2-5-14
Beasley has spent $200K for the translators in the Sunshine State. One is a construction permit for an FM translator in Clearwater, the other a CP for a translator in Fort Myers. The purchase was made from University of Northwestern, St. Paul, a Minnesota non-profit corporation. Bob Heymann and Eddie Esserman of Media Services Group brokered the deal.
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1-23-2015
Tommy Chuck is the new Program Director at WIHT-FM HOT 99.5/D.C. Chuck spent the last eight years as Program Director and Digital Director for WFLZ and WMTX in Tampa. Chuck's previous stints include WQEN/Birmingham and WXXL/Orlando.
Meg Stevens, Vice President of Programming, iHeartMedia Washington, D.C notes on Tommy Chucks appointment, ?Tommy's track record of success at WFLZ and WMTX as well as exceptional leadership skills make him uniquely qualified to program HOT 99.5 and 93.1 WPOC. We?re excited to have him as part of the team.?
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11-7-14
B.J. Odom has been making Southwest Florida laugh for decades. He's been heard on radio in Fort Myers for decades. And now Odom needs a favor from someone in return....a kidney. Odom tells the Fort Myers News Press, "They say it takes an average ? for my blood type ? of two years to get a kidney." He's been on the waiting list since April and he's been on dialysis for a year. Odom's kidney failure resulted from a heart transplant 11 years ago and the anti-rejection drugs he had to take afterward. The longer he has to wait the harder it will be on his body. Odom's friends have organized a fundraising event November 21 to help pay for Odom's medical expenses. You can reach out to Odom on his Facebook page HERE
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6-4-14
Greg Cassidy joins The PULSE (WPLL-FM) as morning host and PD in Ocala/Gainesville, which is owned by MARC Radio. Cassidy is heading south from St. Louis, where he was music director and morning host at KLJY JOY-FM. GM Camellia Pflum said, "The recruitment of Cassidy shows a significant investment in the projected growth of the area local radio market. To attract a talent and management mind of this caliber speaks well to the potential of the growing audience. We expect listeners to throng to 106.9 FM, and with Greg?s quick wit and on-air presence, we expect them to stay.?
2-16-14
Cox has agreed to purchase the construction permits for W246CY (97.1 FM) in Bradenton and W273CP (102.5 FM) in New Port Richey. Cox will pick up the translators from Circuitwerkes for $187,950. Cox has an Alternative Rock format out of Holiday at 97.1 and talker "The Bone," (WHPT) out of Sarasota on 102.5. Bob Heymann of Media Services Group served as the broker representing the buyer in this transaction.
11-14-13
Sirius XM Radio says Florida Georgia Line will perform at The Troubadour in Los Angeles at an exclusive invitation-only concert for SiriusXM listeners on Monday, November 25. The private concert will be broadcast on Wednesday, November 27 at 8:00 p.m. ET via satellite on The Highway, channel 59, and through the SiriusXM Internet Radio App on smartphones and other connected devices, as well as online at siriusxm.com.
8-14-13
The Sun Sentinel reports 37 year old Haitian broadcaster James Leger admitted Tuesday that he used someone else's identity to secure a U.S. passport, then used it again last year when he tried to renew it. Leger pleaded guilty to passport fraud. Leger was the GM and host of an AM station heard from West Palm, where he and his family lived, to Miami. The station broadcast Creole news, talk and evangelical programming. Leger faces up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
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12-30-12
South Florida residents parking near the Hollywood Florida Police department were puzzled every time they tried to unlock their cars using their keyless entry device. They stopped working. It took months for authorities to determine a pirate radio station operating in the area was interfering with the units.
Police are still searching for the pirate station operator, who was broadcasting Caribbean music at 104.7 on the dial. A detective and an FCC agent found the equipment on December 6th concealed under an air conditioning unit. Cars made by Ford, Lexus, Toyota, BMW and Mercedes reportedly were affected. The issues with the keyless entry devices began back in August.
Read more HERE at the Sun Sentinel
Sold
REACH COMMUNICATIONS, INC. is selling FM translator W243AW/MIDDLEBURG, FL to PHILLIPS BROADCASTING, LLC for $35,000.
In other filings with the FCC, CALVARY CHAPEL OF TWIN FALLS, INC. has requested a Silent STA for FM translator K206CU/MOUNT VERNON, WA, taking the station off the air due to interference with full-power PACIFIC LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY noncommercial KPLK/SEDRO-WOOLLEY, WA.
And ROCKET RADIO CORP. has filed for an extension of its Silent STA for FM translator K255AQ/STRAWBERRY, AZ due to storm damage.
