Robert Charles “Bob” Weiss, co-founder of Metroplex Communications and one of the executives who helped shape South Florida’s Y-100 into one of America’s most influential FM stations, passed away peacefully at his home on Christmas Eve at age 91.
His son, Gary, confirmed the news to Streamline Publishing.
Born May 13, 1934, in Paterson, N.J., Weiss grew up in New Jersey and Westchester County, NY. After graduating from college, he built his career in radio advertising at Cleveland’s WHK under John Kluge’s Metromedia and partnered with Wain and Joseph Zingale to acquire stations, including WIXY-AM, one of the nation’s most respected Top 40s of the 1960s.
Weiss, alongside late business partner Norm Wain, purchased Fort Lauderdale’s WHYI-FM from Cecil Heftel’s ownership group in 1976 under the newly formed Metroplex Communications. With its massive promotions and dynamic Top 40 sound, Y-100 quickly became “America’s Megastation,” helping define the format through the late 1970s and 1980s.
Metroplex expanded from South Florida into markets including Jacksonville, Washington, D.C., Tampa-St. Petersburg, Orlando, Buffalo, Charlotte, and Cleveland, where it owned WNCX-FM. In 1993, the company merged with Clear Channel Communications—now iHeartMedia—in a $54 million stock and debt transaction, bringing Y-100 and its sister stations into the Clear Channel portfolio and closing a defining chapter in FM radio’s evolution.
Former Y-100 Promotions Director Tony Novia, who later became VP/Operations Manager, said Weiss, “lived a good, long life. And he knew good radio. Norman and Bob believed in me and gave me the money to buy out the Jacksons Victory Tour stop at the Orange Bowl in 1984. That resulted in the highest ratings and revenue in the history of the station, and for that I will forever be grateful.”
