Early years The first Philadelphia FM station on 92.5 was
Westinghouse-owned KYW-FM, the
sister station to
KYW. In 1942, Westinghouse put the station on the air in the old FM band and in 1948 moved it to 92.5 MHz. The development of FM radio in the post-war years was slow and Westinghouse decided not to continue operating KYW-FM, relinquishing its license in 1955. The 92.5 frequency stayed empty for three years. In September 1958, WIFI
signed on at 92.5 MHz, owned by Hi-Fidelity Broadcasters Corporation. Although it was always licensed as a Philadelphia station, WIFI in its early years was essentially a local station serving
Norristown, Pennsylvania and neighboring communities in
Montgomery County. It aired
Middle of the Road music and talk along with some specialty music shows and local high school sports. At the end of the 1960s, WIFI brought some of the first "
progressive rock" or "underground" programming to the airwaves with Johnny Devereaux and other hosts. By 1970, WIFI had been acquired by
General Cinema Corporation and had dropped local programming, replacing it with a
syndicated music service known as "Hit Parade", playing
automated adult contemporary music and pre-recorded announcements, with no live disc jockeys needed. WIFI later switched to Hit Parade's companion
oldies format, known as "Solid Gold Rock and Roll", and also tried other automated programming.
Top 40 and alternative rock years On January 1, 1973, WIFI instituted a high-energy
contemporary hit radio format known as the Boogie Format with the slogan "Let's Boogie". It was one of the first stand-alone, live FM top 40 stations in the United States.
John Tenaglia served as Vice President of General Cinema Corp., George Burns as consultant and Steve "Shotgun" Kelly as Program Director. The legendary
Hy Lit from
WIBG was brought on board as the morning
drive time personality along with Bill Figenshu (Wild Bill Elliot) middays, Steve "Shotgun" Kelly in afternoon drive, Fritz Coleman (Bobby Walker) and John Rivers nights. The Boogie Bug was created from a
Volkswagen Bug and then the
VW Thing was added along with Boogie book covers for school books and "Let's Boogie" billboards all over town. Later well-known personalities were Byron and Tanaka, Jeff "Mutha" Robbins, Bill Gamble, and Pat McKay. WIFI was the only true top 40 station in Philadelphia following
WFIL's evolution into an
adult Contemporary format in the late 1970s. When WCAU-FM (now
WOGL) debuted its
Hot Hits format on September 24, 1981, WIFI's ratings fell as WCAU-FM quickly grabbed most of the teen audience. In March 1983, a move to a
new wave/
alternative rock format, branded as "I-92" and "Rock of the Eighties", attracted press attention, but ratings fell to a 0.5 share in the Arbitron Spring 1983 Book.
Switch to WXTU In August 1983, the station was sold to
Beasley Broadcast Group. The new owners instituted a
dance music/
rhythmic contemporary format as "92X", with a
call sign change to WXTU on September 19, (reminiscent of New York City's
WKTU). That format failed to find an audience and was gone in a matter of months. On March 1, 1984, at 1p.m., the station switched to its current country format. The first country song on WXTU was "
Are You Ready For The Country" by
Waylon Jennings. In 2007, the station was nominated for the
Radio & Records Magazine "Country Music Station of The Year Award" for the top 25 markets. Other nominees included
WUSN Chicago,
KYGO-FM Denver,
WYCD Detroit,
KEEY-FM Minneapolis, and
KSON-FM San Diego.
Changes in ownership On October 2, 2014, Beasley Broadcast Group announced that it would trade WXTU and four other radio stations in Miami and Philadelphia to
CBS Radio in exchange for 14 CBS stations located in
Tampa and
Charlotte, with one station in Philadelphia, AM 610 (now
WTEL), going to Beasley. (AM 610 was traded because keeping it would have put CBS over the FCC limit for stations in one
media market). The swap was completed on December 1. On February 2, 2017, CBS Radio announced it would merge with
Entercom. The merger was approved on November 9, and was consummated on the 17th. On July 19, 2018, Entercom announced that it would sell WXTU back to Beasley for $38 million as part of its purchase of
WBEB. The sale closed on September 28. ==Awards and nominations==