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8-14-2012
SBS EVP of Programming Jesus Salas was cleared of all charges on August 3, 2012, by the Miami-Dade Circuit and County Court. On July 4, Salas was charged with assault, aggravation, and possession of a firearm in an alleged case of domestic violence. He said he was innocent all along and in a recent hearing the state attorney declined to prosecute and dismissed the charges due to insufficient evidence.
Salas said, "I am happy that this is finally over. This is an unfortunate situation my family and I have endured, and we're ready to put this behind us and move forward. I have never had any problems with the law, not even a parking ticket," said Salas. SBS CEO Raul Alarcon said, "Congratulations to Jesus on a wonderful outcome! I always knew he would be totally vindicated."
Salas is the EVP of Programming for Spanish Broadcasting System. He began his career as an air personality and got his first programming job at age 19. In 1997 he was named PD for WSKQ-FM and WPAT-FM/New York. In 2004, he joined Univision Radio as a program director, and then two years later accepted a post as senior PD with XM Satellite Radio. In his current post with SBS, Salas oversees stations in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, and Puerto Rico. He received the prestigious Medallas de Cortez medal from Radio Ink Hispanic Radio for Programmer of the Year/Market 1-25. Salas resides in Miami, FL.
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7-25-2012
This public file fine should be a reminder to all college stations around the country that rules are rules and even you need to keep your public file up to date. WPRK is licensed to Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. The Commission hits the college with the $10,000 fine for failing to maintain and make available a complete public inspection file. The FCC says the college's station manager was unable to explain why the issues/programs lists were missing for 2008-2011.
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June 4, 2012
Donna Mairs is the newly appointed NSM for Lincoln Financial Media's South Florida trio of Sports WAXY (The Ticket), AC WLYF (101.5 Lite FM), and Classic Hits WMXJ (Majic 102.7)/Miami. Mairs joined LFM/South Florida as regional sales manager last year; she's also been LSM at crosstown WHQT and NSM for Clear Channel/Miami.
LFM/South Florida Director of Sales Scott Pritchett said, "We're very happy to have Donna's skill and caliber for this key position. The fact that someone of her depth of experience and winning record was already employed here is an even bigger bonus."
Mairs' new duties begin immediately.
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2-15-2012
WAYMedia President Bob Augsburg says his company is selling WAYJ-FM in Fort Myers to Classical of South Florida. Simultaneously, WAYMedia is purchasing 100,000 watt WSRX-FM in Naples, Florida. ?We are basically doing a frequency swap in Southwest Florida and we are excited about continuing our 24 year outreach in the Fort Myers/Naples area. This is where WAY-FM began in 1987 and we anticipate making an even greater impact in the years ahead. Since WSRX does not cover Charlotte County well, WAYMedia has made arrangements to cover that portion of Southwest Florida with a new 250 watt translator on 100.5 FM?. The WAYJ call letters will be moved to 89.5.
Augsburg continued, ?Some of the excess funds we will realize in this transaction will be earmarked towards many new digital strategies which were unveiled recently in WAYMedia?s new 2020 Vision?. The sale requires approval by the Federal Communications Commission.
WAY-FM/Fort Myers general manager Jeff Taylor also commented, ?This is a very exciting time for the original WAY-FM in Southwest Florida. Not only will our move from 88.7 to 89.5/100.5 enable us to serve the entire region just as we always have, but proceeds from the sale of WAYJ will enable us to help fund the initial stages of WAY-FM?s Digital Media initiative. Our ministry just got stronger!?
2-8-2012
Florida Governor Rick Scott has reassigned the case of accused Dunbar Florida pirate Al Knighten. State Attorney Steve Russell asked that the case be transferred to avoid any appearance of a conflict. The station once operated from the office of a social service agency called Quality Life Center in downtown Fort Myers. Russell sits on the board for that organization. The agency was unaware the station was operating from its office, according to the executive director of the agency. It did so for a year.
Al Knighten was arrested in December for operating the pirate radio station in Dunbar Florida. Knighten says he was doing the community a service with his talk shows, community announcements and Gospel Music. Dunbar has been in the news quite a bit lately for an increase in crime, specifically murder.
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1-30-2012
Media Monitors has been doing an excellent job tracking political spending on radio - and other media - in the Republican primaries. The latest study released by Dwight Douglas and his team details how the Mitt Romney camp has saturated the sunshine state, leading his media effort with massive Television buys. The primary vote in Florida takes place today.
