The purchase of WWNN 1470 AM by Vic Canales Media Group was ALWAYS about the translators; there was no plan to ever upgrade-improve WWNN’s (dumpy, deplorable eyesore) facilities or tower site off Rock Island Road and 44th Street in Tamarac/Sunrise.
As that sale went through, Canales cut a deal with Audacy’s to carry his “True Oldies” on WWNN’s old Broward-based translators at 95.3 W237BD Boca Raton and 96.9 W245BC Lauderdale Lakes via 104.3 WSFS-FM HD3. So those translators are not up for sale. As such, the ID for the “network” as it were has been updated — and it’s a monster — identifying both Hubbard’s and Audacy’s HD channels and the related translators.
That’s not to say that, down the road, if Canales starts to feel the pinch, he would sell them (they are lucrative pieces of real estate; solid investments, after all), but acquisition for a quick flip was NEVER the intent.
***Translators and HD***
Yeah, I am not happy with AM translators for FM stations being used to re-broadcast HD channels, either. However, back in, I want to say 2017, the law changed; but the earliest decisions allowing it on a case-by-case basis date to 2010. At that time, there was a case where an objection was made by one broadcaster against another; the issue was that a translator licensee was using two translators — at the same location — to rebroadcast different HD channels; the dust-up was the belief that two translators servicing the same area can’t rebroadcast the same programming. That’s when the FCC sided with the translator licensee and the rules, changed.
The rebroadcast of FM multicast HD signals on FM translators is NOW legal — for the time being. As we all known: HD receivers are still not widely available, so rebroadcasts on analog FM translators makes the digital subchannels easier to access. So, in reality, the AM translators are serving the same purpose: promoting (helping) an underused medium (HD instead of AM). Of course, once HD gains a market hold, rest assure: those rebroadcast rules will change; that’s is the FCC plan on the backburners.
***True Oldies Channel***
You’ll recall that WWNN was a Beasley Group station. 95.3 W237BD Boca Raton was the old translator for WSBR 740 AM; WWNN had its own translator at 96.9 W245BC Lauderdale Lakes.
When the joint, Parkland, Florida, transmitter site (land) for WSHR-AM 980 and WSBR 740 AM sold to a condo developer, Beasley took both stations dark.
WHSR (1997 to 2021) returned as to the air as of February 3, 2021, when Beasley sold WHSR — and it’s translator W280DU-FM 103.9 — to Sam Rogatinsky's HMDF, LLC. On November 1, 2021, Rogatinsky moved WHSR’s new WTPA call letters from 1590 AM near Tampa; he owns that station, now WHOT, as well. He also owns a few (a network, really) LPFM’s in the area airing an urban format called “The Grind” or “Gridlock Radio,” I believe. WSBR continues as dark. WTPA 980 AM airs “Radio Nouvelle Lumiere,” which runs on few of Rogatinsky's stations; he also owns Kreyol 1340 WPBR in Lantana. Not sure how he can own both commercial stations and LPFMs at the same time; but that’s what a shell game is all about.
For a time, Vic Canales Media Group’s carring Scott Shannon’s “True Oldies Channel” was split with two identities: True Oldies Florida and True Oldies South Florida. While both carried Scott Shannon’s (outdated long-in-the-tooth style), the former carried Tim “The Bryd Man” Bryd as morning show; the latter carried Dean Murccio (?) as midday show on the other (because Steve Kane/Brian Craig became the “brokered” morning show. The former had its brokers from 960; the latter carried some of those brokers, as well as incorporating some of WNNN’s old brokers; others scrambled for airtime on WSRF 1580 and MRBI’s 1210 AM – when Tony Catalyud could no longer make WNMA work as “The Man.”
The former (True Oldies Florida) was on WSVU 960; when Canalas sold the station to Jean Altidore’s United Group Elite Agency Investment, LLC, he kept the translators at the North Palm Beach translator W240CI at 95.9 FM and the Jupiter translator W295BJ at 106.9 FM and fed them via Hubbard’s WIRK 103.1 HD3 subchannel. (Remember that Canalas got the station a “payment” when he exited New York’s JVC Media Group; it tried classic rock as “The Surf” before carrying the TOC and brokering).
