WEST PALM BEACH HISTORY PT2

Hey Guys and Gals:


I have a couple of questions about some stations in the West Palm area:

1. Does anybody know the history of 97.9 before it was WRMF? I know it was WQXT and WMUM.

2. Does anybody know the history of 1380 AM WLIZ?

3.Does anybody know the history of WPBR? When did it become talk and what was it before talk.

4. Was WJNO ever a MOR station? When did it become talk?

5. Does anybody know when WIRK 1290 became TOP 40?

6. I know before 98.7 was WIZD it was WLQY does anybody know what format it was?

7. Does anybody know what 850 WEAT was before it became country/ When did it become country?

8. I found this on 440.com: What was WGMW-AM?

My west palm beach history is very fuzzy!!

THANKS for your help on these questions!!!!

T.J.

I remember WRMF being WJNO-FM in the mid 70s. I believe it was called J-98 for a brief period. It was kind of hard to get in Dade County. It was a contemporary pop/rock mix.
I remember WEAT being something like "Superstar Country" in the late 70s or early 80s, but I don't remember exactly when or for how long. I do remember it (WEAT) being a short lived pop/oldies mix around 1983 or '84 with it having the calls "WCGY". It was called "85CGY". It must have gotten a power increase as it seemed to be comming in better in the Miami area. I hope this helps some. Oh, by the way, WEAT was (I believe) an "Easy-Listening" Station before it was country.

Hello T.J.

Keep in mind that I have only live in Palm Beach County for eighteen years...but here's what I know...

1. Does anybody know the history of 97.9 before it was WRMF? I know it was WQXT and WMUM.
WRMF was J-98, WJNO-FM before it became WRMF. It was--to my undertsnding--what we would now call Hot AC. The calls were changed by Richard M. Fairbanks (R.M.F.).

2. Does anybody know the history of 1380 AM WLIZ?A very odd little station. They were an MOR station as WLVS (Elvis) well into the 90s. I recall the Palm Beach Post printing the "Jerry Vale Hour" every afternoon at (I believe) 1:00 p.m. Jerry Vale was a balladeer similar to

3.Does anybody know the history of WPBR? When did it become talk and what was it before talk.
They were the first station in Palm Beach County, but they have not been a factor in the marker in well over a generation. They tried MOR for awhile about 1995. They also tried "Hot Talk" and purchased a lot of taxi cab advertising.

4. Was WJNO ever a MOR station? When did it become talk?I think they were a traditional Full Service AC until 1988. I wrote the Wikipedia article on WJNO based on reports from the Palm Beach Post.

5. Does anybody know when WIRK 1290 became TOP 40?I believe WIRK was THE Top 40 station in the 60s and 70s. They remained an oldies station into the 90s. I recall one small billboard near the airport. They later became business WBZT (hence the calls). In the early 90s they picked up Rush Limbaugh just as he got hot. They put Imus in the morning. Joey Reynolds was there for about a years sometime about 1995 doing "all bit radio."

6. I know before 98.7 was WIZD it was WLQY does anybody know what format it was?They were a traditional AOR as K-Rock before the became "The Gater." The Love Doctors started there before moving to WZZR.


7. Does anybody know what 850 WEAT was before it became country/ When did it become country?From sometime before 1990 and until 1992 they simulcast the FM Easy Listening format. They kept Easy Listening when the FM became Sunny 104.3. They tried AP Radio's all news format in the late 90s.


I'm guessing you are using old Broadcasting Yearbooks for you source. That's a great resource, but you library card may also offer a great deal of information. The Palm Beach library the archives of newspapers going back about twenty or more years.

I hope this helps.

Mike

I have the aircheck from 1980 when the calls were changed from WJNO-FM to WRMF (January of 1980)
The station still operated from the 340' tower just north of downtown on Lake Worth.
Tom S

WDAE-FM101 said:

I have the aircheck from 1980 when the calls were changed from WJNO-FM to WRMF (January of 1980)
The station still operated from the 340' tower just north of downtown on Lake Worth.
Tom S

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That tower was behind the WJNO/WRMF Offices-studios-transmitter right on the lake. The tower was used for WJNO, WRMF, and WIRK-FM. I have no idea why WIRK-FM was there instead of at the WIRK-AM site. WJNO was on the tower because their tower had been across the street just above the lake but they lost it in a hurricane and the city wouldn't let them rebuild it.

