WJBO was first licensed, with the sequentially assigned call letters WAAB, in April 1922 to the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper. It was one of the first stations to receive a 4-letter call sign starting with "W". WAAB made its debut broadcast on the evening of April 6, 1922. A few months later ownership was transferred to the station's primary operator, Valdemar Jensen, at 137 South Saint Patrick Street. Jensen operated and experimented with the station from his house's basement. In early 1926 the call letters were changed to WJBO and it was announced that the station was adopting a policy of selling airtime. Following a few days of test transmissions, the station made its formal debut as "the first commercially operated radio station in the South" on February 28, 1926. WJBO was one of the first stations to regularly broadcast news, working in tandem with The Times-Picayune. Jensen broadcast from the Roosevelt Hotel and Orpheum Theater. In 1932, he sold WJBO to the Manship family, who relaunched the station in December 1934 in Baton Rouge at 1420 kilocycles, powered at 100 watts, as a daytimer, required to sign off at night. By the early 1940s, the station's frequency had moved to 1150 kHz and its power increased to 500 watts. In 1941, WJBO's power got a big boost to 5,000 watts. Originally, the station broadcast from Highland Road in South Baton Rouge, but in 1941, a new studio was built on Florida Street to accommodate the growing station. WJBO was Baton Rouge's first commercial radio station and was affiliated with the NBC Blue Network from 1937 until 1948. In 1948, with the launch of radio station WLCS, WJBO affiliated itself with the NBC Red Network. It stayed an NBC affiliate until 1979. From 1976 until it folded, WJBO was also affiliated with the Mutual Broadcasting System, and in the late 1970s, was also affiliated with APR. In 1941, WJBO signed on an FM counterpart on 44.5 megacycles, originally as W45BR. In 1959, the call letters changed to WJBO-FM. WJBO-FM later moved to 102.5 MHz, and its call letters changed to WFMF in 1974. As network programming moved from radio to television in the 1950s, WJBO switched to a full servicemiddle of the road music format, including news, sports and talk. In the 1970s and ‘80s, as listeners tuned increasingly to FM for music, WJBO added more talk programming. In the 1980s, music programming was eliminated and WJBO became a full time talk station. In 1989, the Manship family sold WJBO and WFMF to station manager George Jenne. Following the sale, WJBO affiliated itself with an array of talk radio and news networks including: ABC Talkradio, CBS Radio News, NBC Radio News, Associated Press Radio, NBC Talknet, Transtar, United Stations Radio Network, and Westwood One. Under the ownership of Jenne, the WJBO and WFMF studios moved from their location on Florida Street in downtown Baton Rouge to new studios in Mid-City. In 1995, Jenne sold the stations to Gulfstar Communications. The station came under ownership of Clear Channel Communications when Gulfstar folded. The station was an affiliate of the New Orleans Saintsradio network until the 2009 season. For decades, it also served as the flagship station for the LSU Tigerscollege football and basketball games.
