WSVU (960 AM) – branded as Radio Elite International – is a commercial Haitian Creole-language

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 radi ...

licensed to North Palm Beach,

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. Owned by Jean Altidore, through licensee United Group Elite Agency Investment LLC, the station serves

West Palm Beach West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...

and surrounding areas. Besides a standard

analog transmission Analog transmission is a transmission method of conveying information using a continuous signal which varies in amplitude, phase, or some other property in proportion to that information. It could be the transfer of an analog signal, using an an ...

, the station also simulcasts over low-power FM

translators Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

W223CJ (92.5 FM) in West Palm Beach and W269DS (101.7 FM) in North Palm Beach. The WSVU studios are located in

Palm Beach Gardens Palm Beach Gardens is a city in Palm Beach County in the U.S. state of Florida, 77 miles north of downtown Miami. , the population was 59,182. Palm Beach Gardens is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6 ...

, while the station transmitter resides in West Palm Beach.

History

The station got its

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

(FCC) construction permit in 2003 as WGGT. On October 28, 2005, the still unbuilt station changed 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 assign ...

to WPBI, and signed on the air in 2006. Owned by Intermart Broadcasting of Southwest Florida, the original power was 1,200 watts by day, 250 watts at night. The call letters were changed to WSVU on October 1, 2006; carrying an adult standards music format and featuring news updates from

CBS Radio News CBS News Radio, formerly known as CBS Radio News and historically known as the CBS Radio Network, is a radio network that provides news to more than 1,000 radio stations throughout the United States. The network is owned by Paramount Global. It ...

, the station was owned by North Palm Beach Broadcasting, Inc. On May 14, 2014, North Palm Beach Broadcasting announced that it had sold WSVU and its translators to

JVC Media JVC Broadcasting (also known as JVC Media) is a privately owned company headquartered in Ronkonkoma, New York that owns five radio stations on Long Island, New York, and 12 FM stations in Florida. The company founded in 2008 derives its initials ...

, pending FCC approval. The sale closed effective September 8, 2014, at a purchase price of $850,000. On October 6, 2014, WSVU and its

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 tra ...

at 95.9 MHz changed their format to

soft 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 sto ...

, branded as "95.9 The Palm". On August 15, 2017, the

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 ...

format of

WBGF WBGF is a radio station serving the West Palm Beach, Florida market. Owned by ANCO Media Group and licensed to Belle Glade, Florida, it broadcasts a dance/EDM format, branded as ''Revolution Radio 93.5''. History The station went on the air a ...

moved to WSVU. The station used the syndicated network known as ''

The True Oldies Channel Scott Shannon's True Oldies Channel (also known more recently as ''The True Oldies Channel: Greatest Hits'') is a radio network begun in the spring of 2004. Originally distributed by ABC Radio Networks via satellite, the service plays a hybrid ol ...

''. By November 2017, JVC Media co-founder Vic Canales, in a deal worth $450,000, sold his ownership position in the company. Canales, better known by his on-air name "Vic Latino," stuck a deal to swap his stake in the nine-year old company for 960 WSVU in West Palm Beach. Canales exchanged his shares worth a combined $450,000 for WSVU and two translators: the North Palm Beach-licensed translator W240CI at 95.9 FM and the

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

-licensed translator W295BJ at 106.9 FM. Together the three signals were branded as "True Oldies Channel 95.9-106.9." The transaction was consummated on January 29, 2018. Once the deal closed, JVC Media of South Florida continued to own and operate WSWN 900 AM. WSVU dropped the "True Oldies" format on November 1, 2019 (which continues on W240CI and W295BJ; instead relaying

WIRK WIRK (103.1 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a country music format. Licensed to Indiantown, Florida, the station serves the Treasure Coast and Palm Beach County area. The station is owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, through licensee WPB FCC Lic ...

HD3 Euro1080 was the first commercial broadcaster in Europe to broadcast full-time high-definition television (HDTV) content. It was founded by Gabriel Fehervari in 2004 and is owned by Alfacam, of which declared bankrupt in 2013. The name origi ...

digital subchannel) and

stunted Stunted growth is a reduced growth rate in human development. It is a primary manifestation of malnutrition (or more precisely undernutrition) and recurrent infections, such as diarrhea and helminthiasis, in early childhood and even before birth, ...

with Christmas music during the

holiday season The Christmas season or the festive season (also known in some countries as the holiday season or the holidays) is an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and other countries that is generally considered to run from late Novembe ...

as "Rudolph's Radio 92.7/101.7"; the stunt gave way to

classic rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, prima ...

branded "The Surf 92.5/101.7" that December 25. On October 17, 2021, WSVU changed their format from classic rock to Haitian Creole language programming, branded as "Radio Elite International".Palm Beaches Surf Is Out Following Sale
Radioinsight - October 17, 2021 Effective November 16, 2021, Vic Canales sold WSVU to Jean Altidore's United Group Elite Agency Investment LLC for $1.1 million.

Translators

WSVU rebroadcasts on the following two FM translators:

Previous logos

References

External links

* * * * {{West Palm Beach Radio SVU Radio stations established in 2006 2006 establishments in Florida Haitian Creole-language mass media