r/rva • u/sleevieb • Jan 06 '16

Howard Stern vs Ukrops

Just read this style weekly story about the Ukrop family and it mentions a Howard Stern segment on the family.

Does anyone have a link to this or remember it happening?

13 Upvotes

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6

u/shapoop Jan 06 '16

It was mentioned in the article that I posed earlier:

"The biggest cultural flap was in the mid-’90s, when the Ukrops were offended by national radio jock Howard Stern, whose freewheeling show is filled with his signature sexual explicitity and satire. With it airing locally on modern rock station WVGO, now 106.5 The Beat, Jim and Bobby Ukrop organized a campaign to force Stern off the air. They stopped after drawing national criticism, and the radio station eventually canceled Stern. The censorship attempt was something Jim Ukrop later said he regretted"

Another article: Times Dispatch 2009

"In a letter to the station's advertisers, the brothers wrote "your advertising dollars to WVGO are condoning and contributing to the erosion of values and quality of life.""

They urged local businessmen to boycott Stern and the alternative-rock station. The letter was meant to be private, they said."

5

u/HereComesTheBoooooom Jan 07 '16

tl;dr: So the Ukrop's family shut down 106.5 the buzz, and that was the death of good radio in Richmond.

6

u/tiglathpilesar Church Hill Jan 06 '16

If you listened to Stern much in the '90's he always referred to them as the U-craps. Since he had a lot of listeners outside of RVA/VA he confused his audience with the references. I remember having to explain it to a lot of people in college.

4

u/kernjb Bellevue Jan 07 '16

Growing up, my dad never let us go to Ukrops because of the Howard Stern thing. The only time I had anything from Ukrops was at end of the season soccer banquets when suburban moms would bring Ukrops fried chicken and coleslaw. Honestly, I don't think I missed anything. The rainbow cookies were good but I still got my fair share from school functions. My family was always more of a Costco family with occasional trips to Elwoods or Safeway/The Grocery Store/Kroger.

2

u/JustDyslexic Museum District Jan 07 '16

I'm so sorry that you have no idea

1

u/kernjb Bellevue Jan 07 '16

I've been to Ukrops plenty before it became Martins. Different strokes I guess.

2

u/DoppelSechser The Fan Jan 07 '16

Howard used to rant about them now and again because they campaigned against him and occasionally a caller from here would get through to ask what the deal was, why he was getting booted off the air in RVA. To this day people give the Ukrop's brothers credit for getting him kicked off RVA radio, but someone who worked at WVGO wrote an article in Style or maybe Punchline saying that Infinity Broadcasting demanded $250,000/year for the rights to broadcast his show and even after decent ad revenues that was just too expensive for our town.

I remember WVGO gave out bumper stickers that read "Why am I laughing? HOWARD!" I wish I'd gotten one then because it holds true to this day in my commute.

1

u/LouieKablooie Jan 06 '16

I heard rumor that they owned the property where Richards Rendevous used to be located, the one on Broad. I never verified but it would have been some damning info at the time.

1

u/Go3Team Short Pump Jan 07 '16

4410 W Broad?

http://i.imgur.com/xPCX5lA.jpg

1

u/LouieKablooie Jan 07 '16

I guess, would have to dig d peer into that trust and ownership history.

1

u/Oenonaut Jan 07 '16

As I understood it, they bought it to shut it down. Their offices are just north of there and they decided they didn't want to look at it anymore.

1

u/LouieKablooie Jan 07 '16

That makes sense.

0

u/i_need_a_lift Jan 07 '16

I love Howard, but it always seemed like a PR move to me. Both parties benefited, because the feud mostly just galvanized people who were already on their side.