Drew Rashbaum
Drew Rashbaum was born in New York City and moved to Florida in 1970. During his college years at the University of South Florida, he wrote for the school newspaper, the Oracle, and rose from reporter to entertainment editor to managing editor. Since graduating in 1978, he had been a music critic for the St. Petersburg Times, editor-in-chief of a weekly New Port Richey newspaper, and an account executive for an ad agency. However, most of his experience has been in the field of broadcast sales and management.
Drew ran the media group for Paxson in Tampa Bay (five radio outlets, a TV station, and a billboard company) and stations for Entercom, Infinity, and Clear Channel. He was instrumental in the launching of several stations and formats including Smooth Jazz 94.1 WSJT-FM and The Point WHPT-FM. It was also he who conceived the idea for Wild 98.7 WLLD-FM in 1998 when he noticed a void in the market for an FM station with a hip hop format.
In 1999 Rashbaum became southeast regional director for Radio Disney and GM of St. Pete affiliate WWMI. In 2006 he was promoted to vice president of sales and marketing for all Radio Disney owned and operated stations. In addition to serving on the advisory councils of the USF School of Mass Communications and the College of Arts and Sciences, he was also a recipient of its Outstanding Alumni Award in 2006.
Drew passed away August 5th, 2008 while on Disney business in San Francisco from a series of strokes following emergency surgery for an aortic aneurysm. He was 52.
Station History
1988 - 2008 Other Tampa Bay Area Stations (Management)
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