I was production director at WJNO/WRMF for a little while in 1979. Not the best memories, we had one production room to do commercials put music on cart, and for the WJNO news guys to voice recoded reports. It was a madhouse all the time. With 2 100KW FM's on a tower right outside the window, there was always some sort of buzz in the audio of that room. There is a lot more I could say about a certain person who gave me all kinds of grief but I have no hard feelings so I won't go there!

The first time that I heard WIRK-1290 was in April, 1967. They were a firmly entrenched Top 40 station at that time, and it was obvious that they had been in the format for a while. Their main competition seemed to be Miami's WQAM. 790-WFUN didn't put a particularly good signal into West Palm Beach.

2. Does anybody know the history of 1380 AM WLIZ?A very odd little station. They were an MOR station as WLVS (Elvis) well into the 90s. I recall the Palm Beach Post printing the "Jerry Vale Hour" every afternoon at (I believe) 1:00 p.m. Jerry Vale was a balladeer similar to


WLVS was put on the air back in 1959 by Sam Phillips(Sun Records). They did try an all womens format back in the 80's and called it WLIZ. Sam sold the station to the Glades Media Group back in 1994 and they went Regional Mexican with it and changed the call letters from WLVS to WWRF.

amstatic said:

2. Does anybody know the history of 1380 AM WLIZ?A very odd little station. They were an MOR station as WLVS (Elvis) well into the 90s. I recall the Palm Beach Post printing the "Jerry Vale Hour" every afternoon at (I believe) 1:00 p.m. Jerry Vale was a balladeer similar to


WLVS was put on the air back in 1959 by Sam Phillips(Sun Records). They did try an all womens format back in the 80's and called it WLIZ. Sam sold the station to the Glades Media Group back in 1994 and they went Regional Mexican with it and changed the call letters from WLVS to WWRF.

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The all girl jock format was actually before the 80's by 1979 WLIZ was an Contemporary Christian and paid religion. I remember because my wife worked there for awhile.

I'd like to know more about WPBR which I believe was WQXT before that. They had studios and transmitter near the pier at the beach in Lake Worth.

WPTV Channel 5 was right near the water in WPB as I remember. Are they still there or have they moved?

mikedow said:

6. I know before 98.7 was WIZD it was WLQY does anybody know what format it was?They were a traditional AOR as K-Rock before the became "The Gater." The Love Doctors started there before moving to WZZR.

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Even before that, they were Easy Listening as WARN and a sister station to WFTP 1330 (now WJNX). Funny...when I took over programming 1330 in the 80's, the WARN library was still in the studio, even though the stations hadn't been co-owned for years and the FM hadn't been Beautiful Music even longer. (The AM was Country, btw.)

Rich and Glenn worked together doing Country at WAVW (then on 105.5, before the reallocation) in Vero Beach and started the Love Doctors bit there.

mikedow said:

6. I know before 98.7 was WIZD it was WLQY does anybody know what format it was?They were a traditional AOR as K-Rock before the became "The Gater." The Love Doctors started there before moving to WZZR.

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They actually did a format called "Gourmet Rock", or "Ecclectic Rock", which was the brainchild of consultant Mike Sebastian. A fusion of Blues, Jazz and Rock. It started during the WIZD days ("Wizard 99"), remained through the early days of WKGR/"98.7 KGR" (in fact, I think the "GR" in WKGR stands for "Gourmet Rock"), and sometime in the late 80s the format evolved to Rock.

Mike Sheridan said:

I'd like to know more about WPBR which I believe was WQXT before that. They had studios and transmitter near the pier at the beach in Lake Worth.

WPTV Channel 5 was right near the water in WPB as I remember. Are they still there or have they moved?

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Both PBR and PTV have moved...I remember the old PBR studios though, because by the early 90s they were still at the beach and looked dated...The old 'wpbr' (lower case logo) sign was fading out, and it was quite a stately, 1950s or older looking building. COL has since been changed to Lantana and they are now in some office building that I think is off of US1..Nothing to write home about but the new sign is pretty big.

