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Kissimmee/ST. Cloud a goldmine for a locally owned/operated station

S

Stormychuck

I'm surprised that Kissimmee/St.Cloud doesn't have a radio station of its own, with the exception of WOTS 1220AM broadcasting in Spanish half the time and broadcasting in Spanish the rest of the time.

Osceola County residents who listen to radio in various different formats get all of their news, traffic and weather info from the Orlando market, nothing wrong with that, however, Kissimmee and St. Cloud, twin cities, is a treasure trove of businesses and name brand entertainments that have no real local outlets to air the wares, with the exception of the local paper Osceola/Gazzette and thats only in print a couple of time a week.

All to often you seldom hear or see any spots from businesses in Osceola County on the Orlando radio/TV market, maybe once in a blue-moon, one or two, I'm thinking all the ad exec's for the Orlando biggies are afraid if the come to Kissimmee/St. Cloud to sell ads they'll be stepping in cow do-do.

Perhaps all of the above has been thought up before and perhaps frequencies are not available, who knows, but good radio people know that good local radio works and works well, as long as its kept local with that local flare. Food for thought.
 
1080 AM was Kissimmee's blowtorch for years , located in the heart. Even today, The ID
on air is Kissimmee-Orlando. But when people joke about format of the month club? Thats
what it was, and if they had kept there focus on K-town, that power down at sunset wouldn't
be such a huge problem. They moved the studio's up past the airport, Began calling themselves
Orlando this, Orlando that. Orlando's only source for Sports ESPN 1080, began the promo's when 740 went , uh, well, even people who speak spanish couldn't understand it. Picked up the rights
to MLB baseball, FSU Football, and anything The Mothership has the rights too, and promoed the hell out of it. World Siries, play-offs, NBA, and forgot one thing, they dont reach out of kissimmee, very southern orange county at night. So orlando? hears nothing , from Orlando's ESPN. The after 3 books of 0.0, they made this bold call, hey, lets take 740 back to a time, when we actually showed up in the Ratings! But, it appears, the damage from the dumbest flip a dominate 24/7 50,000 watt AM may have ever made, wont be undone. And it's a shame, because it's programed by a very smart man, killer male/female voice sweepers. retained Fox Sports as back up, which honestly is better than ESPN. Local and never boring drive times, with DP and Rome covering midday's, and great Fox talent at night. But, piss off a sports fan, is like pissing off a redneck, ask the dixie chicks.
 
When I was growing up, my grandfather lived in Kissimmee. I can remember listening to 1080, which was then WFIV, with a country format and owned by Mr. Allmon (sp?) This would have been back in the 70s and early 80s.

Grandpa moved up to Tallahassee in 1983 and passed away in '87 so I didn't travel through the area much after that.

I was in Kissimmee this past January and never bothered to scan the AM dial. In 1977 I would have been doing my best to tune 1080 in before we got there.
 
At one time WOTS was a great sounding oldies station with some local talk thrown in. THey had a studio at Old Town and would broadcast from the amusement park on weekends, I think.
 
DXDXDX said:
At one time WOTS was a great sounding oldies station with some local talk thrown in. THey had a studio at Old Town and would broadcast from the amusement park on weekends, I think.
Click to expand...

Ah, yes..."Old Town Sound". We played some music I hadn't heard in forty years. And that storefront studio was fun.
 
I worked at the "Wonderful Old Town Sound" (WOTS) during 1996. Did 6-10PM and weekends on-air. In 16 years of radio, one of the most enjoyable gigs I ever had. Terry Mason was the GM. He came from "Cruisin Oldies 54" (WGTO) after Paxton bought the place. Kevin Casey was the PD. He was on 105.1 during the BJ-105 CHR days of the mid-1980s.

Format was Imus in the Morning from 6-10AM, Peter Rocchio (talk) from 10AM-Noon, and 70s Oldies during the rest of the day. The Saturday Night Cruise was broadcast live from 5-9PM. Terry Mason also hosted the cruise, both on-air and on the streets of Old Town.

It was a great little station. Unfortunately, it didn't make any money. We made some cash by airing St. Cloud baseball, but it wasn't nearly enough. It's tough to make it on a 1,000 watt AM in a place where the dial is saturated with Class C FMs from both Orlando and Tampa. The flea power nighttime authorization didn't help, either. There were many nights I had to switch my headphones from air feed to board feed because we were getting obliterated by either WGAR/Cleveland or the 1220 in Mexico City. True story!

Here's an aircheck I recorded in October, 1996. I'm on the mic. Both Kevin and Terry can be heard on the IDs and promos. Some of our commericals for tourist attractions on 192 are also included. Three months after this was recorded, the entire airstaff was let go and the station became fully automated outside of the Saturday Night Cruise. Shortly thereafter, the facility was sold and the format flipped to Spanish.

http://drewdurigan.com/radiogeekheaven/airchecks/wots-am-1220-kissimmee-fl-oct-1996/
 
MN Maniac said:
I worked at the "Wonderful Old Town Sound" (WOTS) during 1996. Did 6-10PM and weekends on-air. In 16 years of radio, one of the most enjoyable gigs I ever had. Terry Mason was the GM. He came from "Cruisin Oldies 54" (WGTO) after Paxton bought the place. Kevin Casey was the PD. He was on 105.1 during the BJ-105 CHR days of the mid-1980s.
Click to expand...

Don't forget the Hawaiian shirts!

I pulled your shifts in 1993 and 1994 and invited Kevin to apply when I decided to leave. He and I had worked together at BJ105 and remained friends.

It was definitely fun radio.
 
You see, that's what I'm talking about, that was a great air-check from WOTS although it was an AM it still sounded good and the on-air talent was having fun, try to find that in Orlando now-a-days, and like I've said before, Orlando is full of out-of-work top dog radio talents that would make listening to radio fun again and have the talent to make you want to tune in, but the sad part is those days are long gone, and you guy's I'm sure know a few guy's outa work who could do a much better job on-air then what Orlando has to offer now-a-days......

And that's a fact.........
 
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