WHPT-FM Tampa (Flagship): 6am-10am ET
Sirius XM: M-F 3pm-7pm ET / 1am-5am ET
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Bubba The Love Sponge ® has worked in radio since April 1, 1985, when he made his start in the business on Power 103 in Terre Haute, Indiana. Thanks to his quick wit and sharp verbal skills, Bubba quickly moved his way up through the ranks of the radio world, moving to morning drive in Chicago in 1989.
By 1993, Bubba was working in Tampa for WFLZ-FM, but he was looking to shift away from the CHR world and move to a rock-based station. That happened in December 1996, when he became the new morning host on Tampa’s 98 Rock (WXTB).
Bubba found success in morning drive, and in January 2001 his program went into syndication. I worked as Bubba’s head of syndication (a job I landed in part thanks to this website) from January 2003-February 2004.
In the heat of the FCC crackdown on so-called “indecent broadcasts”, Bubba was fired by Clear Channel on February 23, 2004. The hard work I had put in for 13 months to land new affiliates for the show was blown up. That was not fun.
The Bubba The Love Sponge ® show re-emerged from its nearly two-year long hiatus on January 9, 2006, airing on Howard 101 on Sirius Satellite Radio (now Sirius XM). Bubba’s debut came on the same day that legendary radio personality Howard Stern broadcast his first show on Sirius. Both Bubba and Stern are under contract with Sirius XM through December 2010.
Bubba returned to terrestrial radio in January 2008, going on the air with Cox Radio’s 102.5 The Bone (WHPT) in Tampa/Sarasota and Rock 105 (104.7 WFVY-FM) in Jacksonville. For a full year Bubba broadcast two separate live four-hour long shows every weekday: one in the morning for terrestrial radio, and another in the afternoon for Sirius.
In January 2009, Bubba’s show (which had been limited to just Tampa and Jacksonville as per his contract with Sirius XM) was allowed to be syndicated across the country. Bubba quickly added lost markets from his first run in terrestrial radio (Orlando and Ft. Myers) along with expanding into new territory, including Miami/Ft. Lauderdale and Richmond, VA. He reduced his insane workload, with his morning terrestrial show airing in afternoons on Howard 101 from Monday-Thursday and a special satellite-only show airing live on Friday mid-mornings (and replayed in afternoons) after his live Friday terrestrial show.
