WSWN

WSWN (900 AM) is a radio station formerly broadcasting a talk format branded as "Talk of the Palm Beaches." It was better known in the South Florida and Treasure Coast areas as "Sugar 900," named after the surrounding sugar cane industry in the Belle Glade and Pahokee area. The station is licensed to serve 18 counties across South Florida in the United States, and the Caribbean.[1]

WSWN
CityBelle Glade, Florida
Frequency900 kHz
Branding900 The Talk
SloganThe Talk of the Palm Beaches
Programming
FormatTalk
AffiliationsCBS Radio News
Ownership
OwnerSylna Leger-Brazile
(Sugar Broadcasting, Inc.)
WBGF, WSVU
History
First air date
October 5, 1947
Technical information
Facility ID59660
ClassD
Power1,000 watts day
22 watts night
Transmitter coordinates
26°42′43.00″N 80°40′59.00″W
Translator(s)107.1 W296DN (Belle Glade)
Links
WebcastListen Live
Website900TheTalk.com

The station is currently owned by Sylna Leger-Brazile, through licensee Sugar Broadcasting, Inc.

History

WSWN signed on as a daytime-only station October 5, 1947, broadcasting on 900 kHz with 1 kW power and was owned by Seminole Broadcasting Company. Licensed to Belle Glade, it was initially knowns as "The Mighty Ninety" (the same Seminole's WEAS in Savannah, Georgia) for many years since most radios of the time dropped the last zero of the frequency on their dials. Dee Rivers, the owner and operator of Seminole, branded both stations with the same positioning and ID's, since the signals of 900 kHz in Savannah and WSWN at 900 kHz in Belle Glade had overlapping coverage patterns, giving car based listeners a continuous, consistent format from Central Florida to Southern Georgia.

After WSWN won FCC approval to go to a 24-hour broadcast schedule, it rebranded as the "Little Station with the Long Reach" for its ability to be heard as far away as Charleston and Mobile from dusk till dawn. This extended coverage was in spite of its 1,000-watt signal barely reaching the western coastal city of West Palm Beach during the day.

Over the years, attempts at raising the power of WSWN 900 AM were blocked by the FCC due to signal overlap issues with WMOP 900 AM in the Gainesville-Ocala, Florida area. Destine to broadcast as a local-only station during the day, the 1970s saw WSWN's nighttime listenership erode with the emergence of country music powerhouses like WQAM in Miami and WIRK in West Palm Beach.

By that point, WSWN adopted a Southern Gospel and Country mix, with a niche Southern Gospel morning show, to appeal to the African American demographic of its Belle Glade coverage that was approximately 65 percent black. Then, in the early 90s, WSWN's new owners, Rivers Broadcasting. hired Joe Fisher as program director, who convinced Rivers to flip the format to what was then referred to as R&B, with a strong emphasis on Black Gospel. Rivers also had a long-forgotten station in Savannah, Georgia, which also carried an exclusive R&B format from the late 1940s until 1960, when it changed to a country music format. Eventually, due to popular demand, this station returned R&B to the station in the late night hours, as hosted by "Nat The Cat," who played a variety R&B music until the early 80s. His segment and time slot were affectionately known as Nat the Cat with Hot Butter Soul and also ran for a time at WSWN in Belle Glade. This led to Nat being known as the "First Black DJ of the Glades." Another popular host of WSWN was the down-to-earth, homespun Jimmy Sims, an American Gospel-type character from Alabama who had previously enjoyed success at a long-forgotten station in DeFuniak Springs, Florida. By the 1980s, on the Sugar airwaves, he was known as "Reverend Sims," though he was never formally ordained by the church.

It was at the point, with the popularity of "Reverend Sims," that WSWN repositioned with the moniker of "Sugar 900" (pronounced Suga-900)—a heartfelt reference to the number one industry in the Glades: Sugarcane farming and processing. While the station held onto the country format, it retained the black gospel music and preaching programming on Saturdays and Sundays. During this time, WSWN first began brokering airtime to local black ministries for the sake of financial survival.

