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WQYK's SportsChix Draw Attention On Radio Row

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 31, 2008

PHOENIX - Want to stargaze at the Super Bowl? Take a walk along Radio Row.

Aside from the parties, this is the best place to find celebrities.

Granted, most of them are sports celebrities. Every once in a while, though, you'll stumble upon a B- or C-lister from Hollywood. Holly Robinson Peete was hanging out there for a while Wednesday.

Sooner or later, everybody who is somebody at the Super Bowl shows up on Radio Row. And why not? There are 97 stations broadcasting from the little community, and all are eager for a bite of a celeb's time.

The nationally syndicated shows attract most of the top-line guests, of course, but at least one local show - the SportsChix (noon to 2 p.m. on WQYK, 1010 AM) - has no trouble matching the national shows' guest lists.

In the past two days, the Chix - former Playboy Playmate Lynne Austin, model Heather Young and original Hooters girl B.L. - have talked to the likes of Archie Manning, Conrad Dobler and Terrell Owens.

"We had seven guests in two hours Wednesday," said Mike Pepper of WQYK. "It was the same Tuesday."

The guests are what the stations are fighting for. It helps drive the shows, and the Chix pull them in as well as anyone. Guess there's something to be said for hanging out for a few minutes with models and former Hooters girls.

Radio Row reportedly began in 1990, when the "Mike and the Mad Dog Show" originating from New York's WFAN, 660 AM, broadcast from the press area set up for Super Bowl XXIV in New Orleans.

Since then, it has grown into such a phenomenon that entire sections of the Super Bowl media center are set aside for it.

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