Feature Resources • XM Radio • Sixties On Six

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From Other Guides • Oldies Internet Radio Stations • 60s Rockers

Cleveland Wheeler
Used with permission

If you have ever heard a morning show call itself a “Zoo”, they all owe it to Cleveland Wheeler. Cleveland created the first “ZOO” at Q105 in Tampa in the early '80s. He and Scott Shannon were so successful with the format, it was copied across the country. Before Tampa, Cleveland spent five years at the legendary BIG APE in Jacksonville, Florida with Jay Thomas and the Greaseman. After Shannon left for New York to recreate the ZOO concept there at Z100, Cleveland took the Tampa show to the highest morning show numbers in the market, a 34 share. I first met Cleveland in 1983 during a trip to Tampa to observe his “Q-ZOO”. We worked for the same company and our Richmond operation had decided to emulate his format. In my opinion, he's one of the most brilliant radio personalities alive today. Today, Cleveland Wheeler is a programmer for XM Radio. I recently was able to ask him a few questions about his current endeavor.

Corey: Which XM channel are you programming and how do you figure out what people want to hear? 

Cleveland:  I program the sixties decade channel on XM. “Sixties on Six” I attached my philosophy as a channel moniker: "The way it was is the way it is." Sixties on Six is about the quintessence of the time. History has more to say about what is played on the channel than the popular terrestrial psuedo-science of selection. There is no intention to present "good times" radio and there is absolutely no reference to anything as being "old". Every effort is made to be true to the time as well as to the gap in time between the 60s and "millenium time" that has allowed for the discovery and sophistication in  the tastes of listeners. For instance, the Sixties on Six plays the entire Beatles library.

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