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Bob Barnes
Beginning his career as a 15-year old high school freshman, Bob’s first radio job was weekend work at WSEN in Syracuse, New York, the first station north of the Mason-Dixie Line to go country fulltime. By his senior year at Syracuse University (where he earned his Master’s Degree from S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications), he had pulled part-time shifts at other stations in the market including WOLF and WFBL. Following active duty time at Fort Dix, he returned to WSEN as program director while becoming the first part-time Master’s student in the R-TV program.
In 1975, after too many years of snow, Bob moved to Tampa Bay to program Bradenton’s WDUV-FM and WBRD-AM (Your Kind of Country). For about a year after that, he worked out of the area at KVET / KASE in Austin, Texas where he began work on a PhD. He has been a radio station owner (Bradenton’s WTRL-AM 1490), a sports broadcasting writer for the Bradenton Herald, air talent with Sarasota’s WSPB-AM/WMLO-FM (mid 80’s), and a part-time instructor in radio production at Onondaga Community College, and in writing for Mass Communications at Manatee Community College.
Bob has also done TV work. He was a sports anchor on Sarasota’s WXLT-TV, the first traffic reporter on WTVT Channel 13, a Charley Award winner for best TV commercials in the state (1983), and a co-producer of the Les McDowell TV show. For six years, he was air talent and operations manager at Metro Traffic and Florida Traffic Watch in Tampa. With Metro, he supervised all of their markets east of the Mississippi.
Today (2008), Bob owns and operates The On-Hold Company USA in Bradenton, an award-winning production firm serving clients in over 20 states. He also hosts a weekly public affairs show on St. Petersburg’s WFTI-FM 91.7 and several other stations outside the market, and recently recorded an audio book for Cool Beat.
Station History
1975 - 2008 Other Tampa Bay Area Stations (Various)
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