WISP - A History
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WISP-FM 98.7 Holmes Beach – In 1992, Alpalm Broadcasting (which also owned Alpine Broadcasting’s WAVV-FM in Naples), acquired Holmes Beach’s three-kilowatt WAYP (which was silent), changed the call letters to WISP, and installed a soft adult contemporary format. Its tower/transmitter remained at the original site off Cortez Road in Bradenton and studios were set up in the Ellis Building on Main Street in Sarasota.
Alpalm sold WISP to Entercom, a Pennsylvania company, for $2.9 million in 1994 and the soft A/C format was retained. A few years later, power was upgraded to 50,000 watts in a tower site move to western Pinellas County off Park Boulevard.
In 1998, Infinity acquired WISP and flipped it to rhythmic CHR WLLD (WiLD 98.7). Studios were relocated St. Petersburg, joining others in the Infinity cluster near 4th Street North and Gandy Boulevard.
Names from WISP-FM history include Alpalm Broadcasting’s Norman R. Alpert (co-owner 1992-1995) and David E. Alpert (co-owner/GM 1992-1995), Brad Moore (afternoons/evenings on-air 1993-1998), and Drew Rashbaum (vice-president/GM 1998).
(Please contact us if you have additional information to share about WISP-FM.)
Logo courtesy Rich Marino
Station History
1992 - 1998 Other Tampa Bay Area Stations (History)
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