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WHTT Radio hit Miami some info.

G

Groove1670

Guest
I remember Y-100 having a AM called radio Hitt (This is mentioned in another post). Can someone give some details. I know it did a simulcast with Y-100 at certain times. When did it air, who were some of it's personalities, and when did Metroplex sell it. What was the purpose of it. Thanks<P ID="signature">______________
Singer Songwriter radio... musiconradio.com</P>
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

> I remember Y-100 having a AM called radio Hitt (This is
> mentioned in another post). Can someone give some details. I
> know it did a simulcast with Y-100 at certain times. When
> did it air, who were some of it's personalities, and when
> did Metroplex sell it. What was the purpose of it. Thanks

Radio Hit went on the air on August 4, 1980. It had previously been country WWOK, which Metroplex bought from Jack Roth. Since the signal was very directional, coming from west of Sweetwater (around 137th a couple of blocks North of the Trail) and it mostly covered Hispanic areas, the country format was dying as the population became more Hispanic in Dade County.

When the station went on the air it had PD Tony Rivas in mornings, with Arturo Romar doing news. Mid-days was production manager Mabel Enríquez, and afternoons was MD Agustin Acosta and nights were handled by Freddy Cruz at the start, and Tommy Alejandro later.

In late 1981, a fire bombing at the transmitter, shared with WQBA-FM, wiped out the transmitter and phaser. The station ran for months from a tower on the Miami River using 250 watts. The manager resigned when the rebuild went slowly, as did the key sellers like Steve Patz and Jorge Fiterre.

The signal was not enough to be competitive, and while the station was being rebuilt, Metroplex decided to sell it to Julio Rumbaut, Eduardo Caballero, Herb Levin and Enrique Landin and WHTT became WSUA, Radio Suave, moving to studios on Arthur Godfrey Road in Miami Beach, where WMJX had been and a couple of blocks from where WQAM had been.

Radio Hit never simulcast with Y-100, although it was in the same building. WHTT had its own manager and staff and was in a separate part of the floor on Sheridan in Hollywood. Its purpose was to make money.

The Radio Hit format was a Latin Top 40, with a mix of the best pop and tropical of the time.

Here are some pictures, the logo, etc.

http://www.davidgleason.com/PDF Resume 1980-1992.pdf
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

> > I remember Y-100 having a AM called radio Hitt (This is mentioned in another post). Can someone give some details.

I came down from Y-100 and jocked there for a few months! I think it was around 1982-ish.

When I arrived, the Hispanic crew had just left. It looked like everyone had just abandoned the place, suddenly. I think everyone had been let go at once,not sure.

We played urban oldies like KC & The Sunshine Band, Marvin Gaye, Supremes, Jimmy Bo Horne, George McRae, Jean Knight. Kind of like a MEGA station.

We simulcast Y-100 in morning drive, then went live at 10AM. The jocks were Ed McMann (Now in Boston radio), his brother John McMann (Now an Atlantic Records promoter in NYC), George Corey, Freddy Cruze and me, Mark In The Dark. The McMann brothers lived there at the station for a while, since there was no staff but the DJs.

It was the old 96X building, a full radio station. Each of us DJs had our own office, there was no other staff. Except Mary the traffic lady.

No signal and it got even worse as time went by. The signal became so bad that I just used the same music sheets over and over, no one noticed. We scheduled music by hand back then, no computers.

I soon woke up and smelled the coffee. This place sucked! Got promotion god Moe Preskell to help me get my first PD job up in Daytona Beach and split mannnn! :)

PS The building was haunted. The elevator would run with no one in it.

Mark "In The Dark" Shands
Los Angeles
markndark at aol . com
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

> PS The building was haunted. The elevator would run with no
> one in it.

The ghost of 96X? :)

Radio-X <P ID="signature">______________
I wasn't born in the south, but I got down here as fast as I could...
</P>
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

> > > I remember Y-100 having a AM called radio Hitt (This is
> mentioned in another post). Can someone give some details.
>
> I came down from Y-100 and jocked there for a few months! I
> think it was around 1982-ish.