Meanwhile, Belle Glade's lone FM frequency at 93.5 was also purchased by Rivers Broadcasting in 1965—and left dark for over a decade. It finally went on the air as WSWN-FM on October 10, 1978. On June 19, 1989, the station changed its call sign to the current WBGF. Rivers' plans to boost the signal of WSWN-FM to appeal to Hispanic audiences in Cuba were stymied because of the station's ineffective radiation pattern. At that point, being forced to put the station on the air or lose the frequency, Rivers put a Country format on 93.5 FM, broadcasting at 10,000 watts broadcast from a 420 ft. tower—the maximum power and tower height allowed by the FCC, due to 93.5 FM's close proximity to an airport and overlap issues with similar, 93.5 FM frequencies in the Vero Beach and Key Largo, Florida areas. Once again, as with 900 AM, another Belle Glade-based station was relegated to "local-only" status. Even with its own signal issues, "Sugar 900" soon prospered as a 24-hour black gospel station; meanwhile, WSWN 93.5 FM struggled to find an audience with a 24-hour country format.

The 80s

By the early 80s, with PD Joe Fisher allegedly fighting a crack cocaine addiction; an epidemic that swept the Belle Glade area, WSWN AM and FM floundered without direction. A series of forgotten, short lived PD's and program consultants failed to turn the AM FM combo around, and the station was regulated to hiring interns and fresh-faced graduates from the Connecticut School of Broadcasting as board operators, producers, and on-air hosts keep the station on the air. Phil Haire (affectionately come to be dubbed by the listeners as the "Glades Radio Boss") came to operate the stations for Rivers Broadcasting in the late 1980s and into the early 1990s. He eventually appointed his daughter, Tammy, as the program director for both stations. Eventually becoming the stations' General Manager upon her father's departure, Tammy flipped the country format of WSWN 93.5 FM to an adult contemporary "Soft Hits" format. WAFC 590 AM in the neighboring town of Clewiston, Florida, seeing a formatting hole, jumped on the country format. Even with its weak 930 watt signal, WAFC succeed where WSWN failed and found success with the county format. It was during this time Tammy Haire was dedicated to making 93.5 a winner and completed nearly $35,000.00 in improvements to the studios at WSWN-FM (now known as WBGF).

Phil Haire eventually mended his fences with Marie, the widowed owner of Rivers Broadcasting (then known as Seminole Broadcasting), once he successfully completed his cancer treatments. With Phil back in place, he fully automated the "new" WBGF 93.5 FM, and struck a deal to carry the old Jones Radio Networks' programming for $250.00 per station, per month, which also included an additional investment of $10,000 in computer automation equipment. The institution of automation saved money in the long run, as it reduced the stations' payrolls by an estimated 50 percent.

Haire also became one of the first groundbreaking broadcasters to institute a wide spread brokering format, selling blocks of airtime to anyone—regardless of their absence of any previous radio experience. Suddenly, the R&B/Gospel and Country music automated formats provided by Jones Radio Networks became nothing more than filler for unsold brokered airtime that supported the station-WSWN and WBGF aired a mixture of infomercials, broadcast ministries, political programs, and agency media sponsored programs, along with health, legal, and financial professionals selling goods and services to the Belle Glade and West Palm Beach areas. Haire would pass away in 2006.[2][3]

While brokered programming of airtime—on a limited basis—certainly wasn't new to radio, Haire was the first to aggressively expand time brokering into an actual "format" and "programming" edict. Thus, with the automation filling unsold airtime, and time brokered host that only required "non-talent" board operators, WSWN and WBGF-FM completely eliminated all programming and DJ positions at the station—no "program director" was needed; just an office/sales manager to sell and schedule brokered shows into whatever "open slots" were available, with no worry or care as to what programs aired when or where on the schedule. As result of Haire's newly found financial success with his all-inclusive brokered "format"—it quickly became the new business model for struggling, low wattage and limited coverage, local AMs and FMs across the U.S. Even as AM stations in larger metropolitan areas began to see their audiences erode in the late 80s, they also began instituting Haire's groundbreaking mix of automation and time brokering of airtime. Today, these stations still employ this method of programming, only now they utilize the Internet, iPod, and satellite services.

