For most of its history, the station operated as WMAL; on July 1, 2019, its talk programming was moved exclusively to co-owned WMAL-FM at 105.9 MHz, which had simulcast with 630 am since 2011.

WSBN has two local hosts on weekdays, Andy Pollin in late mornings and Bram Weinstein in afternoon drive time.

It announced on March 24, 2021, that it joined the Baltimore Orioles Radio Network as an affiliate station beginning with the upcoming season.

[6] The new high-power WMAL went on the air from studios at 710-712 11th Street NW on October 2, 1926, with former WCAP announcer William T. Pierson as director and with a policy of encouraging young broadcasting talent in hopes of creating "a people's forum".

While still owned by the Leese family, WMAL was eventually leased to the National Broadcasting Company in 1934, joining it with owned-and-operated station WRC.

In the late months of 1937, the lease to NBC was terminated, with station operation reverting to the Leese Family interests.

Leese Radio Corporation was acquired by publishers of the now-defunct Washington Evening Star newspaper, a family-owned concern headed by board chairman and president Samuel H. Kauffman.

The station then reverted to the direct control of the Evening Star Broadcasting Company, of which K. H. Berkeley was executive vice president.

Also in 1954, John W. Thompson Jr. replaced S. H. Kauffman as president of Evening Star Broadcasting Co. Andrew Martin Ockershausen was appointed station manager of WMAL in 1960.

In 1965 Houwink was named vice president of Evening Star Broadcasting and Ockershausen was elevated to general manager of WMAL.

In early January 1976, the Evening Star Broadcasting Company's WMAL, WMAL-FM and WMAL-TV and majority control of the ailing newspaper were acquired from the Kauffman, Noyes and Adams families by publisher Joseph L. Albritton’s Perpetual Corporation and Albritton became board chairman and chief owner of WMAL's license.

On January 21, 1976, WMAL's licensee name was changed to Washington Star Communications of Delaware, Inc. Richard S. Stakes became station president, but resigned in December 1976.

In March 1977, WMAL and WMAL-FM were spun off to ABC Radio, while the TV station was retained and became WJLA-TV, named after Albritton's initials.

In August 2005, host Michael Graham was fired after refusing to apologize for calling the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) a "terrorist organization."

By late 2009, WMAL's morning-drive through midnight weekday format was uninterrupted conservative talk, with a lineup of Fred Grandy and Andy Parks, Chris Plante, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Joe Scarborough, and Curtis Sliwa.

Weekends include gardening host Jos Roozen, investing adviser Ric Edelman and lawyer Michael Collins.

In 2015, Cumulus announced that it was planning to sell the station's 75 acre (30 hectare) Bethesda, Maryland transmitter site, in use since 1941, so it could be redeveloped for high-end housing.

[17] Transmissions from Bethesda ceased on the afternoon of May 1, 2018, with operations switched to the replacement facility at Germantown, Maryland, northwest of the original site and now diplexed with an existing station, WSPZ (later WWRC).

The station also kept a local following for a time by broadcasting sports games featuring the Washington Redskins and University of Maryland, College Park Terrapins.

The station aired a radio talk show on November 26, 2006, to gauge his audience's reaction to saying that "force should be applied to ensure that all Muslims in America wear identifying markers...."[28][29] The hoax was revealed at the end of the program.