WIRO-FM returns to its country roots, sports broadcasting 

After weeks of speculation, 107.1 WIRO-FM is now a classic country station.

The radio station was bought by Total Media, of Jackson, in early November, returning the radio station back to local control.

“Our ownership, the Stockmeister family out of Jackson, they have owned a few stations in Jackson for a number of years. They decided to expand and we are now in eight markets with 27 stations, all in southeast Ohio, said Gary Mincer, VP and general manager of Total Media.

He said the company wants the stations to be hyper local and to do that in Ironton, they hired Ironton

native and long-time radio personality J.B. Miller to be the station’s morning drive time personality after Mincer read an October 2024 article in the Ironton Tribune about Miller being fired by Kindred Communications’ 101.5 radio station. Nick Kuhn, the fire chief of the Rome Township Volunteer Fire Department and Lawrence County’s 911 director, to do the afternoon shift.

“We have local folks. We are all about local,” Mincer said. “Our owner is a Jackson native and is very proud of southeast Ohio and the Appalachian communities. We have a really good group of people and we are happy to work with them.”

Mincer said that Total Media wants very much to be involved in the Ironton community.

“We are looking forward to that and are looking forward to building our staff there, it is pretty new,” he said. “But we are excited to have local radio back in Ironton.”

WIRO started off its return by playing Christmas music as “Ho Ho Radio.” 

When the holidays were over, the station played “Achy Breaky Heart” by one-time Ironton resident Billy Ray Cyrus and then began playing classic country music under the name of Hank.

Mincer said all those moves were done to attract attention to the station as it began its new programming.

“It’s called ‘stunting,’ you do it to get people to notice something is going on and then, hopefully, they stick around,” he said. “So, it made to have Billy Ray on there because he is a star and a local guy and it was a good segue into our classic country format, Hank.”

Total Media serves listeners in the Ironton, Portsmouth, Gallipolis, Point Pleasant, Athens, Waverly, Chillicothe and Greenfield areas and it has an agreement to buy WLGC in Ashland, Kentucky, once the deal is approved by the FCC.

“We are actively involved in our communities,” Mincer said. “We’ve broadcast close to 200 high school footballs games in the local communities. We are doing a similar amount of basketball games. We are the flagship station of the OU Bobcats. We also carry the Reds, Bengals and Ohio State University on some stations.”

WIRO got its start in 1951 as a 250 watt AM station. In 1964, it began broadcasting at 1,000 watts during the day and extended its reach beyond Lawrence County into Kentucky and West Virginia during the day and 250 watts after sunset. In 1973, they bought an FM station, WITO, which operated at 107.1 FM.

WIRO has had a number of musical formats over the years including Top 40, country, hard rock and was even a comedy channel for a couple of years. It was last played contemporary Christian music before the sale to Total Media.