WSDV (1450 AM) is a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

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 ...

licensed A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

Sarasota, Florida Sarasota () is a city in Sarasota County on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The area is renowned for its cultural and environmental amenities, beaches, resorts, and the Sarasota School of Architecture. The city is located in the sout ...

, and broadcasting to the Sarasota -

Bradenton Bradenton ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Manatee County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city's population is 55,698. History Late 18th and early 19th centuries A settlement established by Maroons or escaped sl ...

radio market A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television station, television and radio broadcasting, ra ...

. The station airs a

hot adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet ...

format Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informatio ...

and is owned by

iHeartMedia, Inc. iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...

WSDV is powered at 1,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

s non-directional. Programming is also heard on

FM translator A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...

W280EV. The station uses the translator's dial position, calling itself "103.9 Kiss FM".

History

On December 7, 1939 the station first

signed on Signing may refer to: * Using sign language * Signature A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a handwritten (and often stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on do ...

the air. Its

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...

was originally WSPB, powered at 250 watts, located at 1420

kilocycle The cycle per second is a once-common English name for the unit of frequency now known as the hertz (Hz). The plural form was typically used, often written cycles per second, cycles/second, c.p.s., c/s, or, ambiguously, just cycles (Cy./Cyc.). The ...

s. Its tower and studios were on City Island. The

North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement The North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA, es, Convenio Regional Norteamericano de Radiodifusión) refers to a series of international treaties that defined technical standards for AM band (mediumwave) radio stations. These agreem ...

(NARBA) in 1941 moved its dial position to 1450 kHz. WSPB became a

CBS Radio CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...

Network affiliate In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or a ...

, airing CBS's line up of dramas, comedies, news, sports,

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

game show A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or Let's Play, demonstrative and are typically directed b ...

s and

big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s an ...

broadcasts. It was unique among stations on the

Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Mississ ...

of Florida to run hourly news updates before this was a common practice. In 1965, WSPB-FM signed on at 106.3 (now

WLTQ-FM WCTQ (92.1 FM broadcasting, FM) is a radio station broadcasting with a classic country music format. Licensed to Venice, Florida, United States, the station serves the Sarasota area. It is currently owned by iHeartMedia. History Before the 2011 ...

at 106.5) as a full-time

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...

of the AM. There have been many formats at 1450, ranging from

Classical Music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

in the 1990s to

Oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music (broadly characterized as classic rock and pop rock) from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as we ...

later in the decade. For part of the 1990s, the station, using the WSPB call sign, simulcast co-owned

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...

talk radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featur ...

station WFLA

970 AM The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 970 kHz: 970 AM is a regional broadcast frequency. In Argentina * LRA43 Neuquén, Neuquén * LT25 in Curuzú Cuatiá, Corrientes In Mexico * XECJ-AM in Apatzingán, Michoacán * ...

until 2002. At that point, it switched to adult standards, using the WSRQ call letters beginning in 2003. On January 3, 2014 WSDV and its simulcast

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

WDDV 1320 AM in

Venice, Florida Venice is a city in Sarasota County, Florida, United States. The city includes what locals call "Venice Island", a portion of the mainland that is accessed via bridges over the artificially created Intracoastal Waterway. The city is located in Sou ...

, rebranded themselves as "Sunny" and diverted from adult standards to an

Soft AC Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet sto ...

format. On March 17, 2016 WSDV and WDDV switched to a talk radio format. On November 1, 2017 WSDV split from its simulcast with WDDV and began stunting with

Christmas music Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or, in the case of carols or songs, may employ lyrics whose subject ma ...

. On January 1, 2018, at midnight, the station became ''103.9 Kiss FM'' with a Top 40/CHR format. It is the only iHeartMedia-owned KISS-FM station on the AM band, although most of its listeners tune in the 103.9 translator to hear the station in

FM stereo FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting using frequency modulation (FM). Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to provide high fidelity sound over broadcast radio. FM broadcasting is capa ...

. On November 11, 2022, at 5 p.m., WSDV dropped the "Kiss FM" brand for Christmas music as "103.9 Santa FM" but it returned back to Kiss FM on December 31, 2022.Santa-FM Arrives In Sarasota
Radioinsight - November 11, 2022

References

External links

* * * SDV IHeartMedia radio stations Hot adult contemporary radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1939 1939 establishments in Florida {{Florida-radio-station-stub