Louisville’s Homecoming King, Tony Tilford
• It’s a welcome Louisville reunion for Tony Tilford, 40-year radio pro and longtime iHeartMedia programming vet, who has been named Operations Manager of Classic Hits WAKY/Louisville, owned by Randy Michaels‘ Wakyana LLC. Tilford replaces Ben Bailey, who retired at the end of August.
This is very familiar ground for Tilford, who had spent the past decade as Director of Rock Programming for iHeart’s Kentucky-Indiana region, and programmed WQMF/Louisville and WKQQ/Lexington until his July departure during a round of restructuring. He earlier served as Regional SVP of Programming for iHeart’s Southwest Ohio-Indiana region. Previous PD stops include WMMS/Cleveland, WFBQ (Q95)/Indianapolis, and WTUE/Dayton. Tilford began his career in 1985 doing weekend/overnights at WKQQ/Lexington, working his way up to PD.
Randy Michaels, President & CEO of Wakyana, said, “Tony learned programming at Jacor. He is solid. In no time, he will remember how to schedule more music than commercials. Tony knows how to do radio that isn’t cookie-cutter corporate, and that’s what WAKY needs.”
WAKY VP/GM Bill Gentry remarked, “We are thrilled to have Tony, who has programmed some of America’s greatest radio stations. At WAKY, he will be responsible for one of the most unique. WAKY plays music, a lot of it made in Louisville, that no other station plays. Our playlist is wide, deep, and local. Tony will have to get used to operating without a corporate playlist, really without corporate anything. We are locally owned and programmed.”
“The opportunity to work for Randy Michaels and Bill Gentry again was too good to pass up,” Tilford said. “It feels like coming home.” Send your congrats to Tony at tony@wakyradio.com.
