WSUN-FM

Infobox Radio Station


name = WSUN FM
airdate = late-1970s; actual date unknown
frequency = 97.1 (MHz)
city = Holiday, Florida
area = Tampa Bay, Florida
format = Modern Rock/Alternative
owner = Styles Media
erp = 11,500 watts
branding = 97X
slogan = Tampa Bay's New Rock Alternative
class = C2
former_callsigns = WHBS (to 7/1/1983)
WVTY (7/1/1983-7/23/1984)
WVTY-FM (7/23/1984-3/3/1986)
WLVU-FM (3/3/1986-11/13/1998)
webcast = [http://uni3.cox.streamaudio.com/WSUN_FM Listen Live]
website = [http://www.97xonline.com/ www.97xonline.com]
callsign_meaning = Why Stay Up North?
SUNshine State, as in Florida

WSUN-FM is a commercial Modern Rock/Alternative music radio station in Tampa, Florida, broadcasting on 97.1 FM.

History

The station signed on sometime in the late-1970 on the 106.3 FM frequency as WHBS, a station that served primarily Pasco and northern Pinellas Counties. The station later became WVTY, then WLVU, carrying an easy listening format. In 1998, the station would relocate to 97.1 FM (swapping frequencies with Citrus County's WXOF), to better reach the Tampa Bay market. Soon afterward, Cox Radio would acquire WLVU in a swap (see below), and transfer its WSUN calls to FM, adopting an oldies format as "Oldies 97.1".

Mired with a subpar signal and being one of two Oldies stations in the market did not allow WSUN to take off in the Tampa Bay area. While rumors of Cox flipping the station to All-80’s ran rampant, the station began stunting with music from . At 5:00 p.m. on November 3 2000, the Tampa Bay area got its first taste of an alternative rock formatted station in many years with the debut of 97X. The first song, Hemhorrage by Fuel was dedicated to Modern Adult-Contemporary WSSR and Active Rocker WXTB, both of whom are owned by competitor Clear Channel Communications.

The call letters

The "WSUN" calls have been used in the St. Petersburg area since 1927, when WSUN signed on, then a time-share with WFLA. The station moved to its longtime 620 kHz frequency in 1929, and got the frequency all to itself in 1941, when WFLA moved to 940 kHz (then to 970 shortly afterward). From the 1960s into the 1980s, WSUN was known as a leading country-western formatted station, benefitting from its signal that covered all of Florida's Gulf Coast by day and reached into Texas by night.

Owned by the city of St. Petersburg throughout most of its early life, the city sold WSUN radio and its television counterpart, WSUN-TV, to Hy Levinson, a Detroit broadcaster and owner of that city's WCAR radio. In 1970, WSUN-TV would go dark, while WSUN radio and its then-sister, WQXM-FM, would be sold to the broadcasting arm of pharmaceutical company Plough, Inc. In the mid-1980s, Plough would later sell WSUN and WQXM separately, with WSUN being sold to Taft Broadcasting, then-owner of WTSP television and WYNF-FM.

In the late-1980s, WSUN flipped to all-news, following its purchase by CBS Radio from Taft. It then later flipped to a news-talk format, which remained after its purchase from Cox Broadcasting in the 1990s. In 1998 Cox swapped its 620 AM signal for the 97.1 signal owned by the Concord Broadcasting Group, whose easy-listening station, WLVU-FM, moved from 106.3 to 97.1 shortly before the swap. After the move to FM, WSUN adopted an oldies format as "Oldies 97.1", while Concord changed 620's calls to "WSAA", becoming a simulcast of Bay News 9. (It would later be sold to Clear Channel Communications, becoming the new frequency for WDAE.) [http://members.aol.com/jeff99500/wfla.html]

Concerts

* Next Big Thing concert series; Formerly at Coachman Park in Clearwater, Florida; now being held at the Ford Amphitheatre.

Discography

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Trivia

* Rich Fields, the current announcer for CBS's "The Price is Right" and "Gameshow Marathon", was a DJ at WSUN-FM during its oldies format period.

External links

* [http://www.97xonline.com/ Official Website]
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* [http://formatchange.com/audio/96.mp3 WSUN Becomes 97X]