“Another One Bites The Dust” was among the final songs listeners heard on Sunday night as the 10pm hour approached, with approximately 12 hours of silence following that classic Queen track and Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” ahead of Semisonic’s “Closing Time.” With a top-of-the hour ID and the start of “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC, the plug was pulled.
By midday Monday, after some signal testing, K-LOVE‘s nationally distributed Christian Contemporary Music format had officially replaced “The Shark” on a Class C2 FM radio station with a broadcast tower just south of the Gandy Blvd. causeway connecting Tampa with St. Petersburg.
The shift from a mix of Classic Rock featuring the syndicated Dave and Chuck the Freak in mornings and Jeff Zito in afternoons came as K-LOVE closed on its $8 million purchase of WPBB-FM 98.7 in Holmes Beach, Fla., from Beasley Media Group.
The format change puts Radio Training Network’s “The Joy FM” on notice that its dominance in the market is about to get a big challenge. RTN-owned WCIE-FM dominates the marketplace, and was ranked No. 2 in the most recent Nielsen Audio ratings for Tampa-St. Petersburg, based on overall ratings.
Michael J. Bergner served as Beasley’s broker of record in this transaction.
WPBB had been a Beasley property since 2014, when it engineered a multi-station, multi-market swap with CBS Radio. The result? CBS Radio got properties in Philadelphia and Miami as Beasley gained stations in Tampa-St. Petersburg and Charlotte. Among the stations going to Beasley was the station today known as “The Shark.” Prior presentations include Hot Adult Contemporary “Play 98.7” and, prior to that, Smooth Jazz as WSJT. For a decade before that, the 98.7 MHz facility was home to Rhythmic Top 40 WLLD “Wild.”
In November 2024, WPBB gained attention for becoming “fully powered” by an artificial intelligence-driven operating system developed by Super Hi-Fi. As of today, the station’s air staff is comprised of Detroit-based Dave and Chuck the Freak in mornings and Jeff Zito in afternoon drive.
