WABM (channel 68) is a television station in Birmingham, Alabama, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Homewood-licensed CW affiliate WTTO (channel 21) and low-power ABC affiliate WBMA-LD (channel 58); Sinclair also operates Bessemer-licensed WDBB (channel 17), which serves as a full satellite station of WTTO, under a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Sinclair partner company Cunningham Broadcasting. However, Sinclair effectively owns WDBB as the majority of Cunningham's stock is owned by the family of deceased group founder Julian Smith. WABM, WBMA-LD and WTTO share studios at the Riverchase office park on Concourse Parkway in Hoover (with a Birmingham mailing address); WABM's transmitter is located at the American General candelabra tower on Red Mountain (near Interstate 65) in southwestern Birmingham. History As an independent station The station first signed on the air on January 31, 1986, as WCAJ, originally operating as a religious independent station. Some of the initial programs that were featured on the station consisted of Catholic programs from the Irondale-based Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), as well as programming from the Southern Baptist Convention-owned American Christian Television System (ACTS); it initially also carried secular comedy, drama and western programming on weekday afternoons and evenings. Its original studio facilities were located on the campus of Samford University. After the Trinity Broadcasting Network signed on WTJP-TV (channel 60) in Gadsden that July, WCAJ's viewership declined significantly and the station was never able to recover for the remainder of its tenure as a religious outlet. By early 1987, WCAJ converted to a schedule consisting entirely of Christian programming. Eventually by that fall, the station added home shopping programming and infomercials to fill part of its schedule, while retaining some religious programs, which were relegated to mornings and late evenings; in 1990, the home shopping and infomercial programming was removed from the lineup, at which time the station reverted to an entirely religious schedule. In 1990, the station was sold to Krypton Broadcasting, which changed its call letters to WABM and reformatted it into a general entertainment independent in January 1991; the reformatted lineup featured a mix of classic movies, dramas, and westerns. However, the station struggled at first against Fox affiliate WDBB (channel 17, now a CW affiliate) and its Gadsden-based satellite WNAL-TV (channel 44, now Ion Television owned-and-operated station WPXH-TV) and the market's leading independent station, WTTO (channel 21, also now a CW