A fan favorite is making its way back to the airwaves.
Twenty years after its last terrestrial broadcast in 2004, popular former Cincinnati alternative music station WOXY-FM is returning – well, in a sense. From May 22 to 29, WOXY and streaming partner Inhailer Radio will present the “97X Modern Rock 500” countdown, just as the station used to do in the old days.
“This new ‘Modern Rock 500’ will be limited to those songs that landed on the countdown in the past. It’s taking a look back from a present-day point of view,” Mike Taylor, who served as the 97X program director from 2001 to 2010, said in a press release. “Any way you slice it, it’s gonna be 500 great tunes.”
The history of WOXY-FM and Inhailer Radio
As CityBeat reported in 2021, WOXY-FM, also called 97X, began operating from Butler County in 1983 and was the first of its kind in Cincinnati. It was an independent radio station that played modern rock while also embracing tenets of the glam, punk, indie and alternative genres.
In 2007, Rolling Stone said WOXY had been one of the best stations in the country — that is, until it was sold in January 2004. The new owners ended all of the station’s terrestrial broadcasting that May and launched one of the country’s first internet-only stations. But that, too, failed, as the web station changed hands several times before shutting down in 2010. The frequency is now called La Mega and broadcasts Spanish-language programming in Cincinnati.
Following the termination of 97X, no true independent rock station serviced the area until 2015, when WNKU-FM took on a new direction.
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Owned by Northern Kentucky University, the modern WNKU (89.7 FM) strived to emulate the success of major independent stations around the country by following a format similar to KEXP-FM in Seattle, which included highlighting local music once an hour. WNKU grew a passionate fan base of both listeners and artists before being sold in 2017 due to university budget cuts. The station was taken over by Bible Broadcasting Network and now plays Christian radio under the call letters WYHH-FM.
After the sale of WNKU, Coran Stetter came up with the idea of Inhailer Radio to save independent rock in Cincinnati. Since 2017, Inhailer has streamed music on both its iPhone and Android apps as well as on its website. The station takes inspiration from the late WNKU by playing music that listeners would not find on mainstream radio and frequently highlights local Indie artists.
“We didn’t want to have this void that happened between WOXY and WNKU for that 10-year period or so where there really wasn’t a connected scene. The thesis when we started Inhailer Radio was basically, ‘Could you have an app-based radio station that was primarily marketed to a location like terrestrial radio?’’’ Stetter told CityBeat in 2021.
The WOXY-FM plan for May
The new iteration of the “97X Modern Rock 500 countdown” will be broadcast on Inhailer Radio’s website and app as well as on WGUC 90.9-HD3 in Cincinnati. The countdown will air in five 100-lap segments May 22-26 and will be repeated May 27-29.
The countdown had previously aired on 97X between 1988 and 2003 and continued on WOXY.com from 2005 to 2009.
According to a press release, 30 former WOXY DJs will host the broadcast, including many who were on the air in the 1980s and 1990s. The broadcast also will serve as the culmination of the 97X-focused podcast Rumblings from the Big Bush, hosted by former WOXY DJs Dave Tellmann and Damian Dotterweich.
“Rumblings over the last few years has caught up with former air talent, station employees, fans of the station, and some of the artists that we played at 97X. It’s been a blast! The podcast has about run its course, but the idea of capping it with the ‘Modern Rock 500’ couldn’t be a better way to sign off,” Tellmann said.
The release added that plans are in the works for an on-demand archive of the countdown.
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This article appears in Mar 8-21, 2023.