BELLEVUE, WI (WTAQ) — The airwaves of Northeast Wisconsin sound a little different now.
Longtime WIXX host Otis Day spent Friday much as he has for 24 years. Taking calls, interacting with listeners, and broadcasting his booming, bombastic humor across Northeast Wisconsin. It was different Friday, however, because Day was doing it for the last time.
Day started in radio in the early 90s while working at a phone store in Madison–a cordless phone store, of course.
“We listened to Johnny Danger on z104, doing the night show,” Day said. “I was like ‘this guy’s great’. I kept calling up trying to get him to play a song, and he wouldn’t play it…and he told me ‘Look, you’re just going to have to come up here and play it yourself’. I ended up interning there and was there for about a year and a half.”
Otis then went to broadcasting school in Minneapolis before taking a job in Oklahoma. Then, in December of 1997, he returned to Wisconsin to take over the night show. Eventually, he moved to middays, a move he called “life changing”.
While the radio format has changed a lot nationwide over the last quarter-century, Day says at WIXX, a lot has stayed the same.
“WIXX has a really good relationship with the listeners where they still want to participate like they did in the 90s, which is great,” Day told WTAQ. “In a lot of cities, that’s tough right now.”
Phones rang off the hook in the WIXX studio during Day’s final half-hour on air Friday. Longtime listener after longtime listener taking their time to say goodbye to the midday voice they’ve come to know and love.
It was emotional.
“This has been my love since I can remember, radio,” Day said, choking back. “It’s been an honor and a privilege to be able to do it, and to be able to do it here, and to do it with you, the listeners.”
Day turned off the mic. He took off the headphones. The top of the hour legal ID played as it always does and always has, informing the listener that this is, indeed WIXX Green Bay..
The next song begins.
“I feel lucky,” Day said. “I could have gone and taken a job at some radio station that got bought, and lost my job like thousands of others have due to budget cuts. But I got a single owner, Duke Wright, who still comes in the building three or four times a week.”
As for what he’ll do now, Day says he’s making a transition to other work.
“The life I’m living now, I’m working like…five jobs, I want to do one job, five days a week, and maybe see my family a bit more. When they heard they they said ‘ugh, really?’” Day laughed.
Day says he thanks the listeners for 24 years of memories.
