Technical Profile: WFLF-FM

FM Technical Profile: WFLF

Station Name:: Rock 94.5
Frequency:: 94.5
Format:: Rock
Transmitter Location:: [map] Approx. 3 miles east of Port St. Joe, about 1 mile east of state 71. Co-located with WEBZ-FM on FL-384 (Old Niles Tramroad).
Power (ERP):: 100 kW
Antenna:: Omnidirectional
Antenna HAAT:: 991 feet
Other Information:: 60 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC.; :
PS-?
Time-Present
Text-?
PTY-Rock
PI-WFLF-FM
More Information:: [FCC]; [FCCdata]; [Radio-Locator]; [Wikipedia]
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[Studio] Street View imagery of the Panama City iHeartMedia cluster's studio facility on Lisenby Road.
Owner:: iHeartMedia
History:: Gulf Broadcasting, Inc. was granted a permit for a new Class A station on 93.5 MHz, licensed to Port St. Joe, Florida, in early 1975. Before it was built out, the permit was transferred to North Florida Broadcasting Corporation in 1978. They failed to get the station built, and the permit expired in 1980. After it was reinstated, the station was on the air by June of 1980, from a transmitter and studios located on Ward Ridge Road (today's Madison Avenue), a block east of the high school in Port St. Joe. They used a Gates FM-1C, feeding a four bay Gates FMC-4A, for an ERP of 1.86 kW at 161 feet HAAT. The calls were WGCV.

In 1981, the station filed to move to a new location, about a block south of the high school on Long Avenue. When the station signed on that facility in September 1981, it was at 530 HAAT but with only 980 watts ERP. It's unknown what the format was in the early days, but North Florida's WJOE AM in town was Country Music, so it's possible it was a simulcast of that format.

Don Crisp purchased the AM and FM in 1982, but sold them to Brown Broadcasting, Inc. (John Brown University of Arkansas) in 1983. They flipped the format to Top 40 as WJST. To better compete in the nearby Panama City market, the station signed on a more powerful signal on 94.5 MHz, with 100,000 watts at over 520 feet HAAT, in 1987. That same year, the station and its AM sister were acquired by Asterisk, Inc. (Dick and Fred Ingham) for $1.825 million.

Under Asterisk's ownership, the station tried doing Country to compete against WPAP, but the format didn't take off. Later it had a short stint as Southern Gospel in the early 90's. After that, a stab at Classic Rock as "Z-Rock" WWZR was attempted but was apparently very short lived. (Side note: The FCC has no record of a call sign even remotely similar to this for the station; instead, they list the call sign as changing to WKNB in February 1993.)

The station was purchased by Southern Broadcasting Companies, Inc. in 1994 for $365,000. They flipped the format to Oldies/Classic Hits with the WPBH call sign in March 1994. (Side note: At this point, the AM sister station was off the air, left to die by Asterisk, Inc., who wanted to concentrate on the possibilities with the FM signal.)

In 1996, the station re-licensed to Parker, Florida, a suburb of Panama City. The station was acquired by Clear Channel in 1997. In 1999, they flipped it to a Rock-heavy Classic Hits format as "Pirate 94.5" WPPT.

In 2002, the calls changed to WFBX, as "94.5 The Fox", with the same Rock format.

In a push to create a quasi-statewide News/Talk network in Florida, Clear Channel flipped the station's format to News/Talk as "WFLA", using the calls, branding and programming from their Tampa AM with those calls. The call sign here changed to WFLF.

iHeart Radio (formerly Clear Channel) began a shakeup of their properties in Panama City in September 2021, moving the WFLA Talk format to a couple of low powered translators in the city, fed by WPAP-HD2, while stunting with Christmas Music as "Christmas 94.5" on this signal. On Friday, 17 September 2021, the station re-launched as "Rock 94.5" with a Rock music format.