The 90s

By 1996, WSWN and WBGF-FM had been on the block for several years, as Marie Rivers wanted to retire from the broadcasting business. In stepped two business partners from New York calling themselves "Atlas News & Information Service, Inc." David Lampel[4] was the hands-on "radio man" who had worked his way from a DJ to a program director and eventually as a General Manager at WLIB in New York City, then to the position of Senior Vice President of the station's parent company—Inner City Broadcasting Corporation.[5] Lampel's partner, Michael Wach, was a sales and administration specialist with connections, and had served as vice president and general manager of WLNY-TV on Long Island and held executive positions with WPIX-TV in New York and Boston's WHDH-TV. Together, they had already purchased a television station and several radio stations in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

Under Lampel and Wach's direction, WBGF-FM and WSWN were united with a 100,000 watt FM in Islamorada in the central Florida Keys as "BGI Broadcasting." Their first move was flip WBGF-FM to Jones Radios' new "Hot Country Format" and positioned the station as "Big Dawg Country" and developed a live and local morning show. WSWN was flipped to the "Urban Gold" format offered by the ABC Radio Networks, while continuing with live and local Gospel music programming on Saturdays from 6 to 10 AM and Sundays from 6 AM to 6 PM—sometimes longer, depending on how much airtime was sold/purchased by local churches to support the black gospel format.

In 1998, Michael Wach sold his interest in "Atlas News & Information Service, Inc." to become vice president and general manager at WNYW/FOX 5 TV in New York, the Fox Network's flagship station. This left Lampel as majority shareholder and outright owner of the AM and FM combo. Since Lampel directed operations from New York, the stations retained the status quo—with more employees dismissed to streamline operations. By 1999, the entire staff (including part-time) consisted of less than 10 staffers (board operators to engineer the brokered programming).

The 2000s

By 2000, the decision was made for WSWN and WBGF to swap their respective studios. The more financially viable WSWN "Sugar 900" moved from its cramped, antiquated studios into the state of the art WBGF-FM studios (built during the Tammy Haire years); while the failing FM was placed inside WSWN's old studios.

These programming changes led to personal changes for the popular Jimmy "Reverend" Sims, who managed to keep his job through the various format changes and ownerships. For years Sims had battled a variety of ailments including severe arthritis that left him with gnarled digits and painful joints. He was physically unable to stand for long periods at the much higher console in the former FM studio. When the counter-height chairs that had been provided still complicated his condition, ownership was unmoved and offered no further compromise. Sims was slowly fazed-out from the airwaves of WSWN. The inevitable wave of complaints from loyal listeners and the threat of a lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act changed nothing. Sims long 38-year association with broadcasting in the Glades came to an unceremonious end.

After Sims' departure, the stations continued to be owned by Atlas News & Information, Inc./BGI Broadcasting—which relocated from New York to Las Vegas. WSWN remained a Gospel station, but WBGF eventually ditched Jones and ABC Networks' programming and produced a local-in-house Mexican Regional format to service the ethnic sharecroppers of the Belle Glade area, where the population demographic had long since shifted from being African American/Caribbean-based to Latin/Mexican. With the new Mexican format, 93.5 WBGF became known as "Radio Lobo."[6] Phil Haire remained as GM until his death in April 2006 and he was replaced by Mike D'Augustine as Station and General Manager.

2014 to 2017

Then, on September 29, 2014, WSWN "Sugar 900" was no more, as the station was purchased by JVC Broadcasting of New York—along with WSWN's FM sister station, WBGF 93.5. Retaining its call letters, WSWN flipped to brokered and satellite talk as "The Talk of the Palm Beaches," and carried a live and local morning news and talk program hosted by local radio mainstays Gerard Campell (formerly of WFTL 850 AM "News Talk") and Lindy Rome (of Sunny 104.3 FM). WBGF 93.5 dumped the regional Mexican programming and became "93.5 The Bar" with an Alternative Active Rock format and carried the controversial and syndicated "Bubba the Love Sponge" radio program.[7]

By May 19, 2017, ANCO Media Group purchased WBGF 93.5 and rebranded it as a dance rock format, "Revolution 93.5" creating a mini-South Florida radio network—mirroring a station the Keys, and two FM translators, one in Dade and one in Broward County.[8]

