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.

Names In WKTK History

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