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Your All-Time Favorite Miami Station

Mike Sheridan said:
Joe Amaturo was a fine station owner and has given so much to the community.
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I did a couple of consulting projects for Joe, and he was fun to work for and a genuinely nice guy. And I ran into Michael several times and found him talented and far less ego driven than many. That must have been a good four or five years you spent with that team. šŸ˜Š

Guys like that make up for the piles of excrement we step into along the way..
 
Mike Sheridan said:
WFTL 14 yes the station Neil called the light bulb. I worked there so I'm partial 1974-1978. WFTL was by far the best station I have ever worked for. Topical promotions, a window sticker campaign that made people aware of the station, and talent from the majors like PD Michael O'Shea and news man Ted Agnew from KLIF Dallas, News Director Joe Barbarette, air personalities Chuck Parmalee from WSPD Toledo, long time morning man John Lupton who joined WFTL from WCAU Philadelphia, Charlie Warren a super talent who would go on to WBEN Buffalo, WWSW Pittsburgh and WMAL Washington, DC. WFTL was named Billboard MOR Station of The Year Medium Market 1976. Joe Amaturo was a fine station owner and has given so much to the community.
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This episode of Leonard Nimoy's 'In Search of...' where WFTL was featured always gave me the creeps.
 
strangelove said:
This episode of Leonard Nimoy's 'In Search of...' where WFTL was featured always gave me the creeps.
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I was there that night. Most likely preparing my show. I remember hearing it when it happened. To this day I have no idea what the caller was talking about. Some thought it was staged but 20+ years later (at the WFTL reunion just prior to 9/11) no one said it was.
 
Mike Sheridan said:
I was there that night. Most likely preparing my show. I remember hearing it when it happened. To this day I have no idea what the caller was talking about. Some thought it was staged but 20+ years later (at the WFTL reunion just prior to 9/11) no one said it was.
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What was the format of the station at the time? Did they do music, news and talk?
 
strangelove said:
What was the format of the station at the time? Did they do music, news and talk?
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MOR/AC with a night time telephone talk show that was hosted by John Stupak (he later did the medical talk show "Sunday Rounds" nationally for NPR). WFTL was the WIOD of Broward County heavy on local news and sports. WFTL sent sports director Jack Zeman to Wimbledon England to cover Fort Lauderdale tennis star Chris Evert in the Tennis Classic for several years.
 
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Mike Sheridan said:
MOR/AC with a night time telephone talk show that was hosted by John Stupak (he later did the medical talk show "Sunday Rounds" nationally for NPR). WFTL was the WIOD of Broward County heavy on local news and sports. WFTL sent sports director Jack Zeman to Wimbledon England to cover Fort Lauderdale tennis star Chris Evert in the Tennis Classic for several years.
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Those WFTL bumper stickers were everywhere
 
Mike Sheridan said:
MOR/AC with a night time telephone talk show that was hosted by John Stupak (he later did the medical talk show "Sunday Rounds" nationally for NPR). WFTL was the WIOD of Broward County heavy on local news and sports. WFTL sent sports director Jack Zeman to Wimbledon England to cover Fort Lauderdale tennis star Chris Evert in the Tennis Classic for several years.
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Sounds like quite a station!
 
Phil Harmonic said:
Those WFTL bumper stickers were everywhere
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Yes they were but we called them rear window stickers. Very plain so they could be super visible made of high quality vinyl. It's easy to get kids to put a sticker on their car not so easy when your target is 35+ Adults. We gave away a lot of cash and prizes. WFTL kept it going for years. That's where I learned promote, promote, promote. By the time you are sick of hearing about a promotion the listener is just hearing about it!
strangelove said:
Sounds like quite a station!
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You wouldn't know it from the hole in the wall we worked in. If you know where Y-100 started at US-1 and Oakland Park Blvd we were diagonally across the street in a center called "Times Square". It was old and cramped but had very good equipment when I look at the Miami stations of that time.

WFTL/WGLO moved to a new modern building at the WFTL transmitter site in 1978 but the magic was gone after the move, it wasn't quite the same.
 
