94.1 began broadcasting as WVFM on August 29, 1965 and aired an easy listening format. The station was off the air for almost a year between November 1966 and September 1967 while in the process of being sold. Easy listening remained the format at WVFM for almost three decades; the station changed its calls to WEZY in 1988. WEZY later evolved from pure Beautiful Music into Soft AC before changing to Smooth JazzWSJT on July 1, 1995.
WiLD format
The kayfabe line is that the station was started by two friends, Josh and Brian, who had been drinking on Josh's father's boat claiming to have pirated radio waves. The duo bragged of their contraband and irregulated airwaves until they were bought and turned into what is now the station that is broadcast today. In reality, the station just had a very small budget to start with, often resulting in the same songs playing over and over again. Tone Lōc's "Wild Thing" was the first song the station had played over the air. The fictional friends would claim to have allegiance toward the song during their drunken stupor and continued to play the song repeatedly over the course of days. For the first few days the station was on the air, the song continued to be played in an effort to spark word of mouth attention. At first, WLLD's musical direction included a balanced mix of hit-driven R&B/Hip-Hop and Dance tracks, mostly to counter rival WFLZ-FM, a move that would pay off up until WBTP debuted. Today, the station's playlist is atypical of most rhythmics as it consists of mostly hip-hop and R&B hits, thus is considered to be a rhythmic crossover by "Billboard". It also has competition from Rhythmic-leaning Top 40/CHR WPOI, which debuted in July 2011. WLLD was located on the 98.7 frequency from May 15, 1998, until 5:00 p.m. on August 19, 2009, when it swapped frequencies with smooth jazz station WSJT. The first song played after the switch was Tone Loc's "Wild Thing", the same first song that was played when WLLD was first launched in 1998 when it was on the 98.7 frequency. On October 2, 2014, CBS Radio announced that it would trade all of their radio stations located in Charlotte and Tampa, as well as WIP in Philadelphia, to the Beasley Broadcast Group in exchange for 5 stations located in Miami and Philadelphia. The swap was completed on December 1, 2014.
The "Original 12"
These songs were part of the original line up at WLLD. As previously mentioned, the budgetary restrictions on the station limited the songs that were played on the air. The following legendary line up was the result. Tone Loc - Wild Thing Bone Thugs'n'Harmony - Ghetto Cowboy Master P - Make em Say Ugh Jay-Z - Can I Get A.. Aaliyah - Are You That Somebody 2 Live Crew - Me So Horny Sylk E. Fine - Romeo and Juliet Adam Sandler - Ode to My Car Notorious B.I.G. feat. Puff Daddy & Mase - Mo Money Mo Problems Mýa - Take Me There Mýa - Movin' On Militia - Burn
WLLD uses the "WiLD" branding in Tampa. The brand has since been trademarked by Clear Channel Communications years later since the debut of WLLD, which is due to Clear Channel owning KYLD/San Francisco, who has used the "WiLD" branding since their launch in 1992. Like KYLD, when WLLD was started, the first song played was Tone-Loc's Wild Thing, hence the station's branding basis.
