List of fictional radio stations

This is a list of notable fictional radio stations. At least eleven different TV shows have used a radio station as a setting.[1]

According to Michael Hawk of Real TV Addict, the top five fictional stations on (American) television are WKRP, WNYX, KBHR, WENN, and KACL.[2]

United States

  • GNR – In the videogame Fallout 3, this is the Washington, D.C. station where Three Dog talked about the wastes and hosts a one-man radio show, Galaxy News Radio.
  • KAB/1340-Antonio Bay, California. Radio station housed in a lighthouse in The Fog.
  • KACL 780 AM – is the radio station in Seattle which is the setting for Frasier.[2] It was named after creators, Angell, Casey and Lee plus the standard letter K for stations located west of the Mississippi. Its format is talk radio and briefly was a salsa station. Several other fictional radio stations, KPXY, KQZY, KJSB, KAZW and KTLK are also mentioned or featured in the show. In 1997 an actual FM station in Bismarck, North Dakota signed on with the KACL call letters.
  • KBAL – SportsTalk radio station where Ryan King is a personality on the NBC sitcom, Go On. While an exact location isn't explicitly listed, its alluded to be somewhere in the southern California region.[3]
  • KBBL and KBBL-FM (AM 970, FM 102.5) – radio stations in The Simpsons. The letters of the call-sign suggest babble and the Tower of Babel.[4] Nominal competitors are KJAZZ-FM and KFSL – Fossil 103 (there is a real LP-FM (100 watts of antenna-melting power) KFSL in Fossil, Oregon
  • KBHR 570 AM – from Northern Exposure,[2] it is the local station of fictional town Cicely, Alaska.
  • KFLH – a radio station (FM 95.6) based in San Francisco, featured in several episodes of Full House as an employer of two of the main characters. The number for the station is impossible to dial on standard FM radios, given the .2 MHz spacing and all frequencies ending in odd numbers on the FM band in the United States.
  • KODY and KYDS – from the Adventures in Odyssey.
  • KGAB Dallas, Texas – KGAB is a real radio station in Cheyenne, Wyoming, but the call sign was used in the movie Talk Radio. The movie was made in 1988 and as KGAB's current call sign only dates back to 1997; it is unknown if the call letters was taken as a result of the movie.
  • KJCM/98.3 – San Francisco talk radio station which aired "Jack Killian, The Nighthawk" on Midnight Caller.
  • KLOW Portland, Oregon station where Larry Alder worked on the sitcom Hello, Larry.
  • KSAD Los Angeles, heard in Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult. Its slogan is, "All depressing, all the time".
  • KSND – Sandcastle, California, heard in the Scary Story Time podcast based in the fictional town of Sandcastle. Its slogan is, "KSND the Sound of the Sea".[5]
  • KZUK — An unnamed town in the midwest found in the book Beautiful Music For Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills under a radio station by the same name as the book.
  • WENN – set in Pittsburgh,[2] an old-time radio station that was the focus of the Emmy award-winning television series Remember WENN.[6]
  • Nightvale Public Radio
  • WAXX – A radio station, at or around 1500 kHz, that airs a top 40 format and serves as continuity for the musical Grease. (In the film version, it carries the call sign KZAZ.) Vince Fontaine, one of the characters in the musical, is a disc jockey at the station.
  • WHOGG – Hazzard County's only radio station on The Dukes of Hazzard.
  • WJBB Cleveland, Ohio, Hot in Cleveland
  • WKRP Cincinnati, Ohio, WKRP in Cincinnati and The New WKRP in Cincinnati TV shows (formerly easy listening, turned into rock and Top 40 for both series). The show was considered revolutionary for its use of music for the fictional station.[2] WKRP's rival is WPIG, whose mascot was a pig (and which is not to be confused with the real WPIG). In 2015 an actual FM station, WKRP-LP, began broadcasting in Raleigh, North Carolina.
  • WKDK Boston, Mass., "the Thought of Boston" has talk host Jimmy Winston who interviews detective Spenser about the Red Rose killer in Robert B. Parker's novel Crimson Joy.
  • WOLD – of Boise, Idaho, from the song "W·O·L·D" by Harry Chapin.
  • WPIG 95.7 – unrelated to WPIG Cincinnati. Rock station set in Aurora, Illinois in the movie Wayne's World 2. Partially based on a real-life country music station with the same call sign and frequency in Olean, New York.
  • WREQ – from Homefront, it is the local station of fictional town River Run, Ohio. WREQ was also the callsign of a competing station to WKRP which offered Venus Flytrap a job.
  • WYBS 88.3 – from Under the Dome, is a radio station in the small town of Chester's Mill.
  • WUSA – is the setting of the film of the same name, which depicts it as a talk radio station in New Orleans, Louisiana.
  • WTNV – of Welcome to Night Vale.
  • WORD (A.K.A Ant's Radio Station) WordWorld
  • WNYX 585 AM – a fictional AM news station in New York City from NewsRadio. The entire series takes place in, about and around the goings on at the station. The number for the station is impossible to dial on standard AM radios, given the 10 kHz spacing on the AM band in the United States.[2] Other stations mentioned in the show are WRMH, WYXP, and WXYP.
  • WQEF 98.6 – The Southern Breeze – A parody of a typical radio station Facebook page, including "stolen" Internet memes and shock jock morning DJs like Beefcondom & Scrote.[7]
  • WQRY 88.1 – Campus Radio – a fictional college-based radio station in the fictional town of Grandview, from the season 5 episode Dead Air of Ghost Whisperer.
  • WZPZ - a fictional rock and roll radio station heard on a radio (notably playing David Bowie in the “Wilderness Survival Badge” scene) in the Amazon Studios movie Troop Zero.

