The other day I was going down Broadcast Drive in Spartanburg when I saw out of the corner of my eye something that grabbed my attention, it was the old WSPA radio building with the call letters still sitting over the entrance to the building. The building with the call letters still standing strong, was being hidden behind a lot of trees and overgrowth, a lot like how radio in Spartanburg has become. It seems that over the last few years that more and more local radio stations have disappeared to the point that Spartanburg no longer has a radio station that broadcasts from inside the city limits and I can’t pick up a signal from Gaffney without using tin foil while standing on the highest point of the roof on my house. When I was younger the airwaves seemed to be filled with local programming, whether it was listening to Awake with Drake in the mornings or whether it was listening to someone selling a slightly used George Jetson thermos on Swap and Shop, local programming held a special place in the community and it was something that we could all embrace. While we may not have known any of these people personally that hosted the shows, they were all a part of us and a part of our community. As a kid I can still remember dialing in to the Awake with Drake show and winning a free breakfast for being the first caller from the ‘School of the Day’. It was a really cool feeling knowing that when dialing that number that I had a chance to win something, not like now days when calling into these regional stations and you are battling 5,000 people in the region to try and win free concert tickets. I hear people saying that they no longer want to listen to the radio because it doesn’t appeal to them but I believe it’s because we have lost that local connection. As much as people want to shoehorn the whole upstate into the same demographic, Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson, Union, and Cherokee counties all have their own different identities and things that bring them together. In January of 2014, the last remaining local radio station in Spartanburg was taken out when ESPN Spartanburg’s radio tower was knocked over by a person cutting down a tree, an event that at the time I didn’t realize how serious it would be. While you may or may not have always agreed with what was said on every show, it was still a location that you could still air your local sports grievances or enjoy listening and talking about your local teams. Whether you wanted to listen about the local racing scene with Dale and the boys on “Dropping the Hammer”, discuss high school football with the guys on “The Piedmont Pick’em Show”, tell Smitty, Hauser or Hawk on “Open Mic Daily” why you agreed or disagreed with their opinion of your favorite college team, or even wanted to listen to the church services that would be broadcasted on Sunday mornings, it still felt like it was your radio station and it was a part of your community. It seems that over the years as local stations have been forced to sell out to larger corporations, or been forced off the air for other reasons, we have lost a piece of our communities and a little bit of our souls. While there are stations that still broadcast music and such that claim to be from Spartanburg, stations that actually broadcast from Spartanburg have disappeared. While our friends at Upstate Prep Cast are doing a great job at trying to keep shows that are Spartanburg sports related available over the internet, it is truly sad to me that there is no longer a terrestrial radio station broadcasting from Spartanburg. As I continue to see downtown Spartanburg take shape and become a destination spot through revitalization, I would love to see the same thing happen to the radio market in Spartanburg.
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JamesBoiling Springs native, lover of sports and food. 15x SC Press Association Award Winner. I do some sports writing and radio every now and then. Archives
April 2020
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