The station was founded as WFLN by civic leaders as a "fine arts" station, and first went on the air in March 1949 with a classical music format. WFLN added the -FM suffix in 1956 when an AM simulcast of the station launched on 900 kHz. The station was sold in 1988 to Marlin Broadcasting, which added more news, sports and traffic reports. From 1995 to 1997, WFLN was bought and sold five more times. With each purchase, budget cutbacks were instituted and, while maintaining the Classical format, the station adopted a more commercial sound with shorter familiar selections dominating the playlist in most dayparts. Finally, on September 5, 1997, at 6 p.m., Tom Milewski, the chief operating officer for Greater Media, which had recently acquired the station, announced that the station was ending its Classical programming. WFLN's classical recordings were donated to WRTI and Greater Media provided financial support to Temple as formerly all-Jazz WRTI adopted the WFLN Classical format during the day along with three of the WFLN program hosts. WRTI continued to program its Jazz format at night. Greater Media stated at the time that classical music would be best preserved as a non-commercial format; Greater Media's support of WRTI also served to deflect criticism that the company was taking away Philadelphia's only Classical radio station. After the Classical format ended, 95.7 then became WXXM, Max 95.7, adopting a Modern AC format similar to, but slightly softer than alternative rock station Y100. The first song played in the new format was Sheryl Crow's "A Change Would Do You Good." The station reported to radio trade publications as a hot adult contemporary station. WXXM was jockless for the first 6 months as "Max", and the ratings plummeted compared to the final survey under the Classical format. Although WXXM added well-known Philadelphia jock Paul Barsky to mornings in February 1999, which resulted in some ratings improvement, it wasn't enough to warrant keeping the format. At Noon on May 13, 1999, in the middle of Sarah McLachlan's "Building a Mystery", the station switched format to rhythmic oldies, playing a blend of urban oldies from the '60s to the '80s, disco, classic dance tunes, and some '70s pop hits, branded as Jammin' Gold. The first song under the new format was "Back Stabbers" by The O'Jays. On August 30, the station changed call signs to WEJM. Given Philadelphia's history with the R&B genre, as well as having the demographics needed to support the format, "Jammin' Gold" was initially well received in the market. However, by 2001, the station's ratings began to slip. On June 15, 2001, WEJM became Mix 95.7, another incarnation of Hot AC. On July 17, WEJM changed call signs to WMWX. The station initially leaned toward Modern AC, before moving to a more traditional Hot AC approach. The station continued to be plagued by mediocre ratings. Meanwhile, Infinity/CBS Radio was in the process of switching some of its FM stations to adult hits, a broad-based adult rock and pop format branded as Jack FM with its most-notable slogan "We play what we want!!" Jack stations typically had playlists that could encompass up to two thousand songs. Stations that adopted the format were mostly under-performers in their previous formats, but a few, such as New York's WCBS-FM, were decently-rated heritage oldies stations. With rumors circulating that there were plans to switch oldies WOGL to "Jack," on March 21, 2005, at 5 p.m., after playing "Better Man" by Pearl Jam, the station rebranded as 95.7 Ben FM. The first song on "Ben" was "Philadelphia Freedom" by Elton John. The call sign was changed to WBEN-FM on May 9, 2005. The "Ben" format is similar to the "Jack FM" stations in terms of playlist size and the character of the songs played, with the slogan "playing anything we feel like." WBEN-FM has tweaked its format in recent years to add more classic alternative tracks from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. On July 19, 2016, Beasley Media Group announced it would acquire Greater Media and its 21 stations for $240 million. The FCC approved the sale on October 6, and the sale closed on November 1. On February 28, 2019, for one week, Ben FM rebranded as "95.7 Bryce FM" to celebrate the signing of Bryce Harper to the Philadelphia Phillies. On April 1, 2019, the station switched to television music as part of an April Fools joke.
Club Ben (WBEN-FM HD2)
In 2006, WBEN added an HD2 subchannel to carry a commercial-free hybrid Rhythmic AC/Classic Dance format under the name "Club Ben." The format consists of a mix of ‘70s funk and R&B, and ’80s and ‘90s pop/dance music. This format is similar to the former "Jammin' Gold" format, as well as the Rhythmic AC format formerly aired on WISX.
