WTEM is also the co-flagship station of the Maryland Terrapins (shared with Audacy-owned WJZ-FM in Baltimore), and is the Washington affiliate of Fox Sports Radio.

NBC's other radio chain, the Blue Network, had no affiliate in the national capital until RCA entered into a lease agreement with WMAL in 1933.

WRC moved its frequency to 950 AM in 1928, and then shifted to 980 AM in 1941 as a result of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA).

A popular DJ on WRC was Doug Tracht, known as the "Greaseman," who would later host mornings for many years on WWDC-FM and in radio syndication.

With the sale, the station changed to a full-service middle of the road format, of popular music, talk and information, on September 1, 1984.

[4] During the early 1990s, WWRC was the home to popular shows hosted by Joe Madison, Mark Davis and Joel A. Spivak.

It was also one of the brief homes for the last radio show to be hosted by Morton Downey, Jr. (the other being WRC's former sister station WTAM in Cleveland).

[5][6] At the beginning, WTEM emulated the program lineup and even imported the jingles from New York City's WFAN, the first all-sports radio station in the United States.

After his contract not renewed by WMAL, Ken Beatrice and his show, Sports Call, moved to WTEM in late 1995.

Between November 1995 and December 1996, Warner Wolf was named the guest host of The Tony Kornheiser Show on Thursdays until he moved to New York as a sports anchor on WCBS-TV.

Booms joined WTEM as part of a stunt revolving the Comedy Central show Comics on Delivery, where viewers were asked write in and enlist the aid of comedians to help them get through experiences from daily life.

WTEM accommodated the move by moving The John Thompson Show to 3–5 p.m., reducing The Jim Rome Show to 2 hours and creating a new program called The Sports Reporters hosted by Andy Pollin between 5–7 p.m. After the new lineup announced, Jim Rome voiced his displeasure on the air, attacked Kornheiser and demanded WTEM to get his third hour back.

The new trimulcast cleared most of ESPN Radio's weekday programming, as well as a local show hosted by former Redskin John Riggins.

Red Zebra Broadcasting then purchased WTEM, WTNT (570 AM, Gaithersburg, Maryland) and WWRC (1260 AM, Washington) from Clear Channel in a deal announced in 2008.

When WTEM merged with Triple X ESPN Radio, the last hour of The Herd with Colin Cowherd was eliminated, as well as the entire network show hosted by Mike Tirico and Scott Van Pelt (the latter of whom graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park in the local area).

WXTR temporarily remained in the simulcast until assuming a separate format as the Washington, DC affiliate of ESPN Deportes Radio on September 1, 2008.

That show, however, continued to be produced from WTEM's studios until Fox Sports Radio canceled the program in December 2009.

Red Zebra flipped WTNT (570 AM) from its conservative talk format to sports/talk to "SportsTalk 570" on September 20, 2010, running the ESPN Radio network feed all day as a complement to WTEM.

The station changed call signs to WSPZ on October 18, 2010, after Red Zebra sold WXTR to Metro Radio.

WSPZ was the primary Washington-area affiliate of the Virginia Cavaliers radio network and acted as a backup station in the case of any play-by-play scheduling conflicts with WTEM.

[20] WWXX was sold to Educational Media Foundation and runs the K-Love contemporary Christian music network as WLZV.

As part of the sale, Urban One agreed to a rights deal with the Redskins to maintain the station's relationship with the team.

On June 13, 2019, Cumulus Media announced that ESPN Radio would move to WMAL on July 1, 2019, as that station changed to full-time sports programming.

[26][27] Concurrently, WMAL announced it would carry Washington Redskins broadcasts, though WTEM remains the team's flagship station.

[29] In September 2019, WTEM added a 250 watt FM translator, W240DJ, broadcasting from Silver Spring, Maryland at 95.9 MHz.