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Mike Sheridan said:
Yes they were but we called them rear window stickers. Very plain so they could be super visible made of high quality vinyl. It's easy to get kids to put a sticker on their car not so easy when your target is 35+ Adults. We gave away a lot of cash and prizes. WFTL kept it going for years. That's where I learned promote, promote, promote. By the time you are sick of hearing about a promotion the listener is just hearing about it!

You wouldn't know it from the hole in the wall we worked in. If you know where Y-100 started at US-1 and Oakland Park Blvd we were diagonally across the street in a center called "Times Square". It was old and cramped but had very good equipment when I look at the Miami stations of that time.

WFTL/WGLO moved to a new modern building at the WFTL transmitter site in 1978 but the magic was gone after the move, it wasn't quite the same.
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isn't it amazing how a move of the studios can change a station...
 
BocaWayne said:
The great diversity of answers is interesting. It really does come down to personal tastes that are as unique as a fingerprint. I'll say Love 94 in the Billy Raven/Gina Martel era. Legendary talents. Like (apparently) everyone else, I ultimately wearied of smooth jazz, but back in the day it was all I listened to. Stu Grant's "Sunday Jazz Brunch" was appointment listening.
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Stu Grant, cool.... they were heavy on Spyro Gyra...
 
Love 94 had a few unique formats, the mellow rock format they did as well as smooth jazz. Love 94 turned me on to Heavy Shift' "90 Degrees In The Shade" from the now rare CD "Unchain Your Mind". Very cool!
 
To me, the most classic Miami station is Power 96. My cousin gave me a cassette of their music back in 1990.

This was before online steaming, YouTube Videos.

The only way I could find most of this music was on this cassette. Most of the younger generation can't and won't relate to how hard it was to be able listen to the music we liked....

Now we have music and movies at our fingertips!
Less of a programmer telling us what we should like...
 
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DavidEduardo said:
I have several favorites from different eras.

Later 60's: WFUN. A great Top 40 under PD Dick Starr. A bad signal, but they beat or tied WQAM often.
Early 80's: Y-100 with Bill Tanner. My idea of the best CHR in America. Great talent, locally focused music, enormous promotions.
Early 90's: Power. Tanner again, with a sound that was just pure Miami.
Later 90's: Amor 107.5. Javier & Osvaldo, Betty Pino, Tony Campos, Claudia Puig and our team with Bill Tanner and myself.
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Bill Tanner programed WSHE for a while
 
ScottBurns said:
As the title of the thread says, what is your all-time favorite Miami station? For context, from what era? I'll start with Power 96 from the late '80s and early '90s. The station seemed to have different formats in different dayparts. It was Urban/Rhythmic at night, with many mix shows. During the day, they played Rock-leaning CHR songs at times. They also had legendary personalities, from Don Cox to Kid Curry to Dimas.

In the West Palm Beach market, I loved 95.5 WOVV when I was growing up. I preferred CHR, and I loved this station's energy. From upbeat jocks to music that was also programmed to the daypart, the only drawback was a signal that started to fade from Delray south.
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My all time favorite is 97.3 The Coast. There was nothing that compared to having Gnarly Charlie and a Totally 80's Weekend. Era is 2010s

If I had to choose a second favorite, it would definitely would be the first version of 93.9 MIA, when it was "Move to the Music" dance hits. That's the only other station I would Jam/Stream/Whatever when the Coast wasn't doing 80s. The mix of music was outstanding and it was fun to listen too.

My third favorite would 1210 WNMA during the time they had no programming and ran non-stop pop hits without commercials. That station was fun to listen to and it introduced me to a lot of Spanish songs I didn't know I liked.
 
itsTheRolyPoly said:
Yeah. I used to travel to Palm Beach county for school and the 93.5 signal just stinks. They have one closeby in Belle Glade but it doesn't even reach WPB that well.
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WHYI-hd2 carries revolution 93.5. It has a a strong signal all over Dade and Broward. It signal is solid in at least the lower half of Palm Beach.
 
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