see if we had something that you didn’t; we bought the newspaper to make sure you didn’t scoop us very much.”
“The big event of every summer was the softball game between the Journal-News Typoz and WMOH Golden Tones,” said London. “We would get thousands of people there, a lot of publicity.”
WMOH is now owned by Vernon R. Baldwin, Inc., and features talk news and programming from Yahoo! Sports Media. Langevin appreciated Baldwin letting the old DJs take over for a day.
“They’re changing their format drastically,” he said. “The fact that for one day, it’s going to be just like back in 1976 … I’ll be doing current news at the top of the hour. At the bottom of the hour, the newscast will be an actual transcript from the last week of March in 1976.”
While excited to revisit his old workplace and take over the Hamilton airwaves once more, Berry noted the decline in radio audience due to ever-changing and increasing technology, and a changing format where on-the-air DJs and newscasters become less relevant.
“The people on the air are not expected to be entertaining,” he said.
London was more optimistic.
“There will always be a need for local radio,” he said. “Radio is here to stay.”
Visit wmohradio76.com or the WMOH Rewind 76 Facebook page for more details, schedule, and throwback pictures.
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