- WAXY
Infobox Radio Station
name = WAXY
city =South Miami, Florida
area = Miami-Ft. Lauderdale,Florida
branding = "Sports Talk 790, The Ticket"
slogan =
airdate =
frequency = 790 (kHz)
format = Sports/Talk
power = 25,000watt s
class = B
affiliations =Sporting News Radio Westwood One Florida Panthers Florida Marlins
owner =Lincoln Financial Media
website = [http://www.790theticket.com 790theticket.com]
callsign_meaning =|WAXY-AM (790 AM, "The Ticket") is a
radio station licensed inSouth Miami, Florida broadcasting on 790 kHz with asports talk format. The station is owned byLincoln Financial Media , which was previously known as Jefferson-Pilot Communications. The callsign was formerly used on FM at 105.9 until Jefferson-Pilot acquired the callsign due to their competing stationWMXJ Majic 102.7 having the same format, Oldies. 105.9 FM is nowWBGG-FM and owned by Clear Channel with a Classic Rock format.History
This station was once WFUN-AM, a legendary Top 40 station that competed with
WQAM . Originally, the station was located at 800 on the AM dial, and was a daytime-only operation. While on 800 it was licensed to Miami Beach and was the first station in the area to hold theWMBM call letters, now on 1490 kHz. In the early 1960s, the station migrated down to 790, and went full-time as WFUN. The 790 dial position was a moderately directional signal, as there was already a 790 inHavana, Cuba , and another in central Florida (Leesburg-Eustis). Despite coverage limitations, especially to the southwest (in theFlorida Keys , toward Havana), WFUN competed vigorously with WQAM throughout the '60s, and even won some of the ratings sweeps. During the early '70s, pop music showed up first on FM atWMYQ , and then on Y-100, and the field of top 40 stations (including WQAM and even WINZ for a brief time) became crowded; ultimately many listeners moved to FM for music, and consequently WFUN abandoned their top 40 format. WFUN was used by one of its disc jockeys to create the revolutionary and hybridBoss Radio broadcasting sound ofSwinging Radio England from the coast of southernEngland during1966 . For a short time in 1965 Morton 'Doc' Downey was a DJ on this Miami legend station.WFUN was the home of several D.J.s who became famous on both sides of the Atlantic in 1966. They included
Ron O'Quinn andLarry Dean . The format of WFUN in Miami was used in part by Ron O'Quinn as the foundation for the hybrid mix of sounds that were heard over the 50,000 watts offshorepirate radio stationSwinging Radio England between May and November 1966.The station subsequently became WNWS-AM with a news/talk format. Popular talk show host Tom Leykis was heard in the early 1980's. It changed back to music and became WMRZ-AM ("790 Memories") on November 28, 1990, running "AM Only", a Satellite-based
Adult Standards format from the Unistar radio network (nowAmerica's Best Music fromDial Global ). WMRZ switched to a schedule of brokered programming in late 1993, and became WAXY-AM on October 12, 1994 after the original WAXY on FM abandoned those call letters.Current format
Since 2004, it has been an all-sports station. It is a copycat version of the original 1310AM The Ticket in Dallas, TX. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. At one point, this station was branded as "
ESPN Radio 790", but it no longer carries ESPN Radio programs. It does carry theSporting News Radio shows ofTodd Wright andDavid Stein . It also previously carriedFox Sports Radio between the ESPN and SNR affiliations.Other than that, the weekday lineup is all-local, with such hosts as
Sid Rosenberg (mornings), Kevin Rogers (mid-days),Jorge Sedano (mid-days), "Miami Herald " sportswriterDan LeBatard (afternoons),The Zaslow Show (nights), and theDos Amigos Show with Alan Strauss and Larry Milian (late nights) during the week. Jonathan Zaslow, Israel Guttierrez (Miami Herald), Armando Salguero (Miami Herald), Craig Mish, Josh Friedman and Ed Berliner are permanent fixtures on the weekends.It also broadcast
Super Bowl XLI fromWestwood One . Formerly the flagship station of theMiami Dolphins alongside Majic 102.7 in 2005 and Big 105.9 in 2006.The station is now the flagship station for the
Florida Panthers and theFlorida Marlins after both teams were not renewed byWQAM -AM at the request of theMiami Dolphins [cite web |work=The Marlins Ballpark News |title=WQAM to dump the Marlins |date=2007-04-26 |url=http://capefish.blogspot.com/2007/04/wqam-to-dump-marlins.html] . If the Marlins and Panthers are both playing simultaneously, the Marlins will air on 790 The Ticket and the Panthers will move to WFTL 640 Fox Sports [cite web |title=Panthers' Final Three Games Air On 640AM |url=http://panthers.nhl.com/team/app?articleid=358809&page=NewsPage&service=page |publisher=Florida Marlins |date=2008-04-01] .References
External links
* [http://www.waxy.com WAXY official website]
* [http://www.790theticket.com Sports Talk 790 The Ticket Web Site]
*AMQ|WAXY
*AML|WAXY
*AMARB|WAXY
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