WFUN MIAMI - TRIBUTE WEBSITE - FUN 79 - WFUNTRIBUTE.COM

Guest Deejay
on WFUN
BACK ISSUES OF
SOUTH FLORIDA RADIO NEWS
If you can see this, your browser doesn't understand IFRAME. <P>However, we'll still <A HREF="http://radiopages.net/radio/backissues.html">link</A> you to the file.

A Brief History of WFUN 790
Copyright 2007 by David H. Citron
From around 1961 until 1976, WFUN was Miami Radio's legendary Top 40 station and the main competition for WQAM Tiger Radio. It was "the first competitor Top 40 station in the country to beat any of Todd Storz's stations" says Russ Oasis. "For the 10 years between 1961-1971 the Storz stations were a well run chain and the battle between WQAM and WFUN was observed by the entire country."
Before the rock & roll era, WFUN had been a daytime-only station at 800 kilocycles on the AM dial. Then, in the early 1960's, the station migrated down the dial to 790 and went full-time. They were licensed to the city of South Miami and located way out in the boonies on Sunset Drive.

"I started out in Miami Radio when Rick Shaw was a foreign car"... WFUN deejay Bob Gordon

After the move to 790, WFUN had a directional signal to protect stations in Cuba and central Florida.
Despite coverage limitations, especially to the southwest, WFUN competed vigorously with WQAM throughout the 60s, and even won some ratings sweeps. During the late 60s and early 70s, pop music showed up on FM: "She's Only Rock N Roll" WSHE, WMYQ, and "Y-100" WHYI.
In 1966, one of WFUN's former deejays used bits of the WFUN format to help create the short-lived sound of Swinging Radio England off the southeast coast of England.
Top 40 on AM became more competitive, too, when WINZ briefly joined the fray. Ultimately many listeners moved to FM for music, and in 1976, WFUN was sold and became News/Talk WNWS and later middle-of-the-road station WMRZ, followed by WAXY which was brokered talk. Now "790 The Ticket" sports is the format of our former beloved station.
In 1971, I was fortunate enough to be chosen Guest Deejay For The Day, and to appear on the WFUN 790 with Don Wright. You can read about it in Guest Deejay on WFUN.
Both WFUN and WQAM played a prominent role in retired deejay Bob Gordon's autobiography, Invisible Tears: How Do You Keep the Music Playing?. You can read about a WFUN sticker promotion in an excerpt from his book in Invisible Tears: Miami Radio, Through The Eyes And Ears Of DJ Bob Gordon, part of South Florida Radio History.
Thank you to Russ Oasis, Alan Polasky, Bob Gordon, and Wikipedia for some of the above info.

- Add Stuff - Get Your Own

Sign the WFUN Tribute Guestbook - Click Here