McKeown Cultivating B105 Listeners

Denny McKeown says his move to country music WUBE-FM (B105.1) this Saturday (6:30-9 a.m.) is a homecoming. For three years, he broadcast from the same Reading Road studios on WGRR-FM (103.5), before the station was swapped to Cumulus in fall 2006. Cumulus then moved the show to the new SupertalkFM96.5 format on WFTK-FM... and scuttled the show and format last December, after a year.

McKeown, 66, says he had kept in touch with Jim Bryant, Bonneville market manager for B105, Q102 and the Wolf. And when the show was canceled in December, Bryant invited him back.

"This was meant to be. I'm very happy," McKeown says.

McKeown figures he'll cultivate an audience quickly at B105, which didn't happen at Supertalk. The FM talk station didn't have many listeners, particularly with his show on for four hours (7-11 a.m.). He's much happier with his old 6-9 a.m. slot.

"The audience is better for me at 6 a.m. than 9-11 a.m., because people are up early and doing stuff," he says. At Supertalk, "I would run out of roses and books to give away to anyone who would call. You can only talk for so long without callers. Those were very long days."

McKeown is a talk radio pioneer. He started on old WCKY-AM, which launched the city's first talk radio format in 1981. In his later years working for WKRC-AM (1992-03), his show was distributed nationally by Clear Channel.

He says Bonneville may syndicate the show – but only regionally, so callers questions would be about plants common in this area.

McKeown owns the Bloomin' Garden Center and landscaping service in Blue Ash. He's also a Sunday Enquirer columnist.

It will be good to hear him back on the air.