Media Monitors captured data in Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, Tampa and West Palm Beach for Radio, Cable and TV. In addition to those markets, Ft. Myers? data was also included for the Radio analysis. The study includes spots run from January 1st to early morning January 30th.
Looking just at RADIO spots that were run by the candidate?s campaigns, Mitt Romney ran 2,196 spots, while Newt Gingrich ran 492 spots. Rich Santorum and Ron Paul ran no radio spots in the Florida cities surveyed. Obama For America did run 25 spots in the month of January, 2012.
On TV, Mitt Romney?s campaign ran 4,930 spots against Newt Gingrich?s 638 spots. Again, there were no Ron Paul or Rick Santorum spots in this media.
On Local Cable in the markets surveyed, Romney once again ran the lion?s share of Cable spots at 1,862, while Newt Gingrich only cleared 79 spots. Ron Paul did run 6 spots in January, while the Obama campaign ran 12 spots.
In the Super PAC category:
- Restore Our Future is a Super PAC that to date has been pro-Romney. They ran 234 radio ads that attempted to denigrate Newt Gingrich.
- Winning Our Future is a Super PAC that helps promote Newt Gingrich or position anyone running against him negatively. They ran 1,537 Pro-Gingrich ads and 1,796 negative ads putting down Romney. SEIU is the Service Employees International Union and they ran 247 ads against Romney. The American Family Association ran 438 radio ads helping Newt Gingrich.
- On TV, the pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future ran 3,443 spots against Gingrich.
- The Super PAC Winning Our Future pro-Gingrich ran 250 spots against Romney.
- The pro-Romney PAC Restore Our Future also ran 405 spots against Rick Santorum.
- The Super PAC AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) ran 412 TV spots against Romney.
On Local Cable, the PACs were very active. Restore Our Future ran 1,018 attack ads against Newt Gingrich, while Restore Our Future ran 147 spots against Rick Santorum. Winning Our Future only ran 40 pro-Gingrich spots on Cable in the last month and 61 spots against Mitt Romney. Super PAC for America ran 19 spots against Romney. The AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) ran 85 Cable spots against Romney.
And finally, the Republican National Committee ran 15 Cable spots against Obama.
Media Monitors also combined the spot count data and broke the media blitz down to show what the total impact of all the spots that ran on the two front-runners. If a Super Pac was anti-Romney, we aligned those counts with Newt Gingrich, and of course, if a spot was negative toward Newt, for this approach, we added those spots to Romney?s totals. We then added in the spots that were run by their campaigns. Here is what we found:
- On Radio, spots helping Newt Gingrich totaled 4,510, while spots helping Mitt Romney totaled 2,430.
- On TV, spots helping Gingrich totaled 1,300 while spots more positive for Romney added up to 8,778.
- On Local Cable, Newt spots totaled 284, while Mitt spots totaled 3,027 ads.
READ RANDY LANE'S BLOG ABOUT MUSIC SHOWS AND POLITICS HERE
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12-14-2011
The station was called Dunbar community radio, broadcasting gospel music, PSA's and community information at 107.5. However, Al Knighten was broadcasting without a license and that's something the FCC clearly frowns upon. With the help of Fort Myers police the FCC closed down the station and arrested Knighten who spent about $4,000 to get the facility up and running. The illegal station hosted a show by the Fort Myers Citizens Police Review Board and Fort Myers Councilman John Streets also appeared on the station as a guest. Knighten was the only one charged with a crime.
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Most people would probably agree this is a dream job and Keriann Worley has it. Worley is the new Market Manager in the Florida Keys. Worley will run the Clear Channel cluster in the Keys, which also includes the Melbourne stations. Worley is a University of Florida graduate.
Prior to joining Clear Channel, she spent six years as a Human Resource Director and two years as a National Account Manager at ADT Security Services/Tyco International. Worley began her career at Clear Channel in Miami in 2007 as an Account Executive and most recently served as General Sales Manager at Clear Channel West Palm Beach.
Worley said ?I'm really honored that Hartley Atkins and Sherri Sanchez chose me to lead our Melbourne and Florida Keys markets. It?s an exciting time to work at Clear Channel, and we have a tremendous opportunity to expand our market share with integrated solutions and iHeartRadio. I am fortunate to lead a team that will embrace and utilize all our resources for continued growth and development.?
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June 20, 2011
The station was 92.7 on the dial, broadcasting Haitian music, according to the Palm Beach Post. The Broward County Sheriff and the FCC shut down 30 year old Mercius Dorvilus of North Lauderdale and charged him with unauthorized transmission and/or interference with a public station. The Post says Dorvilus was renting a room where the government confiscated a transmitter, mixer and a laptop.