Hey, Mark. Been a while...

I had forgotten the "frequency holder" format they had on for a while. The Spanish format was nuked somewhere in very late '81 or early '82. I was gone by then, playing consultant in Bolivia and other garden spots... and did not pay much attention until Herb Levin hired me to consult WSUA when it kicked off.

The elevator was haunted, and there were frequent reports of "walking on the roof" and in the hall. Of course, nothing visable was ever spotted. Probably the after effects of "doing" the potted plants the former 96 X PD had in his office...
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

> > > I remember Y-100 having a AM called radio Hitt (This is
> mentioned in another post). Can someone give some details.
>
> I came down from Y-100 and jocked there for a few months! I
> think it was around 1982-ish.
>
> When I arrived, the Hispanic crew had just left. It looked
> like everyone had just abandoned the place, suddenly. I
> think everyone had been let go at once,not sure.
>
> We played urban oldies like KC & The Sunshine Band, Marvin
> Gaye, Supremes, Jimmy Bo Horne, George McRae, Jean Knight.
> Kind of like a MEGA station.
>
> We simulcast Y-100 in morning drive, then went live at 10AM.
> The jocks were Ed McMann (Now in Boston radio), his brother
> John McMann (Now an Atlantic Records promoter in NYC),
> George Corey, Freddy Cruze and me, Mark In The Dark. The
> McMann brothers lived there at the station for a while,
> since there was no staff but the DJs.
>
> It was the old 96X building, a full radio station. Each of
> us DJs had our own office, there was no other staff. Except
> Mary the traffic lady.
>
> No signal and it got even worse as time went by. The signal
> became so bad that I just used the same music sheets over
> and over, no one noticed. We scheduled music by hand back
> then, no computers.
>
> I soon woke up and smelled the coffee. This place sucked!
> Got promotion god Moe Preskell to help me get my first PD
> job up in Daytona Beach and split mannnn! :)
>
> PS The building was haunted. The elevator would run with no
> one in it.
>
> Mark "In The Dark" Shands
> Los Angeles
> markndark at aol . com
>
Interesting. I actually liked the "Rhythm & Roll" format.
It had a unique sound.
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

Mark, I remember being in Miami in 1978...weren't you part time at Y100 then doing weekends? I met one of the interns, who introduced me to alot of the jocks, and told me about the others...I think his name was Bob. Can you tell me if I'm right or wrong on this? Thanks!<P ID="signature">______________

Co/Moderator: New York,Miami,Airchecks,Classic Radio and Where Are They Now?</P>
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

That was 825 41 Street. The two story building was (or is?) owned by an attorney whose last name is Cypen. The building is called, The Cypen Building.

The Cypen (law) firm had an office on the east side of the building.

I worked there at WMYQ in 1973.


> PS The building was haunted. The elevator would run with no
> one in it.
>
> Mark "In The Dark" Shands
> Los Angeles
> markndark at aol . com
>
<P ID="signature">______________
[email protected]</P>
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

Sadly, I guess they gave up on radio hit. The interesting part I could hear it very weak in Key West. I found out about it in Key west by listening to the cross promotion on Y-100. I still think that a "Miami" Jammin' Oldies format would work well now. The problem with mega 103.5 was the playlist was too narrow. If they would of played songs like: Nice & Wild Diamond Girl
Mondalay - la Flavor, Space Cowboy -Jonzon Crew, Mami El Negro,
I do love you by GQ... the Miami crowd and songs they defined "Old school Miami" listners would of love it, but instead they decided to go with a bland, tired playlist, with no personality. Was Bill Tanner Involved with radio hit?
I would like to ask the programmers in the CC building if they knew these songs.
I guarantee that any music format supplier would not have these available to load on your hard drive. Yes these songs won't fly in Muncie Indiana but they would in south Florida. It's kinda funny these songs show up on WRRX 106.1 in Pensacola FL. and the station is doing very well..go figure..

