WSUN-FM

WSUN-FM

City of license	Holiday, Florida
Broadcast area	Tampa Bay, Florida
Branding	97X
Slogan	Tampa Bay's New Rock Alternative
Frequency	97.1 (MHz)
First air date	late-1970s; actual date unknown
Format	Active Rock/Alternative erp = 11,500 watts
HAAT	224 meters
Class	C2
Facility ID	67136
Callsign meaning	Why Stay Up North? SUNshine State, as in Florida
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)
Owner	Cox Radio
Website	97xonline.com

WSUN-FM is a commercial modern rock 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 2001: A Space Odyssey. 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, Hemorrhage 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, benefiting 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.) [1]

Concerts

• The Next Big Thing concert series, formerly at Coachman Park in Clearwater, Florida, is now being held at the 1-800-ASK-GARY Amphitheatre.^{[citation needed]}

Air staff

Current

• Drew, Seth, and Danielle - Mornings
• Danielle - Middays
• Fisher - Afternoon Drive
• Geo - Nights
• Dick - Weekends / Tasty Fresh

Former

• 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.
• Napoleon - The first version of the morning show was Fisher and Napoleon.
• Crissy - The original night jock (7p-12a).
• Pat Largo - The original morning drive jock (10a-3p). Also the first host of Local Motion.
• Ford Prefect - Did a few weekend shifts, but best known for hosting Sunday School (old school alternative) on Sunday nights.
• Professor Brian- Hosted Sunday School with Ford Prefect
• Jimmy - Original part-timer. Did weekends, over-nights, and fill-shifts. Also hosted Local Motion with Tre.
• Kate - Was the on and off night jock after Crissy left.
• Tre - Weekends, Fill-shifts, and co-hosted Local Motion with Jimmy.
• Phoebe - Nights & Middays | Currently midday host and music director for Hot101.5
• Jesse Kage - Kage Kult Show (7p - 12a) | Currently 3p - 7p 98Rock.

97X Green Room

The 97X Green Room is a annual series of compilation albums of live music recorded for WSUN-FM's Green Room series. All albums contain acoustic versions of popular songs from artists heard on the station. It was released for sale primarily at Tampa Bay area Best Buy locations, although later volumes were made available at other locations. Proceeds from the first album's sales benefited Audubon of Florida's Coastal Islands Sanctuaries Program. For subsequent albums, proceeds from the sales benefit The Nature Conservancy. The albums' goal is to provide exclusive acoustic performances and to help raise money and awareness to the needs of environment in Florida.

The latest installment in the series, Volume 7, released on September 8, 2011, includes performances by Foster the People, A Day to Remember, Silversun Pickups, Manchester Orchestra, Matt Schultz from Cage the Elephant, Sick Puppies, Young the Giant, The Joy Formidable and Grouplove.

External links

• Official Website
• Query the FCC's FM station database for WSUN
• Radio-Locator information on WSUN
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for WSUN
• WSUN Becomes 97X