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History Of WKTK
Thanks to Marc
Tyll for this history of WKTK
WKTK-FM began operations in 1976 as
religious station WRYO known as "Heavenly Sounds Radio". The
station was conceived by William Lamon who owned a religious station in
Cape May, New Jersey-WRIO-FM 102.3. The idea was that Mr. Lamon
would bring Christian programming to West Central Florida. After retiring in the
mid 1980s, Mr. Lamon decided to sell WRYO to Comco, Inc., a radio
group recently formed by former WFTV-TV channel 9 General Manager, Walter
Windsor. Comco acquired
mostly AM stations located throughout Florida and parts of Alabama, but acquired
100,000 watt WRYO at the request of WKIQ-AM
1240 General Manager Gary Granger. Comco
had purchased WKIQ, Inverness, about a year
earlier and originally planned to move WRYO's studios
from the mobile home it occupied in Homosassa Springs to the WKIQ studio
location in Inverness. The plan was to change the format from Religious to
Contemporary Christian and the station would remain a Citrus County radio
station. One Sunday while Gary Granger was lying on the beach
in Saint Augustine, he envisioned WRYO as a powerful FM station
covering Florida coast-to-coast. Granger began to put a proposal together for
Walter Windsor that involved constructing a new 1,400 foot tower about
20 miles North of Citrus County and a studio move to Gainesville. This enabled a
signal that could be heard from the Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean, and would
provide a city grade signal over Gainesville and Ocala. Windsor went for the
idea and the plan was implemented. Comco purchased the old
WGGG building located off N. E. Waldo Road in Gainesville, gutted the
building and built a complete new FM studio. On Easter Sunday 1986 at midnight,
all religious programming ceased on WRYO and in its place were
three days of ocean waves commemorating the new Coast-To-Coast
image. The new call letters WKTK "Koast-To-Koast"
went into place about six months earlier. Three days later, beginning
Thursday morning, WKTK-FM
98.5 had its first "Thousand Dollar Thursday" and began
regular programming. Listeners would listen all day for the money song. When
they heard it, caller number 9 would win $1,000. The following Wednesday was
also known as $100 Wednesday. WKTK
went through a few minor format adjustments over the years going from
A/C to CHR, then Soft A/C and now back to Mainstream Adult Contemporary, and
Walter Windsor sold WKTK
to Philadelphia based Entercom four months after the upgrade
was complete in 1986. Gary Granger left the station in 1999 and
now is Market Manager for Clear Channel Communications in
California.
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