WPOM (1600
AM) is a
radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
broadcasting
ethnic
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
programming. Licensed to
Riviera Beach, Florida
Riviera Beach is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States, which was incorporated September 29, 1922. Due to the location of its eastern boundary, it is also the easternmost municipality in the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to ...
, United States, the station serves the
West Palm Beach area. The station is currently owned by Carline Clerge, through licensee Caribbean Media Group, Inc.
History
The station went on the air as WHEW on August 17, 1959.
In 1969, the station changed its call letters to WXVI;
by 1970, the station had a
middle-of-the-road format.
In 1971, the station became WPOM, with a contemporary format.
In the intervening years, WPOM would adopt several other formats, including
all-news in the late 1970s,
disco
Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric pia ...
in the early 1980s,
and a split format of
gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...
and
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
by 1999.
Hibernia Broadcasting, whose stations were all affiliated with
Radio Disney
Radio Disney was an American radio network operated by the Disney Radio Networks unit of Disney Branded Television within the Disney General Entertainment Content, headquartered in Burbank, California.
The network broadcast music programming ...
, acquired WPOM in 1999,
and switched the station to Radio Disney on June 16, 1999; to better reflect the format, the station adopted the WMNE callsign, referring to
Minnie Mouse
Minnie Mouse is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. As the longtime sweetheart of Mickey Mouse, she is an anthropomorphic mouse with white gloves, a bow, polka-dotted dress, white bloomers, and low-heeled shoes occasionally w ...
, on July 9.
Hibernia was acquired by Disney, through
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
, in 2000.
Disney sold WMNE to Travis Media, LLC in January 2010.
In the interim, Disney took the station, and five other stations slated to be sold, off the air on January 22.
The station resumed broadcasting on May 6;
on June 2, the call letters were changed to WHTY.
In March 2015, Carline Clerge, who already owned 42% of the station, agreed to acquire the remaining 58% from Robert Travis and David Urbach;
upon taking control on August 24, 2015, Clerge transferred WHTY from Travis Media to Caribbean Media Group, another company she controls.
The call sign was changed back to WPOM on August 24, 2015.
References
External links
Former station website
POM
Radio stations established in 1959
1959 establishments in Florida
Former subsidiaries of The Walt Disney Company
{{Florida-radio-station-stub