By November 2017, JVC Media co-founder Vic Canales, in a pair of deals worth a combined $751,111, sold his ownership position in the company. Canales—better known by his on-air name "Vic Latino"—stuck a deal to swap his stake in the nine-year-old company for a trio of signals. Canales exchanged his shares worth a combined $450,000 for oldies WSVU (960) and two translators: the North Palm Beach, FL-licensed translator W240CI at 95.5 FM and the Jupiter, FL-licensed translator W295BJ at 106.9 FM. Together the three signals were/are branded as "True Oldies Channel 95.9-106.9." Once the deal closed, JVC Media continued to own and operate WSWN 900 AM.[9]

By December 1, 2017, WSWN 900 dumped its network satellite, time brokered catch-all of health, legal, financial, and entertainment infomercial programming as "The Talk of the Palm Beaches" and returned to 24-hour brokered black gospel programming as the "New Sugar 900." Now, during its unsold airtime, it runs black gospel music as its filler programming. The station brought back Sugar 900's most recent and extremely popular morning show host, "Church Boy," with his 6 to 10 am weekday morning show and Gospel radio veteran Dawn Brady who first made her voice heard to Sugar 900 listeners in 2008. The broadcast industry publications Radio and Television Business Report, All Access, Radio Insight confirmed the sale of WSWN 900 AM to James Leger's Sugar Broadcasting.[10][11][12]

Meanwhile 93.5 WBGF is currently in the midst of a deal that will result in the station to become one of the United States' first foreign owned broadcast facilities—by Marco Mazzoli an extremely popular Italian/Milan-based radio personality.[13][14]

Effective August 10, 2018, JVC Media sold WSWN to Sugar Broadcasting, Inc. for $125,000.

The influence of Harvey J. Poole Sr. on WSWN and WBGF

No commentary on the history of radio in the Glades, and specifically WSWN and WBGF, would be complete without the mention of Harvey J. Poole Sr. Born in Georgia, Poole came to Belle Glade in the 1930s. Following several menial jobs Poole landed at WSWN in 1947 and over the next five decades served loyally in various roles, most notably air personality and account executive—all the while suffering racial indignities from an alleged attempted lynching by area teenagers, to extreme prejudice by landlords and employers. He quietly built a large stable of clients and became known to listeners as the "Ebony Voice of the Glades" for his deep-throated tones that could be equally thunderous or velvety soft. Somewhere in there he managed to buy a home, run several of his own businesses, become a pillar of church & community and raise 4 children with his wife. Close associates knew him as Brother Poole and greatly respected his age and gentle wisdom. Poole passed away on April 23, 2008, at the age of 94. Poole's son, Harvey Jr., (known professionally on-air as Harvey J) soon became the program director of WSWN.

(Updated biography as of December 7/8, 2017, based on extensive information provided by Mark Tillery of Ocala, Florida)

References

History Information by Mark Tillery, Ocala, Florida

  1. "WSWN Facility Record". United States Federal Communications Commission, audio division.
  2. "WSWN-WBGF/Belle Glade, FL GM Phil Haire Dies". All Access.
  3. "Google Groups". groups.google.com.
  4. "New York Magazine". 1990-08-20.
  5. Shipp, E. R. (January 22, 1988). "WLIB: Radio 'Heartbeat' of Black Life" – via NYTimes.com.
  6. "WBGF Flips To Rock". All Access.
  7. "True Oldies Moves In West Palm Beach". August 16, 2017.
  8. "Revolution 93.5 Miami Adds New Morning Show; Expanding To Palm Beaches". May 19, 2017.
  9. "Vic Latino Splits From JVC Broadcasting; Acquires West Palm Beach Station". November 13, 2017.
  10. Jacobson, Adam (December 12, 2017). "JVC Makes A 'Sugar'-Sweet Deal In The Sunshine State | Radio & Television Business Report".
  11. "Sold: Arizona Trio, Florida AM". All Access.
  12. "Station Sales Week Of 12/15". December 15, 2017.
  13. "Station Sales Week Of 12/1: An Italian Dance Revolution In South Florida". December 1, 2017.
  14. "Miami's 'Revolution Radio' Asks FCC To Let It Have Foreign Ownership". All Access.
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