city of license changed to Cypress Gardens and WGTO boosted its daytime power to 50,000 watts, calling itself "the most powerful station in the nation" due to operating at the lowest AM frequency permitted with the maximum amount of power permitted. WGTO aired a Top 40 music format from its beginning until the mid-1970s, when the station experimented with a disco format. Country music era On January 29, 1977, WGTO made a dramatic format change to country music, with billboards around Orlando proclaiming the awakening of the market's "Sleeping Giant". As a country station, WGTO became a ratings success and won accolades as one of the top country-formatted radio stations in the nation, including being named Billboard magazine's "Small Market Country Station of the Year for 1978". Around this time, WGTO also added nighttime operations with 1,000 watts of power. But in the 1980s, as country music fans increasingly turned to the FM dial, WGTO lost market share to FM country competitors such as 92.3 WWKA. In 1982, WGTO was sold and the format changed to religious programming. Switch to oldies Another sale four years later brought another format change, to oldies as "Cruisin' Oldies 54". But the station was not profitable and most of the station's local personalities were laid off in 1992 as the station switched to a satellite feed. Sports format Paxson Communications, owned by Bud Paxson, purchased WGTO in 1994, dropping the heritage call letters in favor of new call sign WWZN, and installing a sports talk format, as "The Sports Zone". In 1996, the call letters were again changed to WQTM ("540 The Team"), keeping the all-sports format. In 1997, WQTM was acquired by San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications, the forerunner to current owner iHeartMedia, Inc. In February 2001, WQTM's format and call letters moved to AM 740, which later changed its call sign to WYGM, using the moniker "The Game". With the end of the sports format on AM 540, the station switched to its current talk radio format, calling itself "NewsRadio 540 WFLA". Programming changes Through the fall of 2007, WFLF carried the Pat Campbell show from 6–9 a.m., and was the Orlando affiliate for The Mike Gallagher Show. In December 2007, 540 WFLA began to merge programming with WQTM "740 The Team", a co-owned sports radio station which was preparing to change to a Spanish-language format. Pat Campbell was fired in December.