Happy 65th Birthday AM 540!

What we now know as “Newsradio WFLA Orlando” went on the air on September 9, 1955 on AM 540.The studios were in the Palm Crest Hotel in Haines City with a power of 10,000 watts.

A company called KWK owned the station but sold it to Hubbard Broadcasting in 1964.There was a rumor floating around that Stanley Hubbard actually won the license to AM 540 (then WGTO) in a card game.But other sources say Hubbard paid $150,000 for it.

At the time, the station was a little difficult to promote because many AM radios did not have 540 printed on the dial.Listeners were told they could still get the station by cranking their tuning knob all the way to the “top of the dial”.

Hubbard Broadcasting’s other radio station holdings were all power houses and they wanted the same reputation for AM 540. But the only way to raise the power of the 10,000 watt Haines City station was to change the city of license.

Around this time, Dick Pope, owner of the old Cypress Gardens tourist attraction stepped up with a proposal.Pope offered to build new studios for the station on the attraction’s property and lease it to Hubbard for $1 per year in return for free advertising.So, in 1958, 540 moved from Haines City to Cypress Gardens and increased its power to 50,000 watts.The station promoted itself as “the most powerful station in the nation” and played off of the call letters WGTO by promoting “from the Gulf To the Ocean” and “Gainesville To Okeechobee”.For a while they also used “Covering Florida Like the Sun”.

We now call the radio station “The 50,000 watt Front Porch”.“Good Morning Orlando” host Bud Hedinger tells the story about how, in 2003 - his first year on the air with the station, he opposed then Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty’s proposal to add a half-cent sales tax for road construction and to add a toll lane on I-4.The measure went down to defeat at the polls. Crotty and some others complained about the influence Bud and the station had on public opinion.Bud spontaneously replied, “Well that’s the power of the 50,000 watt front porch”.The nickname stuck, and the station uses it to this day.

But before the “front porch”, the station had a lot of nicknames.In the early 1970’s the station played Top 40 rock and roll and was known as “the 50,000 watt Rock of Florida”, then later “Disco 54”.Finally, after 22 years of playing pop music, a milestone was reached in January, 1977 when then-WGTO flipped to country music and simply used the phrase “Great Country Music 54” as a promotional tool.“Great Country Music 54” became a huge success as a country station – quadrupling its ratings and becoming the solid number one station in the market that first year.

Ten years later, in late 1986, the station was sold, and the format changed to gospel music.It changed hands again in 1989 and the city of license was moved from Cypress Gardens to Pine Hills.New studios were built in Ocoee, the transmitter with its six towers was moved to a spot about ten miles west of Disney World, and the format flipped to oldies with no live announcers – in AM stereo no less! It used the moniker “Cruisin’ Oldies 54”.Then in 1990 the station was sold again to two Ft. Meyers doctors and a lawyer, and the format changed to sports talk - “The Sporty 540 AM”.

In 1994 Paxson Broadcasting bought the station and moved its studios to our current location in Maitland.The call letters became WWZN and the format remained sports-talk.The station evolved into what was known as “540 The Team” with the call letters WQTM.The station was sold to Clear Channel Communications in 1997 which eventually renamed itself “iHeartMedia” – our current owner.Clear Channel also owned 50,000 watt AM 740 which was running a news/talk format.Clear Channel flip flopped the formats of the two stations, acquired the Rush Limbaugh program from competitor WDBO, launched a news/talk format on AM 540, and changed the call letters to WFLF-AM which is called “WFLA” on the air (the company also owns the station in Tampa with the actual WFLA call letters). It then went by the nickname “Newsradio 540 WFLA”.

Over the years the station simulcast its programming on several FM signals to capture those listeners who prefer the FM dial.Currently the station broadcasts on FM 94.1 servicing the northern part of the Orlando metro area, FM 93.1 serving the southern part of the metro, and STILL on what is now called “The 50,000 Watt Front Porch” – AM 540- all across the Florida peninsula –“From the Gulf To the Ocean”.Listeners can also listen to the station on smart phones and smart devices such as Alexa and Google Home through iHeartRadio, the iHeartRadio app, and Tune-in.

Information compiled with permission from cflradio.net, radioyears.com, and local sources.