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Tampa country station goes Latin
By CHASE SQUIRES, Times TV columnist
Published August 9, 2005

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Regular listeners to WYUU-FM 92.5 "Outlaw Country" might not have understood what was happening to their radio station Monday.

Everything was in Spanish.

Station owner Infinity Broadcasting scrapped the country format at 7 p.m. Sunday and relaunched the station as La Nueva 92.5 "El Sonido Latino de Tampa Bay" (The Latin Sound of Tampa Bay).

WYUU is the only FM Spanish language station in the area.

The bay area's 400,000 Hispanics are "a huge underserved market," Infinity market manager Charlie Ochs said Monday. Infinity has found success in other markets, including Washington, D.C., going after a Hispanic audience.

La Nueva plays a variety of Spanish-language music, including salsa, merengue, bachata and reggaeton, and features artists such as Shakira, Marc Antony and Luis Miguel.

Former WYUU morning drivetime disc jockeys known on the radio as Cowhead and Brent said farewell to their listeners on Friday. Ochs said he did not know where the two would go.

Cowhead, a.k.a. Mike Calta, "is still employed with us as of now," said station operations manager Mike Culotta. He said the radio personality, who was attending to business in New York this week, had not decided on future plans.