Beasley Media Group has a special reason to celebrate with the calendar flip: the company is marking 65 years of broadcasting in 2026, as what began with one AM station in rural North Carolina has evolved into a “digital-first” multimedia organization.
The company was founded on December 3, 1961, when George Beasley, then a high school principal, secured an FCC license to launch WPYB-AM in Benson, NC. Through the 1970s and 1980s, Beasley expanded into FM, adding stations in Florida and Virginia before going public as Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. in 2000. Two major transactions reshaped its footprint in the 2010s: a 2014 asset swap with CBS Radio that brought the company into major markets and the 2016 acquisition of Greater Media, which added top-tier clusters in Boston, Detroit, and Philadelphia.
Now headquartered in Naples, FL, and led by George’s daughter Caroline, Beasley operates stations in twelve markets…