WGGG-AM
1230Gainesville
Original Call Letters: WGGG
Origin of Call Letters : Watch Greater Gainesville Grow
Originally Licensed: Feb 1948
Original City of License: Gainesville
Original Frequency: 1230Khz
Original Power: 100 watts
Original Format: MOR
Network Affiliation(s): CBS
Owner(s):1948-The City of Gainesville
1968-Bob Brown
1972-Quality Broadcasting, Inc. (Victor M. Knight-co-owned with WDBF-AM 1420 Delray Beach, WNDB-AM 1150
and WDNJ-FM 94.5 Daytona Beach)
1978-Miller Broadcasting, Inc. (Howard A. Miller-co-owned with WMMB-AM 1240 and WYRL-FM 102.3 Melbourne)
1981-U. S. Broadcasting Corporation (Fred Mazey, et al, co-owned with KMPX-FM 98.9 San Francisco)
1984-American Communications and Television, Inc. (Mark Goldstein, Harvey Budd, co-owned with
WGLV-FM 97.7 Micanopy, WGFL-TV 53 High Springs, WTMG-FM 95.9 Tallahassee)
1986-Rick Stacey (former WHLY-FM 106.7 Program Director)
1988-Gator Broadcasting, Inc. (David Gregg)
1993-H. I. “Sonny” Bloch
1997-Florida Sportstalk (Buddy Martin, Gordon Smith and Jeff Francis)
History Of Call Letters and Formats: WGGG-1948-Big Bands, MOR, CBS Network Dramas “Watch Greater Gainesville Grow”
WGGG-1958-Big Bands, MOR, Show Tunes, CBS Network Dramas
WGGG-1968-Top 40 “Rock 1230” “G 1230” “The Super G” “ Super GGG”
WGGG-1981-Adult Contemporary “Gainesville’s Great Radio Station, WGGG”
WGGG-1985-Oldies “Oldies 1230 WGGG”
WGGG-1987-News-Talk “Talk Radio 1230”
WGGG-1993-Off The Air
WGGG-1996-Classical “Culture Radio 1230, WGGG”
WGGG-1997-Sports Talk “Sportstalk 1230”
WGGG-1999-Sports Talk “ESPN 1230 WGGG”
History of WGGG
Thanks to Marc Tyll for this history of WGGG.
Twenty years after Gainesville’s first radio station - WRUF-AM 850 - went on the, the area’s second radio station,
WGGG-AM 1230 began operation. The year was 1948 as the country was in an economic boom period following the end of World War II. Hoping to cash in on a prosperous economy, the City of Gainesville applied for the frequency 1230 Kilocycles. The Federal Communications Commission soon thereafter granted the construction permit and authorized a power of 100 watts unlimited. The call letters WGGG - Watch Greater Gainesville Grow - were soon granted. The city had planned to use the new radio medium as a means of promoting economic growth within the City of Gainesville and the surrounding outlining area of Alachua County. Plans were underway to construct the radio tower and studio building in the Northeast section of town. The physical address was 1230 Northeast Waldo Road, located approximately half way between downtown Gainesville and the Gainesville Municipal Airport (now the Gainesville Regional Airport). The site was on approximately one acre of land situated on the West side of Waldo Road. In preparation to build the new 100 watt full-time Standard Broadcast Station, the land was cleared to make room for the new tower and studio building. Since WMGG's 1230 KC local channel was authorized to transmit with a non directional antenna system, only one tower was needed. An all steel self supporting tower was designed, manufactured and delivered to the site in late 1947. The tower base was 25’ X 25’ gradually coming to a point approximately two thirds the way up or at approximately the 180 foot level. The remaining 80 feet of so went straight up, all self supporting. While the tower was being installed, the studio building construction was also well underway. A 2,000 square foot masonry building had been very uniquely designed in an effort to reduce the likelihood of any unwanted noise going out over the air. Since there was a rail road, owned and operated by Seaboard Coastline, located directly across the street from where the radio station was being constructed, there was concern the station might experience noise and vibrations from the passing trains. So in an effort to reduce rail noise, the architect designed the building around the on-air studio. The studio was placed in the exact center of the building with a hallway going around the building, completely surrounding the studio. Offices were constructed on the outer edge of the hallway, opposite the studio, against the exterior walls. This design gave the WGGG on-air studio a “double” sound barrier, completely eliminating any unwanted noise from passing trains or airplanes passing nearby on the way to the municipal airport. By January 1948, the station construction was completed. WGGG signed on the air with 100 watts non directional on February 1st, 1948 with a blend of big band music, show tunes, news, information and network programming from the CBS Radio Network. The station’s slogan was "Watch Greater Gainesville Grow" and was promoted very heavily by the City of Gainesville. Later WGGG increased its power to 250 watts unlimited. Eventually the City of Gainesville sold WGGG to Quality Broadcasting, Inc., owned by Delray Beach resident Victor M. Knight. Knight owned WDBF-AM 1420 Delray Beach, and WNDB-AM 1150 and WDNJ-FM 94.5 Daytona Beach, Florida. The format remained