Just a sidebar Keith Isley at I95 gave y-100 a run for their money by playing songs like "stayin' alive" and "Seasons in The Sun" with currents at that time.
He knew "Jack" before its current format inception :)

Any comments...<P ID="signature">______________
Singer Songwriter radio... musiconradio.com</P>
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

> Sadly, I guess they gave up on radio hit.

When it went to English on the low power temporary STA, it was not Radio Hit any more. Almost all of us had left becasue we saw the station would not get rebuilt for a long long time.

>>
> Just a sidebar Keith Isley at I95 gave y-100 a run for their
> money by playing songs like "stayin' alive" and "Seasons in
> The Sun" with currents at that time.

With Zero personality, and a very tight list. All read liner cards, even for people lik Cox. Isely used extreme mechanics against the personality of Y 100. It worked for a short time, and in teens mostly. It could not hold, as it had no feeling.
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

> Mark, I remember being in Miami in 1978...weren't you part
> time at Y100 then doing weekends? I met one of the interns,
> who introduced me to alot of the jocks, and told me about
> the others...I think his name was Bob. Can you tell me if
> I'm right or wrong on this? Thanks!
>


Hi Matt!

I was doing overnights at Y back then 2am-6am, which I did for about 5 years! What a fun job! Sounds like you met Uncle Bob, one of the long time Y-100 phone turkeys. His sister worked there too. We called her Aunt Bob!

Dark
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

>
> With Zero personality, and a very tight list. All read liner
> cards, even for people lik Cox. Isely used extreme mechanics
> against the personality of Y 100. It worked for a short
> time, and in teens mostly. It could not hold, as it had no
> feeling.
>

With former Y-100 personalities Don Cox, The Madame (Jo Weitz), Earl The Pearl Lewis, me, Mark In The Dark along with Jeff DeForrest, Stuart Elliott, Tom Gilligan, Dennis Reese and Kathy Wild West... I-95 had a pretty good run! Former Y promotions director Simone Geffreon (sp?) ran the promotions dept. The station became #1 in Miami with over 500,000 listeners per week. I believe I-95 is one of the main reasons Y became an AC station.

I think Keith Isley was one of the best PDs I ever worked with!

We broke alot of great music. Madonna, Expose, Shannon, and were the first top 40 station in America to play Miami Sound Machine's first english hit, "Dr. Beat."

I think one of our greatest promotions was when we flew two jets loaded with listeners up to Jacksonville for the kick off of the Jackson's tour!

Mark In The Dark
Los Angeles
markndark at aol . com
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

I95

David is right that I-95 did start out with a simple, very formatted presentation, like many start-ups.

But I think it changed along the way as more personalities began to appear.

One different aspect at I-95 was the fact that it existed within the walls of News/Talk WINZ-AM, which was quite an institution back then.

Personally I thought it was really cool to watch Alan Berk (sp?) of INZ talk fame. He was a trip!

Dark
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

> David is right that I-95 did start out with a simple, very
> formatted presentation, like many start-ups.

I sure do not mean to minimize I 95's approach. It was a very effective competitor to Y 100, by chewing at the weaknesses of that station.

I always considered... and this is just one person's opinion... that I 95 was a bit too mechanical. Maybe I had become used to Cox, The Madame and you in the Y 100 mold, and wanted more depth to the personality.

I thought that the prevalence of linered positions with very little opportunity for the talent to touch the listener created an imbalance.
>
> But I think it changed along the way as more personalities
> began to appear.

Why do you thing, in th elong run, it did not last? was it management, the changes in talent, the fragging with stations like 105.1 coming on, or?
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

> Why do you think, in the long run, it did not last? was it
> management, the changes in talent, the fragging with
> stations like 105.1 coming on, or?


I think the owners were planning for selling the stations in the future. They upgraded the I-95 signal and, then, since it had new better coverage to the north of the market, they thought it would pay off to make I-95's appeal more broad. In other words, the familiar corporate greed! :)

I was still there when the station became WINZ-FM "Rockin' With Class." That was kind of a "chicken rock" form of Album Rock. You could feel the audience leaving. A consultant from Philly was hired to run it. They simply brought a copy of their Selector (computerized music scheduling program) back up from the Philadelphia station and had us schedule the songs off of that. It was all northeastern US rock. What a disaster!

