Michael Smerconish, Lou Dobbs, and Jerry Doyle. WALA-TV's morning newscast was simulcast weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. WABB was the radio home of Mobile's minor league baseball team the Mobile BayBears from the 2001 through the 2006 seasons. Ownership Changes On February 17, 2012, the Dittman family announced on its website that it has decided to sell WABB-FM to the Educational Media Foundation (EMF). That station flipped to the K-LOVE Christian Contemporary format on March 1, 2012. It adopted the call sign WLVM. The EMF sale excluded WABB AM, which the Dittman family had chosen to retain for the time being, therefore retaining the rights to the WABB call sign. The Dittman family closed the sale of the AM station to Omni Broadcasting on October 24, 2012, and the new owners changed the call sign to WTKD, following the flip to sports talk. Big Fish Broadcasting reserved the WABB call letters for their silent AM radio station in Belton, South Carolina. WABF was sold to Donald Pugh's Eternity Record Company LLC at a purchase price of $175,000. The transaction was consummated on July 15, 2014. On August 19, 2014, the station changed its call sign to WERM, airing an urban gospel format. Transmitter Relocation The station's gospel format gave way to the standards and swap shop programming from sister station WABF in early February 2017. WABF lost its transmitter site and ran into issues finding a new site, leading to that format migrating to 1480. WERM's urban gospel music migrated to the 1220 facility, which is diplexed on the 1480 tower site. On December 6, 2017, the stations swapped call signs, with WERM assuming its current WABF calls. During its long history, WABB-AM-FM were home to many disc jockeys and news anchors who moved up to major markets and radio networks, including Scott Shannon (later with WHTZ, WPLJ and WCBS-FM in New York City), Leslie Fram, Norman Robinson, Ron Anthony, Dennis "Hound Dog" Stacy, Michael Stuart (Marathon Mike) and Raymond Bannister. References External links FCC History Cards for WABF ABF (AM) Radio stations established in 1948 1948 establishments in Alabama