WPTV, I remember seeing that facility too but it has since moved inland, IIRC near the train station downtown....I believe the old building was razed.

Re: WLIZ/WLVS, I remember running into someone on the Tri-Rail one morning and her telling me that she worked at that station in the 80s, and that they had an old Elvis mic on display in the lobby at some point.

glc said:

when I took over programming 1330 in the 80's, the WARN library was still in the studio

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I wonder if this was the same 'stack of LPs' that I saw when I did P/T at the Buzz in the late 90s....A rather large bunch of records that were kept in the production room that were roughly from the 70s-early 80s. I remember seeing "WLQY" written on one of them and concluding they were indeed from up Ft. Pierce way. (98.7 and 103.1 had been sister stations for a bit in the mid-90s).

radiosanchez said:

mikedow said:

6. I know before 98.7 was WIZD it was WLQY does anybody know what format it was?They were a traditional AOR as K-Rock before the became "The Gater." The Love Doctors started there before moving to WZZR.

Click to expand...

They actually did a format called "Gourmet Rock", or "Ecclectic Rock", which was the brainchild of consultant Mike Sebastian. A fusion of Blues, Jazz and Rock. It started during the WIZD days ("Wizard 99"), remained through the early days of WKGR/"98.7 KGR" (in fact, I think the "GR" in WKGR stands for "Gourmet Rock"), and sometime in the late 80s the format evolved to Rock.

Click to expand...

Gourmet Rock was actually the brainchild of programmer John Sebastian, who launched it on WCOZ/Boston.

Noticed the old posts about WLIZ/WIRK/WPBR. I worked at all three in the 70's, so maybe I can add something of interest.

WIRK was the dominant rock station in WPB throughout the 60's and early 70's and was considered a feeder station for sending talent to the Miami rockers (WQAM, WFUN). They had a huge signal and tons of money. Rome Hartman and Joe Fields were hands on owners and spared no expense. They were also very dedicated to local news with a 3-4 person news department, mobile news cars, a news boat and even a news plane! (I think the boat and plane may have been station logo'ed but owned by Hartman and Fields personally, but I'm not sure - at any rate it looked very slick)

I got to work in the News Department in 1975 and because I was expected to cover news on a 24 hour basis, I was given a station car (Bright Orange AMC Gremlin) complete with whip antenna, 2-way radio and police scanners. Around this same time, the station went through a series of program director changes, non with the abilities of previous pd's and the station started slipping. Bad pd's bringing in bad jocks and FM radio (Y100 most notibly) emerging and it was the beginning of the end.

WPBR went on the air in the 1940's as WWPG (World's Winter Playground) It changed sometime later to WQXT (good music and a call letter take off on NY's classical WQXR). Then in the early 70's to WPBR (Wonderful Palm Beach Radio). The Studios on the beach were wonderful 1940's old timey studios, with a main "live" studio dominating the center of the building.

Up until the early 1970's it was still airing a live call in music program hosted by Ginger and Lanny Grey on Saturday mornings. (There was a spinet piano and boom mike in the center of the studio. The Grey's would take requests and then sing and play them live on the air. Other programming was mostly mor music with the Opera and NBC Monitor on Saturdays. It had a full time news department of at least two.

In 1970/71 it changed to "chicken rock" under the program management of Don Kelley - now an exec in Boston radio, After Kelley left, there was another management change and John Garabedian of Boston (ex WMEX, etc) came in as consultant. The station was no competition for WIRK WPOM and the emerging South Florida FM's however and continued to decline.

All during this time there was an FM in the same building. Originally it went on in the 40's as WWPG FM, then in 1969 changed to WMUM "Mother" and was a free form album rock station. Needless to say there was often a culture clash with the hippies on one side of the building and the popsters on the other side. Later when the stations were sold to separate owners, WMUM eventually became WRMF (for Richard M. Fairbanks) and WQXT became WPBR.

WPBR was the creation of New York broadcasting executives Ev and Valerie Aspinwall who bought the station and wanted to make it similar to a WOR or WNEW, with sophisticated talk and mor music. Whereas WQXT/WMUM was absentee owned by KNIGHT Broadcasting out of Massachusetts, the Aspinwalls moved in and put their money and attention into creating a first class product.

