Nearly two years ago, I took a Fresh Listen to veteran Cleveland programmer John Gorman’s oWow Radio. Gorman had pulled off something attempted by many broadcast radio exiles (or escapees), a hosted, standalone online radio station that was becoming commercially viable. oWow debuted in 2015. In 2018, I marveled that it was still there and growing. At that moment, another online favorite, Howard Hoffman’s eclectic Oldies Great Big Radio had just gone dark, and GBR wasn’t nearly as full-service. oWow was trying to be a local Cleveland station that just happened not to have an FM antenna.
On Sept. 23, Gorman announced that the financial pressures of COVID-19 were forcing oWow off the air. It seemed sadly inevitable, given the havoc already wreaked on commercial broadcast radio. A week later, Gorman said that oWow would stay through at least October, but without the airstaff. On one hand, the airstaff was part of what made oWow unique. On the other hand, oWow’s music is pretty good—I wrote two years ago that Gorman usually made me buy a song if I listened to one of his stations long enough—and a there are certainly FM stations that aren’t much more than playlists themselves.
So this is a Final Listen, sort of, to oWow, heard in middays on Sept. 30, hosted by Ravenna Miceli. (And yes, I discovered another song I wanted.)
- Ray Lamontagne, “Strong Enough”
- Ivy, “Undertow” (preceded by a sweeper, “Rockin’ Your Bluetooth!”)
- J.D. Eicher, “Evergreen”
- Eagles, “New Kid In Town”
- Mumford & Sons, “Blind Leading The Blind”
- Street Dogs, “Free”
- Steely Dan, “The Fez”
- Los Lonely Boys, “Heaven”
- Pet Shop Boys, “West End Sunglasses” (a 1984 mix of “West End Girls” and a cover of “Sunglasses At Night,” two years before a re-recorded version of “Girls” became a pop hit)
- Lissie, “Hero”
- The War on Drugs, “Touch Of Grey”
- Duran Duran, “Come Undone”
- Black Pumas, “I’m Ready”
- Tame Impala, “Lost In Yesterday”
- Queen, “Killer Queen”
- Chelsea Williams, “Wasted”
I’m glad there has been any kind of happy ending for oWow, and I hope the story isn’t over. It’s encouraging to know that Great Big Radio actually did return to the Internet after my 2018 story. Don Tandler’s Pop Gold Radio, in the wide-variety oldies category, perseveres as well. Or check out the other radio station I took a Fresh Listen to this week, AM/FM translator combo KDRI (The Drive) Tucson, Ariz.
If you’re looking for more radio in a similar vein to oWow, David Marsden, whose career in Toronto radio is as storied as Gorman in Cleveland, has kept his NYTheSpirit.com alive over a similar timeframe by going to a subscription model. I also recently profiled heritage WXRT Chicago, which has been on a recent ratings hot streak, especially noticeable for a commercial Triple-A. I now realize that when I profiled both oWow and WXRT, I saluted each one of them in a fairly similar way because of how they related to and advocated for the music they played. But that’s a pretty consistent theme of the Ross On Radio column, and it’s not something you can ever take for granted on the radio.
