WSVU (960 AM) – branded as Radio Elite International – is a commercial

Haitian Creole Haitian Creole (; , ; , ), or simply Creole (), is a French-based creole languages, French-based creole language spoken by 10 to 12million people worldwide, and is one of the two official languages of Haiti (the other being French), where it ...

-language

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting 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 rad ...

licensed to

North Palm Beach, Florida North Palm Beach is an incorporated village in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. The village won an award from the National Association of Home Builders as best planned commun ...

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

West Palm Beach West Palm Beach is a city in and the county seat of Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It is located immediately to the west of the adjacent Palm Beach, Florida, Palm Beach, which is situated on a barrier island across the Lake Worth Lag ...

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, while the station's transmitter is located 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 government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

(FCC)

construction permit Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. House building permits, for example, are subject to bu ...

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 as ...

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 Adult standards (also sometimes known as the nostalgia or Big Band format) is a North American radio format heard primarily on AM or class A FM stations. Adult standards started in the 1950s and is aimed at "mature" adults, meaning mainly tho ...

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 Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New ...

, 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 tr ...

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 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...

, 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 from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as well as for a radio format playing this music. Since 2 ...

format of

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

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 List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

-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 broadcasting, FM) is a radio station broadcasting a country music format. Licensed to Indiantown, Florida, the station serves the Treasure Coast and Palm Beach County, Florida, Palm Beach County area. The station is owned by Hubb ...

's HD3

digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...

) and stunted with

Christmas music Christmas music comprises a variety of Music genre, genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas and holiday season, Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or in the case of Christmas ...

during the

holiday season The Christmas season or the festive season, also known as the holiday season or the holidays, is an annual period generally spanning from November or December to early January. Incorporating Christmas Day and New Year's Day, the various celebrat ...

as "Rudolph's Radio 92.5/101.7"; the stunt gave way to

classic rock Classic rock is a radio format that developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, it comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the early-1990s, primarily focusing on comm ...

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