It was the afternoon of April 4, 2008 and many people in the Central Ohio area tuned in to (the past version of) 99.7 The Blitz on their radios to hear the big announcement that the station was changing from WBZX: The Blitz to WRKZ: The Rock. The station ditched its "new rock" format, and jumped into the slightly wider - and subsequently safer - demographic, an approach ownership hoped would increase both ratings and ad sales. To be fair, without ratings and ad sales, radio stations die; it is a hard but simple truth. However, the switch also resulted in the loss of local programming like the morning show and Local Stuff, which featured unsigned local bands every Sunday night, as well as the unfortunate reduction of staff. The syndicated morning show, Bob & Tom, was added to the regular schedule to further approach and entice the much broader demographic. In short, they became just another radio station undergoing an identity crisis.

Guess what: it didn't work.

Fast forward two years to mid-April 2010 - The Blitz is back. Bob & Tom are being removed from the programming schedule; local music is being brought back to Sunday nights; hair band ballads are being systematically eliminated from the playlist. And what does management have to say about all this? Surprisingly, there was complete humility and honesty about the two-year whoops known as WRKZ: The Rock. "We were never able to establish the sales numbers we wanted with the older demographic. We did increase the size of the audience, people 25-54, but in terms of what that meant in overall ratings and from a sales perspective, it wasn't worth it," said Hal Fish, programming director at 99.7 The Blitz. "Hindsight is twenty-twenty. But I think it's the wrong way to go about creating a radio station. I've always thought you create great radio first and then you figure out how to sell it. It's difficult to scientifically ascertain where a specific market segment is and then create a product that they will like. I think the best radio and the best products come more organically than that."

Realizing things weren't working as planned, 99.7 held an on-air town hall meeting to find out what the listeners wanted. And not just concerning the name and the call letters, but with pretty much every aspect of the programming, too. Along with utilizing social networking to compile listener votes and feedback, there was no question that the people preferred The Blitz and wanted it back in one form or another. "The Blitz is going to be its own animal in 2010," Fish told us. "It can't be exactly what the Blitz was; we want to be relevant for what people want today. We're going to continue to be listener-oriented."

That's probably a wise decision since it was the opposite thinking that led them down the path that would be an easily-forgettable two years as The Rock. And while this mistake was based on the quest for the almighty dollar, it's good to see the station taking a vested and continuous effort moving forward to create great radio first based on the listener. "I don't think there's anything people would rather have you do than say, 'Hey I was wrong and you were right. We shouldn't have switched.' I have absolutely no problem saying that," Fish admitted. In regards to the current and future passion of the listeners, he told us, "It took two years to get twenty-five hundred Facebook fans for The Rock. It took three days to get twenty-five hundred Facebook fans for the return of The Blitz. You tell me. I'd rather take my chances with that group.”