Photo By Jymi Bolden

Doug and Linda Balogh are proud of their 23 years in Oxford and remain committed to keeping the 97X name synonymous with "Modern Rock."

For many in Greater Cincinnati, Dayton and around the world, word of 97X's sale was a shock, like finding out a close friend had suddenly died. As the news sank in after the Jan. 28 announcement, the questions began.

"There wasn't a 'For Sale' sign on the station," explains Doug Balogh, who has owned WOXY (97.7 FM) with his wife, Linda, since 1981. "It just happened at the right time. You do reach a point in time where you know the clock is different than it was. There's a stage in life we want to enjoy."

The station is being purchased by First Broadcasting Investment Partners of Dallas, a self-described "radio merchant bank," for $5.6 million. The company also is acquiring WAXZ in Georgetown (97.7 FM, the station whose signal battled 97X's on the East side) and WAOL (99.5 FM) in Ripley.

"We think it's going to be a great entrée into a growing radio market," says company spokesman Fred Stern.

As far as keeping 97X's Alternative Rock format, Stern says, "It's too soon to say what we're going to do. We have to get through all the FCC paperwork first."

Still, the First Broadcast press release announcing the purchase says, "WOXY currently broadcasts a highly regarded independent alternative rock format."

"That was nice of them," Balogh says, adding that whatever follows won't be 97X, at least not in name. "We own the trademark '97X, the Future of Rock & Roll.' We own woxy.com, the domain name. We own the 5,000 to 6,000 CDs and vinyls in our library."

The name and music library now go to the Web, Balogh says, where he and Linda will attempt to build a successful Internet-only radio station. And that's taking some of the sting out of the news.

"It would be a heck of a lot more difficult if we weren't literally taking everything we've done and transporting it," Balogh says. "We're the first station in the history of broadcasting or radio to sell their terrestrial license and transport their business and their format to the Internet."

Many loyal 97X fans here -- from musicians to music lovers to concert promoters -- have been burning up the local Internet message boards with conversation, complaints and condolences. More than one post has called the Baloghs "sell outs" for turning over an independent station to another corporate owner. Others are concerned that the new out-of-town station owners won't be as dedicated to local music as the Baloghs were and that the new Web-only 97X, focusing on a national and international audience, won't play or support Tristate bands.

"We're getting our heads handed to us because we sold out to corporate radio," Balogh says. "My God, they own 12 stations. Give me a break."

"For the local musicians, this is another tough blow on the heels of Larry Nager being let go from The Enquirer," says Gary Burbank Show producer Rob Ervin, a former 97X part-timer and current frontman of Rob Ervin & The High-Strung Lifters. "You can probably count on one hand the number of commercial stations that play an hour of local music."

Emily Strand, winner of the most recent 97Xposure local music contest -- perhaps the last one -- agrees.

"It's a blow," she says. "It took me a while to get the impact of this. Somebody's going to have to pick up the slack."

As far as the sale crippling the local music scene, Sean Rhiney -- who performs with former 97Xposure winner Clabbergirl and organizes the MidPoint Music Festival -- isn't so sure.

"It seems WOXY has always preached to the converted," he says. "Those folks will always be interested in local music."

"(Being on 97X) never launched anyone to superstardom," Ervin adds. "Still, for a lot of cats, it was nice to be able to call them up and say, 'I heard you on the radio last night.' There is a void there. If someone wanted to be smart and aggressive, they could fill it. Nature abhors a vacuum."

Balogh says he's proud of the partnership 97X has had with the Greater Cincinnati music scene.

"Local music will not be an integral part of the station on the Internet," he says. "That's sort of the bad news. But the good news is that that opportunity will be there. I just can't tell you what we're going to do or how we're going to do it."

As for other stations attracting WOXY's audience, it would seem unlikely.

"It won't affect anything we do," says Michael Grayson, music director of WNKU (89.7 FM), which programs a slightly different Adult Album Alternative format from the campus of Northern Kentucky University. "I think we complement each other, but I think our supporters are a little older."

So the days of listening to 97X in your car, as Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise famously did in Rain Man, are gone. Or are they? Some fans have wondered if 97X could have a home on satellite radio.

"Actually, there have been people trying to network us," Balogh says. "Once we move into the new business model, the possibility definitely exists."

Even if that doesn't pan out, Balogh is confident that technology will make 97X easily available to the masses. And not just the Tristate but the entire planet.

"We've gone from listening on your computer to now easily listening throughout the house," he says. "We get calls from people listening in San Francisco on their cell phones. A little expensive, but it will happen."

"I think that if anyone can venture out into this new territory and succeed, Doug can," says former 97X on-air personality Julie Maxwell, now in the advertising business in Detroit, who adds that this day was eventually going to come. "They couldn't do it forever. They had to think about themselves at some point and retirement and not doing this forever."

The Baloghs left Chicago in 1981 to buy a tiny FM station in Oxford that catered to Miami University students. For two years the format was "a hybrid between Q-102 and WEBN," as Balogh describes it.

In 1983 came the switch to Alternative Rock, a format only a handful of stations nationwide were doing at the time. 97X, of course, went on to gain a loyal following in the Tristate and, thanks to the Internet, a national audience. Accolades in Rolling Stone and Spin followed -- plus the "Bam! The Future of Rock & Roll!" mantra in Rain Man -- and it became the No. 1 Alternative station on the Web.

"We feel very fortunate to have started with a station that in 1983 had a negative 10 rating and turned it into something we could be proud of," Balogh says. "We loved every minute of it."

And so the Baloghs, according to a message from Linda posted on woxy.com, will ride into the sunset of Santa Fe, N.M., and semi-retirement. How well the Internet-only operation will fare is a point of great debate.

"But (the Baloghs) did Modern Rock when no one else was doing it," Maxwell says. ©