mostly big bands, adult standards, MOR and news programming, but the CBS Radio network was dropped, leaving WGGG as an independent radio station. Beautiful Music and Classical formatted WRUF-FM 103.7 soon became the area’s CBS affiliate, leaving WGGG without a national network. A power increase was applied for and granted, allowing WGGG to increase its power to 1,000 watts non directional day but remained 250 watts at night. Soon after buying WGGG, Knight began to realize WGGG was experiencing a decline in market share. Additionally, the ever increasing and growing popularity of progressive rocker WGVL-FM 105.5, caused management to seriously consider a new format and marketing strategy for WGGG. In 1968 the MOR and big band tunes were replaced with . The station became known as “Rock 1230”, “G 1230”, “Super G” and “Super GGG”. The strategy was an overnight, but short lived, success. So plans were underway once again to reformat WGGG into a profitable radio station. Because of the growing popularity and market acceptance of Top 40 formatted “Music Radio Eighty-Five, WRUF”, management determined Top 40 would be the best alternative. Former WUWU-AM 1390 “The WOO WOO” morning man S. W. “Boomer” Hough was hired to become WMGG's new morning host and program director. Under Boomer’s programming style, WGGG quickly became the number one radio station in Gainesville, maintaining that position for many years. Seeing an opportunity to get the best return on investment now that WGGG went from “worst to first”, Knight sold WGGG to Chicago radio talk host Howard A. Miller for $1.2 Million in 1978. Miller was building a Florida radio group when he added WGGG to his radio portfolio which also included WMMB-AM 1240 and WYRL-FM 102.3 Melbourne, Florida. WGGG Advertising Assistant Tom Calato, who was 25 at the time and who was also a recent UF graduate, had won numerous “Addy” awards for his creative copywriting, was promoted to General Manager of WGGG. Morning Host and Program Director Boomer Hough briefly left WGGG to became an airline flight attendant for TWA, but soon returned to his hometown of Gainesville, and also returned to WGGG where he once again took over the morning and programming duties. WGGG continued to be Gainesville’s number one radio station throughout the remainder of the 70s and early 80s. Many changes on the Gainesville radio airwaves were underway in 1981. Longtime heritage progressive/AOR WGVL-FM 105.5 was sold and the programming was switched to CHR under a new moniker "Kiss 105" with the call letters WYKS-FM 105.3. WGGG began to lose its Top 40 listeners to the new CHR Kiss 105, so Miller decided to sell WGGG to newly formed New Brunswick, New Jersey based U.S. Broadcasting, Inc. U.S. was owned by corporate attorney Fred Mazey who hired former WNBC-AM 660 New York General Manager Charlie Warner as a consultant to the company. Warner recommended that WGGG should become an oldies based adult contemporary station catering to the 25-54 year old adult. Warner also recommended that former WAPE-AM 690 Jacksonville air personality Mike Bonts be hired as WGGG's program director, replacing “Boomer” in that capacity. Boomer, however, stayed on as WMGG's long time morning show host.
Former WTMC-AM 1290 Ocala Program Director, Marc Tyll, who had just begun classes at the University of Florida, was hired as WGGG's Operations Manager and Assistant Program Director. Tyll was given the responsibility of assisting Bonts with the format transition from Top 40 to Adult Contemporary. The studio was also being renovated into a new state of the art facility, while the music library was being transferred from record to cart. The new WGGG adult contemporary on-air line-up in 1981 was Sumner Wayne “Boomer” Hugh 6-10 Mornings; Mike Bonts 10- 3 Mid-days; Marc Tyll 3-7 Afternoons; Chip Sorentino 7-Midnight; and Steve Mitchell Midnight to 6 overnights. Later former WPTR-AM Albany, New York morning personality Joe MacKay was brought in - via Gainesville’s WKGR - to replace Bonts as Program Director. Tyll graduated from UF and headed to Daytona to assume the 7 to Midnight shift on WDOQ-FM 101.9 "Q 102". Several air personality changes took place with WGGG eventually becoming a Transtar Format 41 satellite programming affiliate, eliminating all local air staff accept Boomer who remained on the morning show. Mazey decided to sell WGGG to American Communications and Television’s Mark Goldstein and Harvey Budd who were in the process of bringing Gainesville a new adult contemporary FM station: WGLV-FM 97.7 which would become “Gainesville’s Love 98”. Mazey retained the WGGG building and tower located at 1230 Northeast Waldo Road with plans to lease it back to Goldstein and Budd. Instead Budd moved WGGG to the WGLV studio location which was located at 900 Northeast 6th street. The original WGGG building sat empty for a year and a half before it was sold to Comco headed by former WFTV channel 9 President Walter Windsor. Comco planned to move the