F
FloridaBear1776
Guest
Ten years ago this summer, 620 WSUN became the number one talk station in the Tampa - St. Pete market in 25-54, narrowly edging out WFLA.
Ten years ago this November, 620 WSUN dumped the talk format and went all sports.
It may be one of the few times that the number one talker in 25-54 in a market blew itself up.
Where was the first spot on the dial where Tampa Bay residents heard the following talents:
Cigar Dave
Phil Hendrie
Dr. Laura
Randi Rhodes
Joey Reynolds
Answer: 620 WSUN.
Its format was hard to characterize: somewhere between traditional news-talk
and WTKS-style "FM talk". It began as a simulcast pieced together from WIOD in Miami and WSB in Atlanta by its then owners, Cox. When the station began in 1992, it carried Neil Rogers (of course), Rick and Suds, Neil on tape in the evenings, followed by Phil Hendrie live from Atlanta, when he was still doing "straight" talk. 'SUN listeners also heard Phil two years later, when he was on WIOD perfecting what would become his current act. Then the Miami talent was dumped in favor of Ron and Ron, the Hooters Girls (now known as the SportChix and IMO an underrated group of, uh, 'talents', who would have broken out as powerhouses now but for the proper radio venue), and Gary Spivey.
Don't think for one minute that 970 didn't take 620 seriously. Explain the ruckus they created when they learned that Cox, through its San Francisco TV station, was investing in the San Francisco Giants to keep them from moving to what is now Tropicana Field. It spent hours lampooning Cox, both in live talk shows and newscasts (!), referring to 620 obliquely as 'a country station', apparently wishing to club Cox over the head but unwilling to reveal to its audience that 970 had competition.
And of course, Bob Lassiter made it his home after his return from Chicago
from 1993-95. Not much more to say about him that hasn't already been said.
Yes, it was expensive. Yes, the sweet blonde Southern ladies who sold 94.9 WARM couldn't bring themselves to soil their white gloves and sell 620. Yes, that combo issue was a lame reason to kill a station that in three years had managed to pull even with the heritage talker in the money demo. The decision to pull the plug on WSUN foreshadowed the sale and implosion of WIOD, and the change of Cox's culture from a risk-taker with edgy talk programming to a rigidly robotic program philosophy that seeks to reduce the human input to somewhat less than that of a very small cog in a very large mechanism.
<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by FloridaBear1776 on 11/19/05 12:38 AM.</FONT></P>
Ten years ago this November, 620 WSUN dumped the talk format and went all sports.
It may be one of the few times that the number one talker in 25-54 in a market blew itself up.
Where was the first spot on the dial where Tampa Bay residents heard the following talents:
Cigar Dave
Phil Hendrie
Dr. Laura
Randi Rhodes
Joey Reynolds
Answer: 620 WSUN.
Its format was hard to characterize: somewhere between traditional news-talk
and WTKS-style "FM talk". It began as a simulcast pieced together from WIOD in Miami and WSB in Atlanta by its then owners, Cox. When the station began in 1992, it carried Neil Rogers (of course), Rick and Suds, Neil on tape in the evenings, followed by Phil Hendrie live from Atlanta, when he was still doing "straight" talk. 'SUN listeners also heard Phil two years later, when he was on WIOD perfecting what would become his current act. Then the Miami talent was dumped in favor of Ron and Ron, the Hooters Girls (now known as the SportChix and IMO an underrated group of, uh, 'talents', who would have broken out as powerhouses now but for the proper radio venue), and Gary Spivey.
Don't think for one minute that 970 didn't take 620 seriously. Explain the ruckus they created when they learned that Cox, through its San Francisco TV station, was investing in the San Francisco Giants to keep them from moving to what is now Tropicana Field. It spent hours lampooning Cox, both in live talk shows and newscasts (!), referring to 620 obliquely as 'a country station', apparently wishing to club Cox over the head but unwilling to reveal to its audience that 970 had competition.
And of course, Bob Lassiter made it his home after his return from Chicago
from 1993-95. Not much more to say about him that hasn't already been said.
Yes, it was expensive. Yes, the sweet blonde Southern ladies who sold 94.9 WARM couldn't bring themselves to soil their white gloves and sell 620. Yes, that combo issue was a lame reason to kill a station that in three years had managed to pull even with the heritage talker in the money demo. The decision to pull the plug on WSUN foreshadowed the sale and implosion of WIOD, and the change of Cox's culture from a risk-taker with edgy talk programming to a rigidly robotic program philosophy that seeks to reduce the human input to somewhat less than that of a very small cog in a very large mechanism.
<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by FloridaBear1776 on 11/19/05 12:38 AM.</FONT></P>
