WEND - A History
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WEND-AM 760 Brandon – The Tampa Bay area’s third talk radio station went on the air in 1988 as Brandon’s 5-kilowatt (1-kilowatt night) WEND, owned by Asti Broadcasting (Bruce Micek, president). Studios were located in the Feather Sound area of Clearwater. Initially, programming was drawn principally from the local Sun Radio Network and featured many hosts already familiar to the listening audience in Tampa Bay – Jack Ellery, Tim Coles, Chuck Harder, and psychologist Dr. Bob Moore.
In 1989, WEND launched a full-time program package (The Business END of Tampa Bay) from the Financial Broadcasting Network based in Century City, CA, which cut back drastically the station’s commitment from Sun. It was also the only Tampa Bay station at the time with an on-staff meteorologist (Bob Wilhite). A couple of years later, the AM received a power boost to 10,000 watts.
To reflect its city of license, WEND became WBDN (BranDoN) in 1993 when it was sold to Bloch Broadcasting (financial talk show host Irwin H. “Sonny” Bloch).
Other names in WEND history include Karl Moore (PD) and Joel Vincent, a.k.a. Howard Hewes (from Sun Network).
(Please contact us if you have additional information to share about WEND.)
Station History
1988 - 1993 Other Tampa Bay Area Stations (History)
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