Why is WOWO the Most Listened to Radio Station in Fort Wayne?

More insight on advertising with WOWO Radio. Today, a little discussion about why we have so many listeners, what they are listening to, and why.

WOWO is 90 years old this year.  My family moved to Fort Wayne when I was 6, but I’m guessing it wasn’t until I was 10 that I had my own clock radio.  That would be in the 1970’s and over 1/2 of Fort Wayne and Northeast Indiana started their day with WOWO at 1190AM.

WOWO Air Staff from the 1970’s Photo from http://historyofwowo.com/

For several decades from 5 to 7 in the morning, WOWO aired a farm program called the Little Red Barn. WOWO continues to be a powerhouse for the ag community to this day. But when I was growing up it was a combination of news, music, weather and sports, especially Komets Hockey play by play were the elements that made WOWO with their 50,000 watt radio station featuring personalities Bob Sievers, Jack Underwood, Chris Roberts and Ron Gregory the most listened to station in the region.

Twenty years ago WOWO evolved into a talk radio station and now features a combination of national and local talk shows.

They are owned by Federated Media which owns several stations in Fort Wayne along with Warsaw and South Bend/Elkhart, Indiana. Federated Media also has a digital division and entertainment division that I work with too.  WOWO is actually the 2nd oldest media outlet that Federated Media owns, they also have a newspaper, the Elkhart Truth that is 125 years old. 

In the early 1980’s I worked on the air on WMEE, a sister station of WOWO and now they are in the same building.  When I rejoined Federated Media after 30 years, there were two people from my previous tenure who still work there, Sharon our business manager and Charly Butcher.  Charly was doing mornings on WMEE in the 80’s when I left and is the host of Fort Wayne’s Morning News on WOWO today.

Before going further, here’s where you can listen to WOWO… 1190AM, 92.3 FM, and also online by clicking here. We also are on TV for an hour each morning from 6 to 7 on NBC 33 in Fort Wayne. 

Weekdays on WOWO starts with Charly Butcher and the Fort Wayne Morning News crew featuring News every 15 minutes with April O’Neil, Traffic every 10 minutes with Kylie Havens, and Sports twice an hour with  Jim Shovlin.  Continuing our coverage of farm news, we have reports from David Kohli twice an hour too.  Fort Wayne’s Morning News follows this format from 5 to 9 each weekday with a continuous, fast paced program featuring interviews from our National Representatives in Congress and the Senate along with local leaders including the Mayor.  We have news reporters from our national news network Fox and commentaries too.  Business News, Weather Updates, and School Delays in bad weather keep things moving.

Charly’s fill-in host is attorney Steve Shine. Steve, like Charly has a Top 40 Music Radio background, also on WMEE a few years before Charly joined WMEE.  Steve once ran for Mayor of Fort Wayne, with the slogan, Shine in ’79, on the Democratic ticket.  While he did not win, he has made his name in both broadcasting and politics. Steve Shine is the Chair of the Allen County Republican Party.

We have elected a Democratic Mayor the last few elections however Indiana is traditionally a conservative state.

After Fort Wayne’s Morning News with Charly Butcher, WOWO airs Glenn Beck live and Rush Limbaugh live.  Local and national news updates along with weather twice an hour air all day and night.  Farm updates from our nationally award winning Farm Director Rob Winters air all day too.

At 3pm, WOWO returns to local talk with the Pat Miller Show until 6pm. Evenings on WOWO during the week feature tape delayed versions of national hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin. The full-line up is on the WOWO.com website.

Weekends include some “Best of Shows” along with original local shows like Midwest Ag Matters and House Calls on Saturday mornings. WOWO continues to broadcast all the home and away Komet Hockey games and we are also the Fort Wayne radio home for the Indianapolis Colts, the Indy 500 and the Brickyard NASCAR Race.

In summary, people listen to WOWO to feed their brains.  The news, talk and information that WOWO provides is what people tune in to hear.  I sometimes say the news talk format of WOWO is brain food compared to music formated radio stations that are escapism. When a commercial plays on a music station it can be an irritant, because it is not music.  When a commercial plays on WOWO, it is usually not an irritant because we are already listening to people talking.

Over 100,000 people listen to WOWO every week, 95% are adults age 25 and older. And now you know what they listen to and why.