History
The station signed on September 1, 1978 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 (WYUU was the other) 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.
On January 18, 2013, the station relaunched itself as a jockless and listener-controlled format. The final song under the first "97X" era was the song they launched with, "Hemorrhage" by Fuel, and began stunting with a ticking-clock effect at 10 AM. At 5 PM, the station relaunched in its current incarnation with "Enter Sandman" by Metallica. With this new direction, the audience controls every song that plays using special technology designed by LDR/Listener Driven Radio . LDR created a special app and website for 97X that allows listeners to take over the music live. In addition to the music voting features, the mobile app offers several other interactive elements. It allows listeners to record audio and send it directly to the station for broadcasting, sign-up for instant SMS, email, and twitter alerts when their favorite songs are about to play, and share votes on social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. 97X listeners can also earn social media ‘badges’ by interacting with the station.
Read more about this topic: WSUN-FM
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