former WRYO-FM 98.5 (now WKTK) studios from Homosassa Springs to Gainesville, operating from the former WGGG building. The transmitter and tower site were also eventually moved to an area in West Gainesville. Boomer moved to over to do mornings on sister station WGLV-FM. Goldstein and Budd kept WGGG along with WGLV for about a year before it was sold to former WHLY Program Director Rick Stacy. The format was changed to oldies. Boomer, however, left radio to become a cruise captain in Jacksonville, taking tourist on boat cruises along the St. Johns River. A year later Stacy sold WGGG-AM and WGLV-FM to Gator Broadcasting, owned by David Gregg. Once again, the format was changed, this time to CNN Headline News. Gregg took WGGG off the air and sold the license to H. I. “Sonny” Bloch, but retained WGLV-FM. Bloch never placed WGGG back on the air and eventually sold the license to its current owner, Florida Sportstalk, Inc., owned by UF Alumni , realtor and Ocala resident Gordon P. Smith. Smith immediately placed WGGG back on the air with plans to rebroadcast Ocala’s WMOP-AM 900. Smith had purchased Ocala’s heritage country station WMOP-AM 900 in 1996 and switched the programming to One-On-One Sports radio, later becoming ESPN Radio. While Smith was awaiting the engineers to complete the technical portion with an STL capable of reaching Gainesville from Ocala, WGGG went back on the air with a temporary classical music format. Once the two stations were interconnected, Smith was able to extend Floridasportstalk programming throughout North Central Florida, including the entire Gainesville-Ocala Metro and Total Survey Area with a signal from two stations: WMOP-AM 900 Ocala and WGGG-AM 1230 Gainesville. Today WGGG continues to rebroadcast ESPN and local sports programming which originates in Ocala from WMOP. The stations combined to carry NASCAR, Florida Seminoles, Florida Gators (on WMOP), local high school sports and national sports from ESPN. Together the stations are known as ESPN 900 and 1230.
More history from David
Reaves"Before 1968, WGGG was a full-time, though not 24-hour, local channel AM station, playing relatively easy-going fare, as an affiliate of the CBS Radio Network. I remember hearing Arthur Godfrey's meanderings during WGGG's middays. The station was bland, to say the least. They did have that catchy slogan ("Watching Greater Gainesville Grow"), with matching frequency 1230 kHz, address 1230 Waldo Road, and phone number 376-1230. Typical upbeat jingle: "WGGG, dial 1-2-3!"
Located on the east side of town, WGGG's location would eventually prove to be a handicap due to the population's general westward shift, along the axis of University Avenue. But in the 1960's this was yet to be a problem. In the early to mid 60s, Gainesville's real Top Forty power was the 5kW, daytime-only WDVH-AM 980 ("The Great 98"). WDVH was the station to introduce The Beatles and the British invasion to Gainesville, along with American rockers such as the Standells and Paul Revere & the Raiders. WDVH, however, played little or no soul music... "Very lily white" as I recall hearing WGGG PD Pete ("Winters") Sautter explain..." "...In 1967-68...Bob Brown bought WGGG"... (Editors note; in David's opinion) "... I should make it very clear that it was HE, and not the later, more lackadaisical Quality Broadcasting, who created the dominant, #1 Top Forty format that made WGGG a legend. Brown did this using a multi-pronged, market-savvy approach:
- First he hired really great talent, some from major markets (Chicago and Miami, among others) and from his co-owned
WORD-AM 950 in Spartanburg, SC.
- Second, he gave away LOTS of money in a series of remarkably creative and audience-inclusive contests.
- Third, he created a news team that was unparalleled for such a small market.
- Fourth, he kept the station on the air 24-hours a day (a godsend for students during finals weeks' overnight cramming).
Most importantly, Brown's programming, pace, music selection and rotation were top-notch, unlike anything heard before in Gainesville. The whole operation wreaked of deserved arrogance: Brown's management style was said to be ruthless. His engineer (Tom Dilley) was a perfectionist. His sales staff was imposing (who could forget their first encounter with the glorious Toni Jimenez?). His news staff was pervasive (during the 1968 race riots and later the anti-war student uprising at the U of F, the UPI carried many national reports originated by WGGG newscasters Don Reid and Ray Sharkey). The radio station that emerged at 1230 in 1968 was tailor-made for the students and general public. Very house-wife friendly in the morning (Mal Harrison), up-tempo through middays (Tommy Woods; Pete "Winters" Sautter); crazy in the afternoons (Steve Cannon) and more progressive in the evenings, veering towards rather black overnights (with "Diamond Jim" Sibrey). Other staffers of note: Jack Shaw; Ron Riley; Lloyd Hart; Wayne Buttram (later known in Atlanta as Kevin O'Connor)..."
