David Gleason's
Illustrated
Biography

60 Years in Radio Broadcasting

 Click on any of the section titles or logos displayed
below and you will go to a detailed page for each item.
Ancestry:   Gleason,
Chandler Frackelton.		 A little about my ancestral roots.
The Chandlers from Chandlersville, Illinois
Frackeltons from Jacksonville, Illinois
Gleasons from Newburgh, NY.
Family Some clippings and items about my parents.
Birth-1960 From childhood to a basement printing business. Complete with pictures with dogs and ducks.

Also documented is my creation of my school's newspaper and journalism studies at Michigan State University.
AM Radio DXing My initial experience in radio was based on an interest in picking up distant AM stations. In turn, this interest was born of ownership of shares of Storer Broadcasting.

1959-1963:
Go-fer in Cleveland		 WCUY & WJMO, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Part time board operator, short-lived (and bad) announcer, and general janitor and "Go-fer"
1963:
Mexico City Internship		 Intern at duopoly group operator Organización Radio Centro, México, D.F., México, under supervision of Ramiro Garza.
1963:
Tikal, Guatemala
&
The Mayas		 Over the Christmas season in 1963, I researched one aspect in Mayan civilization and culture in University libraries and by actual observation at Tikal in Northern Guatemals, developing a theory on the use of the ball courts (in more recent picture) in the earlier civilizations.


 

 1964-1970:
Group
Ownership
in
Ecuador 		 Teen-age (really!) owner and manager, Núcleo Radión, Quito, Ecuador. Built group of 12 AM and FM stations, including Northern South America's first independent FM facility and area's first Top 40 station.

Stations included Radio Musical, Canal Tropical, Radio Fiesta, Teleonda Musical, Sonora Musical, Ecos de la Montaña, Radio Alfa Musical (Cuenca), Radio Carrousel (Guayaquil) , Radio Musical (Ambato) and several others.  
  1970-1972:
WUNO
in
San Juan 		 General Manager, WUNO, San Juan, Puerto Rico, where a turn-around created a Top 40 station that successfully challenged and tied the 50-year #1 station on the Island. 
  1972: Birmingham?
Yes,
 Birmingham!
 		  Transferred with Mooney Broadcasting to Birmingham, Alabama, as Program Director of new acquisition WERC AM&FM. Converted the FM to one of the first FM CHR stations in the USA.
  1973-1975: Consultant
KWKW
KRUX
Student at
ASU 		 Consultant with variety of clients in the American Southwest, including pioneer Spanish-language station KWKW in Los Angeles and legendary Top 40 operations KRUX, KTKT and KENO. Worked on college degree in marketing at Arizona State University at same time. 
  1975-1980:
Pueblo International
Puerto Rico 		 Vice President and General Manager, Pueblo Communications, WQII & WSRA, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Rebuilt failed stations and created Puerto Rico's first Adult Contemporary station and its leading Beautiful Music operation.  
  1979: Z-93 in Puerto Rico  Developed the World's first all-salsa radio station, WZNT, Z-93 in San Juan. Station achieved over a 30+ share in its first 90 days on the air.  
  1980-1982: Radio Hit in Miami  General Manager, WHTT, Miami, Florida, for Norm Wain and Bob Weiss' Metroplex; sister station to South Florida monster Y-100. 
  1982-1985: Format Syndication in Miami  Owner, Música en Flor, Miami, Florida. Company specialized in Latin American program syndication and consultation. Worked in 17 countries from Tierra del Fuego to the Mexican border. At its peak, over 80 stations programmed "Música en Flor".
  1986
Radio Marti Evaluation  		 In 1986 conducted the Congressionally mandated review of the US Information Agency's Radio Martí program which broadcasts to Cuba.  Did several additional reviews in later years.
  1985-1992: Salsoul in Puerto Rico  Programming Consultant, Sales Manager and Vice President of ARSO Radio Corporation, San Juan, Puerto Rico, group operator of seven radio stations in Puerto Rico and Florida. 
  1986-1987
Z-101
Santo Domingo  		Programming Consultant for Bienvenido Rodríguez and  Z-101 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and creator of El Gobierno de la Mañana with Willy Rodríguez and Marino Guzmán. The show continues to be #1 after nearly 30 years.  
  1992-1994: KHJ Vice President of Operations for Spanish language KHJ-Los Angeles and sister KWIZ-Santa Ana, California, working for Liberman Broadcasting.  
  1994-Present:
Éxitos Express 		 Consultant and programmer, Radio Express, Inc. for  ÉxitosExpress® (and for several years,Tropical Express®)  program services which provide the latest music to hundreds of radio stations in Latin America. 

Over 1300 weekly CD and Online editions have been programmed.
  1995-1997:
KTNQ and talk radio 		 Heftel Broadcasting, Los Angeles. 1995-1998: Program Director-KTNQ-AM when it became the most listened-to Spanish news/talk station in the USA. 
  1997:
More stations and
New Name.		  In 1997, Heftel Broadcasting merged with Tichenor Media Systems and became Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation. 
  1997-2003: Hispanic Broadcasting  Vice President Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation. Converted various HBC AM stations to news and talk and then moved to the FM operations. In 2003, Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation merged with Univision 

1995 - 2005: UnoRadio Puerto Rico   Consultant to UnoRadio Group, operator of the market-leading Salsoul, Radio Fidelity and NotiUno networks in US market #14,Puerto Rico. In 2005, Salsoul (the WPRM Network) celebrated 20 years at #1, the longest run recorded in the Top 50 US Markets.  
  1999 - 2005:
Mega 98.3 Argentina 		 Consultant to Emmis owned Votionis, S.A. operator of 100,000 watt #1 AM news-talk Radio 10 in Buenos Aires, Argentina and the world's first 100% Spanish rock station, Mega 98.3: each station was #1 on its band! 
  1999-2003
XM Satellite Hispanic Channels 		 HBC contracted to provide 5 Spanish language channels to XM Satellite Radio when it launched.  
Channels included rock en español, contemporary, tropical, Tejano and regional Mexican.
  2003 - 2011: Univision SIP  Executive Vice President, Univision Radio, Servicio de Información Programativa. "SIP" was the in-house programming and research arm of Univision Radio working with over 70 stations in 17 markets in the US and Puerto Rico.  
  2004
 NAB San Diego 		 Panelist: The Programming Super Session at NAB in 2004
  2006 - 2011
Recuerdo Network 		 The Recuerdo radio network is created by Amalia Gonzalez, Owen Leach and David Gleason as a response to imitation of the original HBC-developed format. Competitors in markets like Dallas and San Francisco switch format.
   2013 - 2018
Univision Radio		 Consultant to 70-station Univision Radiogroup, covering areas such as research, programming, music scheduling, cluster strategy, talent and talent training and other areas of programming.