R.I.P.: Former Y-100 Miami Radio GM David Ross

Dave Ross

Every night during Broadway’s “On Your Feet! The Story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan” the old, familiar Y-100 logo lights up the New York stage. The sight brings a taste of South Florida to the Big Apple.

Credit David Ross, WHYI’s former general manager, according to the Miami Herald.

Ross, who died Sunday at 66 in Deerfield Beach. FL of complications from Lewy Body Dementia, a neurodegenerative disorder, helped expand the Estefans’ careers by playing their first English-language single, “Dr. Beat,” on Y-100 in 1984. No one else would support a crossover tune. That story is featured in the Broadway musical.

“We love him,” Emilio Estefan said. “He was so nice. When we started out you never forget the people who helped you when nothing was happening. He made a huge contribution to Miami music. He took a chance. To have a Latino name and play percussion wasn’t that cool. When I went to Sony they said, ‘You have to change your name and sound.’ But that is what we are. Dave supported that and everything else.”

Ross helped guide Y-100 into becoming the longest-running contemporary hit radio station in the United States.



Ross, raised in Cleveland, Ohio, became GM of Y-100 in 1978. As the ’80s dawned, he recognized the cultural changes in South Florida and sought to play pop music with rhythmic beats, a la “Dr. Beat.”