WTMY - A History
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WTMY-AM 1280 Sarasota – Hugh Keith Enterprises, Inc. (Hugh Keith, president) flipped the format and calls for its 500-watt (340 watts at night) nostalgia WSGX-AM 1280 to golden oldies WTMY in 1991. It operated from offices and studios at the transmitter/tower site, a directional two-tower array, at 2101 Hammock Place, off 17th Street in Sarasota.
Pana Media of Sarasota, Inc. (Howard Goldsmith, president) acquired WTMY in 1993 and switched its format to money/talk and health/talk with some programming in Spanish. Metropolitan Radio Group (Gary Acker, president) bought the outlet in 1996, and then Polnet Communications in 2007 (Sarasota’s Suncoast Station/The Talk Station), which aired syndicated programming from national talk show hosts Laura Ingraham, Mancow Muller, and others, as well as some locally-produced shows.
In mid-August 2011, WTMY became a Fox Sports affiliate and transitioned to a 24/7 sports talk format (The Sports Fanatic). New programming additions included local Riverview Rams high school football, FSU football, and a schedule of NFL games. Local programming now originates from new studios at 1956 Main Street in downtown Sarasota. No longer with its tower/transmitter site at the long-time Hammock Place address, the station shares tower space with AM-1450 on City Island.
Names from WTMY history include Edward Peteja (GM-1992), Mike Stone (PD-1992), Ed Edwards (news director-1992), Ed Allen (chief engineer-1992), Bill Wheatley (PD-1993), T. Michael Craft (GM/sales manager-1994), Melanie Ripley (promotions-1994), Roy “Bud” Smith (PD-1994), Frank Pineiro (music director-1994), Peter Schafhausen (news director-1995), Valerie Silver (operations/promotions-1999; GM-2002), Greg Durkin (GM-2008), Jerry Shames (GM-2009), Patrick Hooper and Jennifer Johns (mornings-2009), Lenny Lyons (production director-2009; GM-2010), Phil Russell (host of “Sarasota Late Night”-2009; operations director-2010; GM-2011), Rochelle Herman (sales-2010), Alex Smith (operations-2011), and Gino Norman (operations-2011).
(Please contact us if you have additional information to share about WTMY.)
Station History
1991 - 2011 Other Tampa Bay Area Stations (History)
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