MJ turns Tampa Bay radio on its head with new morning show on old rival station

Tampa radio reinvented with MJ’s return on former rival station

Lloyd Sowers reports

TAMPA, Fla. - After eight years off the airwaves of Tampa Bay, the MJ Morning Show is coming back. But it's not coming back on the station where it started, 93.3 WFLZ. The show is coming back on the station that once was the Power Pig's bitter rival -- Q-105.

“To come to Q-105 and relaunch the MJ morning show is just fascinating,” Todd Schnitt, AKA 'MJ,' told FOX 13 News.

When he first came to Tampa in the early 1990s, his station, 93.3 WFLZ, had just dethroned Q-105 as the leading Top 40 station in the Tampa Bay Area.

WFLZ branded itself as The Power Pig when it launched its assault on Q-105 in 1989.

“What happened in Tampa Bay back in the late 80s and early 90s, the famous Power Pig -- Q-105 war, is in the history books,” MJ recalled.

But the young audience that went to the Power Pig then is who MJ believes will listen to Q-105 now.

The rivalry between The Power Pig and Q-105 was fierce in the 80s and 90s

“Teenagers or young adults who were listening to us back in the 90s and early 2000s, they have families, they have kids now,” explained MJ.

Q-105 plays music from the 80s and 90s, however, MJ’s show is more news, talk, entertainment, and information.

“We can cover the national issues, but we can also really drill into the local stories that are really important. This is my home,” said MJ, who took a job in New York eight years ago, but never sold his home in Tampa.

Mason Dixon of Q-105, a 41-year Tampa Bay radio veteran

Back in the 80s, Q-105 was The Zoo in the morning and Mason Dixon in afternoon drive. Then 93.3 hired MJ, taking WFLZ's morning show to the top.

Now that Beasley Media Group is bringing MJ back to Tampa, Dixon is going back to afternoons again.

“I thought about it a second, I called my wife, she said, 'You know what? It sounds like a good idea,'" 41-year Tampa Bay radio veteran Mason Dixon said with a laugh. "No more getting up at 3:15 a.m.”

Dixon believes MJ’s followers, together with his own, will boost the ratings and unite generations who listened to Q-105 and The Power Pig, and now 93.3 WFLZ.

MJ admits, in the days of The Power Pig, he never dreamed he would someday be at Q-105, but he couldn’t be happier.