Currently, at this point, you can hear the “True Oldies Channel” — as one, uniform broadcast — on 95.3 and 96.9 in Broward and 95.9 and 106.9 in Palm Beach. It’s a hit-and-miss situation with the music; brokered shows pop up out of nowhere with no consistency. Listeners have to guess when the music is on. I am for paying the bills, but put the brokered stuff on at night and the weekends. No one wants to hear croaking about car repairs and investments in morning and midday drive. We also don’t want to hear brokered (awful-cheesy)“jocks” during the TOC music blocks, either. This seems the case, as it has no real airstaff outside of Shannon or whoever else he has on his network end. At least Brydman and Dean M brought a level of quality to the airwaves.
***Canales and Marc Pasko***
Canales purchased WWNN — not from Beasley, but from Marco Broadcasting; and they are NOT located in “Marco, Florida, near Fort Myers” as some have said. Marco Broadcasting was Marc Pasko from San Diego. You know him from TV’s “Secret Millionaire” reality show. He owned and operated KXXP in White Salmon, WA. He lost the station, which he ran under an LMA, when Sebago Broadcasting sold the station from under him to Bustos Media. Marco bought it for $1.25 million from Beasley, then sold it to Canales for $1.45 million.
Pasco previous operated KBUD 1550 in Denver (can’t recall if before or after KXXP) also heard on a translator at 94.1” as “Smokin’ 94.1” to capitalize on Colorado’s legalizing marijuana. The story goes he was getting a lot of complaints, flack for the format from other station owners for variety of reasons; he sold the station (out of frustration is my understanding) to Marconi Wireless and the K231BQ 94.1 translator to iHeartMedia.
Pasko expressed as deep affection for radio and has a skill set in it. Why he purchased WNNN from Beasley, only to sell it so quickly (in just over a month), is anyone’s guess. If anyone had the deep pockets to fix WWNN and make it work, it was Marc Pasko. Face it: Beasley didn’t care and never made any attempts to fix that real estate eyesore. And I seriously doubt James Ospina’s Radio Activa Media Group has the pockets to do it, either. Beasley let it run down; Howard Goldsmith prior to that.
Meanwhile, Ospina, the new owner, is a local, successful, Lake Worth-based real estate agent and car lot owner (not hear as wealthy as Pasko). He’s also advertises himself as a “radio personality,” as he’s brokered a variety of airtime on Palm Beach and Treasure Coast stations (never heard him on the air).
So, the question remains: Will Ospina simply build a studio in Palm Beach county and remote to WWNN’s tower and call it a day, or will he revitalize the old Rock Island Road facilities? At the very least the building needs a coat of paint with minor exterior repairs, along with a parking lost resurfacing. At the most: Ospina needs to construct a small, couple-roomed transmitter shack on the property (as did Beasley way back; in Parkland when they lost their Atlantic Avenue/Coconut Creek site to development), tear down the old WRBD-WWNN two-story facilities, add a section of perimeter fence, toss down some sod, and rid the city of Tamarac from the eyesore.
Besides, that building was deemed unsafe to occupy, year ago. Why it can continue to have transmission equipment inside, baffles.
***The WSRF 1580 Tenure***
When WSRF 1580 lost its Silver Lake Trailer Park studios in Davie, “Mystic 1580,” somehow, relocated their studios inside the building (but still broadcasting on 1580 frequency). I think Howard Goldsmith still owned it at the time. It was all on the sly (it is said) and when found out, “Mystic” got kicked out and that was the end of that LMA (then “Mystic” made a go on JCR’s 1400, didn’t pay their bills, and got kicked off, for good).
Someone else tried to move in there; to LMA 1470 as I recall; I think it was an old WRBD or WCKO jock that wanted to make horserace of it, but the city wouldn’t allow it. So, yeah, the old girl, known as “The Rock” in these parts, needs to come down. I remember when, back when the building was structurally sound, it doubled as a billboard; you’d cruise down the turnpike as see it’s two-sided, V-shaped billboard on the roof; I seem to remember a billboard was on the large, blank, two-story southside wall as well, with the station’s calls emblazoned on the other side.
I fear for the engineer that has to go inside that building. It is said a couple have gone in, never to return; the rats as big as poodles, got ‘em.
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