NAPLES, FLA. — For the last several years, iHeartMedia‘s Southwest Florida radio group, overseen by veteran industry figure Louis Kaplan, has included a Hot Adult Contemporary brand known as “Y100.1,” a homage to WHYI in nearby Miami.
Now, the facility with the call letters WZJZ is taking a cue from WHYI’s sibling by adopting a “Only in Florida” Soft Adult Contemporary format with Spanish-language hosts and commercials.
As of today, WZJZ, a Class C1 FM licensed to Port Charlotte, Fla., that best covers Lee, Charlotte, and Sarasota Counties and most of affluent Collier County, is now “Magic 100.1.”
The music may be very similar to what listeners to locally owned “WAVE 101.1” or Beasley Media Group’s “Sunny 106.3” may hear. The big difference? El Gato, Ailyn Luaces, Tony Rodriguez, and Santiago Duarte are on the air offering en español presentations.
It’s a concept that recently arrived at WMIA-FM 93.9 in Miami, which iHeartMedia transitioned to “Magic 93.9” during the holiday period. The result? A 3.2 overall share in the December 2023 Nielsen Audio ratings for the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market.
For iHeart, that spelled instant success, and also presented an opportunity to revive a station in Southwest Florida that has been a consistent 1.5 share overall; Fort Myers-Naples Nielsen Audio ratings are being released at 5pm Eastern on Friday (1/12).
“After seeing the instant success in Miami, it is exciting to bring this format to Fort Myers. The unique blend of English language music and Spanish language personalities sounds amazing on-air and is very appealing to the diverse Hispanic community in Fort Myers,” said Chris Soechtig, Division President of iHeartMedia.
At 4:30pm Eastern, ballads from Rod Stewart and Michael Bolton could be heard alongside songs from Simple Minds and UB40.
