There are contract extensions in radio that amount to little more than somebody signing a document and everybody moving along with their Tuesday. Then there are extensions that tell you something about what a station believes it should sound like. Joey Franchize staying at WiLD 94.1 matters because Beasley is keeping a personality who has spent years becoming part of Tampa Bay rather than simply broadcasting into it. He will continue handling middays and serving as Music Director at WLLD, keeping one of the station’s most important music decisions and one of its most visible daytime shifts in the hands of somebody who still spends plenty of time where the music actually lives.
That last part matters to me.
Joey is a radio personality, but he is also still a working DJ. Not “DJ” because somebody printed it on a station bio twenty years ago. He is out playing records, building mixes, working Tampa nightlife and maintaining the relationship with music that originally got him into this business. This summer, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay had him behind the decks at Water Street’s Alter Ego for a full Jay-Z tribute built around the 30th anniversary of Reasonable Doubt. A few months earlier, the same local publication had him stepping into another Tampa DJ event when the original performer became unavailable.
That is somebody still participating in the scene.
And if I am programming a contemporary music station, I want some of that in the building.
Franchize came to Tampa after a substantial run in Connecticut. Before Florida, he spent years at Hot 93.7 WZMX in Hartford and also worked at 103.3 AMP Radio in Boston. His history with Connecticut music and sports runs even deeper than that. UConn’s own athletics archives place him on Hot 93.7’s morning show back in 2014 when Huskies football coach Bob Diaco made the Hartford radio rounds, and Franchize also built a reputation as a DJ connected with UConn football and basketball.
That is an interesting road to Tampa because WiLD has always needed people who understand more than one corner of the music.
Hip-Hop.
R&B.
Pop.
Reggae.
Latin.
Club music.
The records that test beautifully and the ones you know are working because you just watched a room full of people react to them the night before.
That combination matters on a station calling itself The Bay’s Party Station.
When Beasley moved Franchize into the Music Director and midday roles in 2024, the company noted that he had already spent six years on the air with WiLD. His responsibilities expanded beyond simply doing a shift. Music Director meant helping manage the relationship between the station and the record industry while staying on top of what should be coming through the speakers.
Now comes the extension.
Good.
Because this is exactly where I think contemporary radio gets itself into trouble when it becomes too obsessed with efficiency.
You can research a music log from anywhere.
You can voice-track from anywhere.
You can look at streaming numbers from anywhere.
You can certainly sit in an office somewhere else and decide what Tampa should like.
But there is still value in having somebody in the building who can walk out of that building and actually experience Tampa.
Joey can do that.
He has been doing it.
And there is a difference.
WiLD itself has always been an unusually physical radio brand. Its history is full of concerts, club appearances, live broadcasts and events that put the station in front of the audience rather than leaving it hidden inside a studio. The station’s old WiLD Splash events became enormous gatherings, and years of station promotions were built around the idea that if something was happening in Tampa Bay, WiLD should probably be standing somewhere nearby with speakers turned up too loud.
That culture only works when the personalities are believable inside it.
Joey is.
His own mixes in 2026 continue crossing Hip-Hop, R&B, Latin, Afrobeat, house and other styles instead of sitting politely inside one programming category. That breadth is especially useful in Tampa Bay, where audiences do not necessarily organize their listening according to the format definitions broadcasters use in conference rooms.
Listeners simply know what feels good.
A Music Director should understand that.
So should an air personality.
Franchize gets to do both.
There is another reason I like this move. Beasley’s Tampa operation has gone through significant programming leadership change this year. Will Calder arrived in June as Operations Manager overseeing the company’s Tampa brands, including WiLD, after Rick Thomas departed the market. Calder came with deep Florida programming experience of his own, including previous work at Power 96 in Miami and Hot 101.5 in Tampa.
When leadership changes above a station, keeping people who understand the brand becomes even more valuable.
That does not mean nothing should change.
Radio stations that refuse to evolve eventually become museums with commercials.
But there is something to be said for knowing which pieces of the station should not be casually thrown away just because a new person moved into the corner office.
Joey Franchize has become one of those pieces.
The station’s current app still promotes him alongside Orlando and the Freakshow and Babs as part of WiLD’s personality lineup, another reminder that the brand continues to lean on recognizable people instead of reducing itself to a list of songs.
I think that matters more now than it did when Joey arrived.
Music radio is fighting a completely different battle in 2026.
The listener does not need WiLD 94.1 to obtain a Drake record.
The listener does not need WiLD 94.1 to hear Kendrick Lamar.
Every song is sitting inside a phone waiting to be summoned in about three seconds.
So what does the radio station have?
It has Tampa.
It has Orlando Davis.
It has Joey Franchize.
It has personalities who can tell you why a record matters here, show up at the club Friday night, interview the artist Saturday and come back Monday with something the algorithm does not know.
That is the advantage.
Use it.
Joey’s radio career also says something about development. He did not arrive in Tampa and immediately inherit the Music Director office and middays. He worked nights. He built his presence. He became familiar. He eventually moved into a bigger role.
That is how radio used to build people all the time.
Give somebody nights.
Let them get weird.
Let them make mistakes.
Let them learn the market.
Let the audience find them.
Then, when the opportunity comes, move them up.
We keep saying the industry needs another generation of programmers and personalities. Well, they do not materialize fully formed at age 40 with ten years of management experience.
Somebody has to develop them.
Beasley did that here.
And now it is keeping the person it developed.
I also appreciate that Joey’s music involvement does not end at the station door. His professional background includes working around artists including Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Wiz Khalifa, Big Sean and others long before the current Tampa chapter, and his work today still includes producing and DJing outside the radio station.
That makes the title Music Director feel like something more than administrative responsibility.
It means the guy helping guide the station’s music is still excited enough about music to go play it somewhere after work.
Believe me, after enough years in radio, that is not guaranteed.
There are people who entered this business because music consumed them and eventually reached a point where the only song they wanted to hear was the sound of the studio door closing at 5 p.m.
Joey does not appear to be there.
Good.
WiLD cannot afford that.
Tampa cannot afford a “Party Station” programmed by people who stopped going to the party.
And this is where the contract extension becomes a much better story than the contract itself.
Beasley is keeping someone who has spent years learning Tampa Bay, someone who still participates in its nightlife and music community, someone who understands the record side of the business and someone who has grown from a nighttime personality into one of the people responsible for deciding what WiLD sounds like in the middle of the day.
That is worth protecting.
Especially now.
Radio spends a lot of time talking about retaining listeners.
Maybe we should spend a little more time talking about retaining the people who give listeners a reason to care.
Joey Franchize stays.
WiLD 94.1 keeps one of its own.
And in a business where the weekly headlines contain entirely too many stories about talented people walking out of radio buildings carrying boxes, I am perfectly happy to write one about somebody staying inside.
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