The game series Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row also have a large number of fictional radio stations.

Canada

United Kingdom

  • Crucial FM – a fictional pirate radio station on the Lenny Henry comedy TV series on BBC 1.
  • Forever FM – a fictional commercial radio station in Peter Kay's Car Share.
  • Radio Active – from the radio series of the same name. (There is a real Radio Active in Wellington, New Zealand)
  • Radio Fab FM – the setting for the Smashie and Nicey sketches in Harry Enfield's Television Programme.
  • Radio Norwich I'm Alan Partridge
  • Radio Rock – pirate rock-and-roll radio station broadcast from an offshore boat; from the movie The Boat That Rocked (known as Pirate Radio in the United States)
  • Radio Roo – a fictional radio station featured in the children's program of the same name.[8]
  • Radio Shuttleworth – from the radio series of the same name.
  • Radio West – workplace of the TV detective Shoestring.
  • The Jolly Roger – A pirate radio station in a 1966 episode of Danger Man with Patrick McGoohan (called Secret Agent in the United States)
  • Waller FM – A comedy sketch podcast produced by David Firth based around the fictitious radio station.

Australia

  • PirateNet is a school-based community radio station which first appeared in Neighbours in 2009. Later that year, British singer Lily Allen made a cameo appearance at the radio station.

Netherlands

  • Radio Bergeijk is a Dutch satirical radio programme of which Peer van Eersel and Toon Spoorenberg are the anchormen. They are played by the comedians George van Houts and Pieter Bouwman respectively. The first episode was broadcast on April 3, 2001 from 00:44 to 01:00. From then on, a new episode could be heard every weekday. In January 2004 the programming of the Dutch radio changed dramatically and Radio Bergeijk was forced to broadcast just every Saturday from 13:30 to 14:00 on Radio 1.
  • Radio Fiets is a Dutch fictional radio station created in 1999. They are active on social media and on their own website. In 2012 they posted 10 tips to ride your bicycle through snow.[9]

Extraterrestrial

  • LIVE 34 – Earth Colony 34 news station in the Doctor Who audio drama of the same name.

See also

References

  1. Raymond Edel (July 11, 1997), "Mixing Media, from 'Frasier' to 'Remember WENN'", The Record, archived from the original on November 4, 2012
  2. Michael Hawk. "TV’s Top Radio Stations Archived 2013-02-01 at Archive.today." Real TV Addict. March 29, 2010
  3. "Current NBC Shows - NBC.com". NBC.
  4. Davis Walter; Dreibelbis Gary; Blythe Teresa; Scales Mark; Ashburn Donald; Winans Elizabeth, Watching What We Watch
  5. Sometimes It Screams
  6. Emmy, 19, National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
  7. "WQEF 98.6 - The Southern Breeze". www.facebook.com.
  8. CHILDREN'S TV – RADIO ROO to RUNNING THE HALLS Archived 2011-02-27 at the Wayback Machine memorabletv.com
  9. "10 tips to ride your bicycle through the snow". 7 December 2012. Archived from the original on 14 December 2014.
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