WFLA (AM)

In 1925, the station first signed on as WGHB in Clearwater.[3] By 1927, its call sign changed to WFLA and it moved from 1130 kilocycles to 590. It shared the frequency with another Tampa-area station, WSUN, before they both moved together to 620 AM in 1929, sharing time on that frequency.

WFLA and WSUN were affiliates of the NBC Red Network.[4] The carried dramas, comedies, news, sports, soap operas, game shows and big band broadcasts during the "Golden Age of Radio." From 1945 to 1949, WFLA carried a Southern gospel show, which featured legendary bass singer J. D. Sumner and The Sunny South Quartet. WFLA and WSUN were owned by the Clearwater and St. Petersburg Chambers of Congress.[5]

In January 1941, WFLA moved to 940 AM, then to its present 970 AM that March, licensed to Tampa. Its partner station, WSUN, stayed on 620 kHz, licensed to St. Petersburg (now WDAE). WFLA's owner was the Tribune Company, which also owned The Tampa Tribune..[6] The studios and offices were in the Seminole Building. An advertisement in the 1950 edition of Broadcasting Yearbook said that WFLA-AM-FM were the "most listened to" stations in "the heart of Florida's most heavily populated trade area."[7]

WFLA added an FM station in 1948, WFLA-FM 93.3 MHz (now WFLZ). In its early years, WFLA-FM largely simulcast its AM sister station. In the 1960s, it switched to beautiful music. A TV station also went on the air in 1955, WFLA-TV 8, which is now owned by the Nexstar Media Group. Because WFLA-AM-FM carried NBC programming, WFLA-TV also joined the NBC Television Network.

Once network programming had shifted from radio to television, WFLA began a full service middle of the road format of popular adult music, news and sports. It later tried Top 40 and Adult Contemporary music. In the 1980s, listeners shifted to FM to hear music, so WFLA increased the talk programming. In 1986, it had made the transition to all-talk. It has been the market leader in this format ever since, and usually is among the top five stations in the market, according to Arbitron ratings.

Media General acquired the Tribune Company in the 1970s. That meant one company controlled, in Tampa, a newspaper, TV station, AM station and FM station. But the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) were discouraging one owner from controlling so much media in one market. In the 1980s, federal regulations forced Media General to divest the radio stations because of its other holdings. The radio stations were sold to Blair Broadcasting in late 1982. Sconnix Communications of Charleston, South Carolina, bought WFLA and what was then WPDS from Blair Broadcasting in 1987. Blair was divesting all of its English-language broadcasting properties to concentrate on its Spanish-language TV network, which is Telemundo. Jacor Communications purchased WFLA from Sconnix in 1988. Clear Channel Communications, purchased Jacor in 1999, which included WFLA and WFLZ. Clear Channel was the forerunner of today's iHeartMedia.

In 1989, the station moved from Jackson Street in downtown Tampa to its present location at 4002 W. Gandy Blvd., in south Tampa. Another Clear Channel radio station in Tallahassee took the call sign WFLA-FM. WFLA-FM carries many of the same nationally syndicated programming as 970 WFLA, but both stations have their own local shows and news.

FLA gave national hosts Glenn Beck and Lionel their starts in talk radio. Other prominent alumni, from the days when the station concentrated on local programming, include Bob Lassiter (d. 2006), Jay Marvin, Dick Norman (d. 1989), Chuck Harder, Jack Ellery and Freddy Mertz. Other former hosts include Al Gardner, Mark Larsen, Daniel Ruth, Mark Beiro, Paul Gonzalez and Mel Berman (d. 2010).

Over the years, AM Tampa Bay has had three female co-hosts; Sharon Taylor, who was let go after ten years, Allyson Turner, who left less than a year after she was hired, and Corey Dylan, who was promoted to her own show at sister station, 100.7 WMTX, after four years on WFLA. Longtime news anchors and reporters Steve Hall and Sharon Parker were released in a 2019 iHeart round of layoffs.[8]