WSUN (FM)
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| City | Holiday, Florida |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Tampa Bay, Florida |
| Branding | 97X |
| Slogan | Your New Alternative |
| Frequency | 97.1 MHz 102.5 MHz HD2 |
| First air date | September 1, 1978 (as WHBS at 106.3) |
| Format | Alternative Rock |
| ERP | 11,500 watts |
| HAAT | 224 meters |
| Class | C2 |
| Facility ID | 67136 |
| Transmitter coordinates | N 28°10'57.0" W 82°46'5.0" |
| Callsign meaning |
Why Stay Up North? SUNshine State, as in Florida |
| Former callsigns | WHBS (9/1/1978-7/1/1983) WVTY (7/1/1983-7/23/1984) WVTY-FM (7/23/1984-3/3/1986) WLVU-FM (3/3/1986-11/13/1998) WSUN-FM (11/13/1998-7/22/2016) |
| Former frequencies | 106.3 MHz (1978-1998) |
| Owner |
Cox Radio (Cox Radio, Inc.) |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | 97xonline.com |
WSUN is a commercial alternative rock music radio station in Tampa, Florida, broadcasting on 97.1 FM. Owned by Cox Radio, its studios are located in St. Petersburg, and the transmitter site is in Holiday (the station's city of license).
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-FM 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 (now iHeartMedia).
On January 18, 2013, the station relaunched itself with a 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 "Best Of You" by Foo Fighters [1]. With this new direction, the audience controlled every song that played using special technology designed by LDR/Listener Driven Radio [2]. LDR created a special app and website for 97X that allowed listeners to take over the music live. In addition to the music voting features, the mobile app offered several other interactive elements. It allowed 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 were about to play, and share votes on social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. 97X listeners could also earn social media ‘badges’ by interacting with the station. In mid-2014, the listener voting feature was scaled back, now only allowing users to vote on select new/current songs (instead of the entire playlist, as before), the results of which are featured on daily "countdown" shows. The live voting feature is still occasionally employed during 'After-Concert Takeovers", where listeners can vote on the order of songs from one or several artists who appeared in concert locally earlier, and during a Sunday night show featuring local artists.
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