Fortunatly my friends had just moved to Power 96 ... Bill Tanner, Colleen Cassidy, Cramer Haas, Don Cox, Mike Ritter...(most having recently been dumped by HOT 105) so I was able to escape to an even better station! Talk about a lucky break!

Mark In The Dark


<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by Mark In The Dark on 11/12/05 09:16 PM.</FONT></P>
 
Re: WHTT Radio hit Miami... all the info.

>
> Fortunatly my friends had just moved to Power 96 ... Bill
> Tanner, Colleen Cassidy, Cramer Haas, Don Cox, Mike
> Ritter...(most having recently been dumped by HOT 105)

Ah, the "Wrath of Goldmark."

To whom did The Chuck say, "Heard about Coleen? That goes for you, too."
 
I-95

> We broke alot of great music. Madonna, Expose, Shannon, and
> were the first top 40 station in America to play Miami Sound
> Machine's first english hit, "Dr. Beat."

I have an aircheck of I-95 from the first few weeks on air...Definitely a safe playlist of alot of non currents...The tape is from early 81, and alot of the songs date from 1978-ish. Bee Gees, Billy Preston, alot of 'safe' songs..By contrast, the WINZ-FM I remember growing up as a kid was NOT typical of this tape and they did break alot of ground in South Florida hit radio. Definitely Shannon, Expose I recall as what I guess you could call 'core artists' from the 83-84 time period, and it was here I first heard Freestyle (2nd grade Art Class, Freeze's 'IOU' was the tune)....And people forget they did break Madonna's "Holiday"..Maybe that's because now they're right next door to Y-100, and it's convenient for former competitors to overlook such things. ; - )

-A.
 
Riegalo!

> Radio Hit went on the air on August 4, 1980.

I remember the slogan for Radio Hit was "Riegalo!!" (or, loosely in English, "Spread the Word!!")....Bumper stickers saturated for quite a few years after the station left the air, and there was a huge billboard that graced the entrance of the Airport Expressway on Okeechobee Road...My parents went to a WCMQ concert (think it was one of the many free ones they did at the now ghost towned but still barely standing Marine Stadium), and the WHTT promotions crew apparently showed up with Radio Hit t-shirts....
 
Re: I-95

Would love to hear that aircheck.



> > We broke alot of great music. Madonna, Expose, Shannon,
> and
> > were the first top 40 station in America to play Miami
> Sound
> > Machine's first english hit, "Dr. Beat."
>
> I have an aircheck of I-95 from the first few weeks on
> air...Definitely a safe playlist of alot of non
> currents...The tape is from early 81, and alot of the songs
> date from 1978-ish. Bee Gees, Billy Preston, alot of 'safe'
> songs..By contrast, the WINZ-FM I remember growing up as a
> kid was NOT typical of this tape and they did break alot of
> ground in South Florida hit radio. Definitely Shannon,
> Expose I recall as what I guess you could call 'core
> artists' from the 83-84 time period, and it was here I first
> heard Freestyle (2nd grade Art Class, Freeze's 'IOU' was the
> tune)....And people forget they did break Madonna's
> "Holiday"..Maybe that's because now they're right next door
> to Y-100, and it's convenient for former competitors to
> overlook such things. ; - )
>
> -A.
>
<P ID="signature">______________
Singer Songwriter radio... musiconradio.com</P>
 
WHTT Radio Hit (1260)

> I remember Y-100 having a AM called radio Hitt (This is
> mentioned in another post). Can someone give some details. I
> know it did a simulcast with Y-100 at certain times. When
> did it air, who were some of it's personalities, and when
> did Metroplex sell it. What was the purpose of it. Thanks

I should have mentioned it on this thread 2 weeks ago, but
WHTT is mentioned in November Radio News.

Thanks, David!

73s from 954<P ID="signature">______________
<center><font color=green size="+1">South Florida Radio Pages -- November Radio News</font></center></P>
 
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