Frank Benny
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Chicago-born Frank Biniak enjoyed a career that spanned better than four decades. Taking the Frank Benny moniker in 1957, he began his radio career at a small station in Ridgecrest, California. After leaving Loyola University in Los Angeles, where he majored in electrical engineering for two years, the 20-year old traveled coast to coast from one top rated job to the next.
After a couple years (1963-1965) in Portland, Oregon at KISN, he spent nearly 25 years (1965-1989) in Buffalo, New York, most of them with WGR. While there, he was a major player when the station won Billboard’s “Radio Station of the Year” award in 1977. He also became WGR-TV’s 6 and 11 P.M. weatherman and host of its “Bowling for Dollars,” “4:00 Movie,” and numerous telethons. Nineteen years later, he moved across town to WYRK (1985) and then to WBEN (1986-1989).
When he packed up and moved to Florida, Frank settled in the Sarasota area and did news for Clear Channel’s WCTQ and The Dove WDDV. He had been news director for WENG in Englewood for about a year at the time of his death in 2005 from complications of pneumonia at the age of 67. In 2010, he was posthumously inducted into the Buffalo Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
Station History
1991 - 2005 Other Tampa Bay Area Stations (News)
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