WGFX (104.5 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Gallatin, Tennessee, and serving the Nashville metropolitan area.
Most of its daytime schedule has local hosts, with programming from Fox Sports Radio heard nights and weekends.
The transmitter is on Blevins Road off Interstate 24 in Whites Creek, Tennessee, amid the towers for other Nashville-area FM and TV stations.
[2] The station signed on as WFMG-FM on December 1, 1960, in Gallatin, Tennessee, about 30 miles (47 km) northeast of Nashville, with a big band format.
In 1965, the station's studio and transmitter site was moved 5.1 miles north of the City of Gallatin to a location known as "Music Mountain".
In 1971, Sumner Country Broadcasting Co., which owned WHIN in Gallatin, purchased WFMG and changed call letters to WHIN-FM.
In the summer of 1987, WWKX moved its tower from Music Mountain into Nashville and downgraded power, noticeably affecting signal strength in rural areas north of the city.
However, when the agreement fell apart, SFX converted WLAC-FM to a classic rock format of its own, changed the call letters to WNRQ, and began to compete directly with WGFX.
[4] In early 1999, WGFX was slated to convert to a country music outlet built around local air personality Carl P. Mayfield.
However, the company ultimately succumbed to Mayfield's repeated demands that the format be installed on the stronger-signalled WKDF, leaving WGFX to continue broadcasting rhythmic oldies.
Management hired popular personalities George Plaster, Willy Daunic and Darren McFarland away from Cumulus Media station WWTN (99.7 FM).
In the early days of the Zone, the station had a heavy focus on local news, and featured general-interest talk on weekdays from 6am-Noon, with sports in all other dayparts.
[8] Shortly after the merger, WGFX and WKDF moved their studios from Rutledge Hill to Cumulus' existing cluster at Music Row, where they broadcast alongside WWTN, WSM-FM, and WQQK.
Plaster, Daunic and McFarland left WGFX immediately after Cumulus acquired the station in September 2011, and the trio was instrumental in launching its primary competitor, WPRT-FM.