"...WGGG was decidedly funkier than WDVH, not afraid to embrace Gainesville's sizable African-American population. Wilson Pickett, James Brown, Joe Tex, and Aretha Franklin, for example, got significant airplay. But then, so did the Archies, the Cowsills, Joe South, Lynn Anderson and Andy Kim (depending in some degree upon daypart). However, as I recall it was Georgie Fame's "Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde" that really threw things into gear for...station. WGGG held a contest to 'find the missing loot,' with hourly clues (read out on air by "Bonnie") that had the citizenry scouring every corner of the city to find the $1,000 in cash, an unheard of sum in those days. So it was that WGGG became... promotion-oriented. They made a significant appearance at the Alachua County Fair, broadcasting live full-time with an impressive, completely new set of studio equipment (that soon after replaced their ancient setup on-air). Several (now somewhat trite) contest ideas seemed like magic at the time:
- Answer your phone saying "WGGG" to win if they called your number ... baffled out-of-town callers who wondered why everyone they called in Gainesville answered their phone saying a radio station's call letters.
- Lucky Listener rear window sticker (each sticker had a serial number; one was announced over the air each hour) ...had people racing their "WGGG"-stickered car to show up at the station when their number was called, before the time was up.
- "High-Low" telephone contest ...pushed the resources of Gainesville's telephone exchange
- "Find the Missing 'G'" (and "Missing 'W'") $1000 cash prize
- and the previously mentioned "Find Bonnie and Clyde's Hidden $1000" treasure hunts ...Had folks trespassing over God knows where following on-air 'clues' to find the prize location.
And I can't imagine any teenager winning more movie tickets and records than I did. :-) WGGG supplemented the sparkling sound of the new studio equipment, having replaced the old processing with state-of the art CBS Labs Audimax and Volumax, along with an RCA Powermax for maximum positive modulation after dark (they remained 1kW day, 250W nights). Their newly-powerful, unique sound belied the weak license. In short, Bob Brown's WGGG did whatever it would take to have everybody and their neighbor talking about them. They chased WDVH off Top Forty to an Easy Listening format, and eventually to the very successful Country format that suited them best. They chased WUWU to Easy Listening and, eventually with another try at Top Forty, several call letter changes. But the few years of WGGG's dominance could not hold, due to new radio stations (WGVL-FM 105.5 came on the air May 4, 1970 and WRUF started waking up from a groggy 45-year sleep); changing listening habits, both formatically (Free-form and album rock were usurping some of Top Forty's place with the general public and in particular with college students) and technically (shift from AM to FM stereo), and of course the previously-mentioned population movement away from WGGG's limited signal range. WGGG's incredible "More than all other stations combined" Pulse survey ratings results (astutely paid for by Bob Brown at the height of the WGGG audience frenzy) were used long after they were no longer in any way an accurate reflection of Gainesville radio audience habits. I would guess Bob Brown could see this coming, as he sold WGGG at the height of its popularity just a few years after he bought and rehabilitated it. The time immediately following the sale of WGGG by Bob Brown to Vic Knight's "Quality Broadcasting" saw the flight of much of the top talent, to be substituted with others. Among the new jocks: Don Steele; Rick Allen; Jason McCrea; Jim Kelly; Ron Hayes; Jay Stone and Boomer Hough. Credible and talented personalities all, but the total product somehow lacked the cohesive, almost carnivorous magic of the Bob Brown staff..."
Names In WGGG History
Victor M. Knight
Walter Windsor-President of Comco, Inc. In Memory
Howard A. Miller
Erselle Smith
Tom Calato
Eve Ackerman
Wayne Smith
Sumner Wayne “Boomer” Hough
Dr. Parker (Bill Tilghman)
Dave Matthews
Marc Tyll Biography
Greg Richards
Gene Deckerhoff-inducted into the Florida Sports Hall of Fame.
Joe MacKay
Mark Andrews
Mike Bonts
Tom Murphy
Jeri Banta
Dr. Tom Parker
Gary Collins
J. D. on the Radio
H. I. “Sonny” Bloch
Gordon P. Smith
Pete Winters aka Pete Sautter-1971-1974-Program Director/Sales
Elliot Harris-General Manager
Elsie Mercer-General Manager
Dave Berges
Tommy Woods
Don Wright
Steve Cannon
Mal Harrison
David Reaves
Don Reid-News
Ray Sharkey-News Director
"Diamond Jim" Sibrey-Overnights
Jack Shaw
Ron Riley
Lloyd Hart
Wayne Buttram
Don Steele
Rick Allen
Jason McCrea
Jim Kelly
Ron Hayes
Jay Stone
Boomer Hough
Greg Strickland-Chief Engineer (at age 16)
click the photos for full sized view
Thanks to Bill Watson for this pre 1951 Post Card of the WGGG studios
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