AM 1400 WNUE - A Brief History

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 AM radio station WNUE had a long rich history in the Fort Walton Beach area, and it was consistently one of the top AM stations in the region for decades. Although Smith Broadcasting of Alabama launched WNUE in 1960, the company had been building radio stations since as far back as 1925. 

 WNUE was promoted as the “NUE” station in town

and played Top-40 music that was always “NUE”. 

 In 1967, Smith Broadcasting commissioned the production of the song “Ft. Walton, My Hometown”.  WNUE continued to thrive throughout the 1960s. By the way, the song is part of 70's Hometown Radio WNUE's daily programming.

WNUE hit its peak in popularity in the 1970's

playing Top-40 Rock-n-Roll and airing

the American Top-40 show on weekends.

 WNUE thrived and flourished into the early 1980’s despite the fact that is was an AM radio station that had to compete with powerful and much clearer FM stereo stations. Eventually though, the station ratings began to decline. In 1985, an attempt was made to keep the station alive by switching to an Adult Contemporary format utilizing a satellite feed and no local live announcers.  

 In 1988, Smith Broadcasting decided to switch WNUE back to Top-40 hits with live on-the-air DJ’s and its ratings did increase somewhat but successfully selling advertising just did not happen and the station floundered.

In 1989, sadly WNUE was taken off the air and put up for sale.  

  As of 1990, no buyer could be found for WNUE. The general manager at the time, Harmon (Dutch) VanBuskirk, known as “Dutch Van” on the air, found a partner, Neil Braswell to help purchase the frequency (1400) as well as the transmitter and tower. The building was put under lease for two years. WNUE was back on the air in the fall of 1990 and it was set-up for a talk format which also relayed satellite news and talk feeds. Dutch Van himself produced some live phone-in talk shows, as well. By the way, Dutch Van had been the general

 manager of WNUE for 25 years as of 1990.  

  Sometime in 1992, with the building lease set to expire and station ratings low, it was decided to shut down WNUE permanently thus ending a very long and rich history for the once iconic AM radio station.  

Click here to learn about our WNUE "Wall of Fame" project.