| City of license | FM: Dade City, Florida AM: Egypt Lake, Florida |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Tampa Bay Area |
| Branding | "La Bahia" (Spanish for "The Bay") |
| Frequency | FM: 96.1 (MHz) AM: 1150 (kHz) |
| First air date | 1954 |
| Format | Spanish Tropical |
| Power | AM: 10,000 watts daytime 500 watts nighttime |
| ERP | FM: 2,800 watts |
| HAAT | FM: 147 meters |
| Class | FM: A AM: B |
| Facility ID | FM: 15239 AM: 74108 |
| Callsign meaning | TaMPa |
| Owner | Davidson Media Group |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | wtmp.com |
WTMP is a radio station serving the Tampa Bay, Florida, broadcasting on 1150 AM and 96.1 FM. The station plays Spanish Tropical music, billed as "La Bahia", which is Spanish for "The Bay", referring to the Tampa Bay area. The station are owned by Davidson Media Group, who acquired the combo after its previous owners, Tama Broadcasting, filed for bankruptcy and had to sell the stations to pay off outstanding debts.
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During its tenure, WTMP featured urban adult contemporary R&B and classic soul music that was aimed towards the African American community, though its main urban competitors were WBTP and WRXB. Its target audience were African Americans between the ages of 25-54 and was the current home of the Tom Joyner Morning Show. Michael Baisden's syndicated show Love, Lust and Lies was also carried by the station, whose slogan was "Today's Best In R&B and Classic Soul".
WTMP, on 1150 AM originally, has been a longtime heritage Urban Contemporary station in the market. Noted R&B vocalist and Tampa native King Coleman got his start as a DJ on WTMP in the 1950s. In the late 1990s, the station, then-owned by Broadcast Capital, was bought by Tama Broadcasting, which has headquarters in Tampa, thus making WTMP the flagship. Long controlled by the Cherry family, Tama also owns stations in Daytona Beach, Jacksonville, Savannah, Georgia and Greenville, South Carolina; it owns newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Pierce. The owner went on to buy the then-WGUL-FM in 2002 and made it a Hip Hop/Urban station (and home to Russ Parr in the Morning) as WTMP-FM. Even after a format change to Jammin Oldies, that station did not do well do to its rimshot signal, so it ended up a simulcast of WTMP-AM a year later. The rimshot signal, which barely reaches the Hillsborough County line from its transmitter southeast of Brooksville, also couldn't be moved closer to Tampa or upgraded with changes to the tower or wattage, due to interference issues with other stations broadcasting on 96.1 and nearby frequencies.
The Tampa Bay would see an Urban-formatted Hip Hop station months later called WBTP; WLLD is a Rhythmic-formatted Hip Hop station and has been around years prior. Such competition was a minor setback for WTMP as it was losing younger listeners to WBTP, but it was already restructured to an Urban Adult Contemporary by then anyway. Outside the R&B and Classic Soul playlist tenure, it also offered Gospel (early weekday mornings and Sundays), Old School Mix shows Friday nights and Blues Sunday nights. In addition, it also had talk shows on weekends aimed at the community.
On September 2, 2011, after a 57-year run, WTMP's legacy as a R&B outlet came to a abrupt end at 3PM (EDT), as new owners Davidson Media Group took over the station from Tama, who filed for bankruptcy and placed the station in court-ordered receivership. Davidson then went and flipped the combo to a Spanish tropical format. All of the syndicated shows and airstaff were already pink-slipped a day before the flip.[1]
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