They moved to more talk programming, installed more "culture", bringing back the Metropolitan Opera and a Weekend Classical Program and more.

I lost touch with the station after that, but I know the Aspinwalls were very successful with it for many years. After a while, the land became more valuable than the radio license, and Ev became ill (not sure in which order) and the station was sold and began it's downward spiral.

WLIZ was built by Sam Phillips in 1958-59 with the proceeds from his sale of Elvis Presley's contract to RCA. It went on the air in 1959 as WLIZ in honor of Liz Taylor and was patterned after Phillip's other all girl station in Memphis WHER - (NPR did a profile of WHER on their Lost and Found Sound show http://www.npr.org/programs/lnfsound/talkon/guaralnick.html )

The all-girl format was short lived and the station transitioned into a country and western format. Despite it being a daytimer, as late as 1972 - it was one of the top rated country stations in the Palm Beaches, up against WEAT and a station out of Belle Glade. DJ's spent 3-4 hours on the air and were expected to sell spots the rest of the day. Consequently, the on air delivery was folksy and the live commercials ran anywhere from 45 seconds to 2 minutes.

It was a favorite station among the construction workers and since the hours on the job matched the broadcast day the daytime only status was no big deal. It wasn't until September 1973 when WIRK-FM went on the air with 24 hour country music in stereo that WLIZ and WEAT began to slip into "live music on AM" oblivion.

In the 70's it switched to Paid Religion under General Manager Gene Tognacci. Later it changed call letters to WLVS in honor of the late Elvis. It was during that period that the station began broadcasting a daily 5 minute radio show on Elvis that would run until the station went under an LMA in the mid to late 90's. The station was sold to Jim Johnson, a longtime contract engineer turned station owner who added it to his Fiesta Network

As far as the Elvis mike. It's true. Both the RCA DX77 and the Ampex 300 tape deck that was used in the production studio on a daily basis came directly from SUN records studios. (Sam was notoriously frugal, even coming down in 1972 to paint and paper the inside of the station himself in an interior redesign)

The mike and tape deck were later sent to the Rock and Roll Museum in Cleveland where they are now on display.

I had to quit going into the old PBR stuios at the Beach. Too much black mold for this heavy smoker to breath-in. I'm surprised no one noticed how toxic those studios were.

As a child I went into those WPBR studios sometime in the mid 70's when they were going to air a little community segment for a local school's "kazoo band". Even then, it struck me as odd that a radio station would be located right on the beach.

Since my uncle worked for a radio station in Gainesville that was basically in a trailer, I assume all radio stations were in trailers...I thought the beach was a nice step up.

Didn't notice any mold...but I was pretty young.

Strange that WLVS was mentioned.

I live in Cullman, Alabama. (850 miles northwest of Miami, and 65 miles south of Muscle Shoals, Home of Sam Phillips). He had a recording studio in Florence, and Big River Broadcasting is located on Sam Phillips St. in Muscle Shoals. One of the stations they own is WXFL 96.1 "kix 96," and they are rebroadcast on 106.5 WLVS, a station owned by Big River that serves West Tennessee www.wxfl.com .

Thought I'd chime in on the subject. ;D

Travis

Sorry I probably posted my reply incorrectly

Hello Tj, and everyone:

WLIZ was in fact owned by Sam Phillips at the time my dad Slim Somerville was a disc jockey back in 1970 71. I went to school their in Lake Worth and hung out at the station after school everyday. Oftentimes I went into the production/news room and acted as if I were on the radio. Doug Devoss, I believe his name was would run me out when it was time to read the news ... and I had the control board all messed up. HEE Haw

I saw Sam their several times ... nice guy. I went on to be a radio announcer at WYRL in Melbourne Fl. years later. After a long career in radio, and in the music business, I know live in Nashville Tn. My father Slim Somerville Sr. passed away in 1978. He was also on stations WZZZ, WGMA, WKKO, WITV (Sunset Ranch) and several others in south Fl.

http://i42.tinypic.com/2dwi0p5.jpg

http://i41.tinypic.com/vrdevl.jpg

I was just searching the net and came across this site and thought I stop and reply to your question. A lot of history in these little stations. I was glad to be apart of it.

Have a great day
God Bless

Slim