Tampa Radio: WFLA Morning Host Tedd Webb To Retire

It's 9 in the morning and radio personality Tedd Webb is exhausted.

Sure, he's been up since 3:30 a.m. and just finished co-hosting the AM Tampa Bay show on News Radio WFLA 970 AM, but it's the same schedule he's kept through most of his five decades on the radio.

(Tampa Bay Times photos)

No, his fatigue is different now, tied to the congestive heart failure and diabetes that have plagued him for years but grown worse in recent months.

"This is tough," says Webb, 68. "I am giving up one of the loves of my life."

Webb is retiring at the end of January, four months from now, taking away a voice that has been a staple of the Tampa area's radio airwaves since 1963.

"I had a heart attack. I'm on dialysis three times a week," Webb says. "I'm drained. My heart wants to go on, but my body won't let it."

What he'll miss most, he says, are covering the "big stories" and working with Jack Harris, his AM Tampa Bay co-host since 1994.

"It's going to be tough without Teddy," Harris says. "It's like Sonny without Cher, Cheech without Chong.

Aaron Jacobson, who has been the third wheel of the Webb-Harris team, will move into the co-host slot. Harris is confident Jacobson is up to the task, but, still, he says, "Tedd is hard to replace. He's the most beloved guy in Tampa."

Webb, a West Tampa native who has been with WFLA-AM since 1983, broke into radio at 14 when he was still known by his birth name Henry Ruiz.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, the Tedd Webb name was born in February 1969 when he was hired as a morning DJ for WCWR in Clearwater. Station management randomly gave him the choice of three aliases — Ricky Robbins, Danny Miller or Ted Webb.

"I chose Ted, added a second D to balance it out, and that's it."

Webb would go on to become a morning DJ for stations featuring country, classic rock, hard rock and oldies before moving into talk radio in 1980.