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 affiliate WPXH-TV) and the market's leading independent station, WTTO (channel 21, also now a CW affiliate).
Although the Birmingham market essentially covered three separate markets (including Tuscaloosa and Anniston–Gadsden), it was not nearly large enough population-wise at the time for what were essentially three independent stations, and there simply was not enough first-run syndicated and acquired programming to fill all of their schedules. In 1991, WDBB and WNAL became semi-satellites of WTTO, which had assumed the Fox affiliation for the market earlier that year, simulcasting that station's programming 22 hours a day. As part of the deal, WDBB/WNAL moved their stronger programs onto WTTO's schedule. This resulted in WTTO owning a large amount of programming that it no longer had time to air, so it sold a large amount of its cartoons and classic sitcoms to WABM.
Even with a stronger format, WABM still trailed WTTO in the ratings. Channel 68 had a disadvantage when it came to signal coverage, especially after WDBB and WNAL became full-time satellites of WTTO in 1993. Between those three stations, WTTO, WDBB and WNAL provided a strong combined signal comparable to those of ABC affiliate WBRC-TV (channel 6, now a Fox affiliate) and NBC affiliate WVTM-TV (channel 13). In contrast, WABM provided only a city-grade signal within the Birmingham metropolitan area, while transmitting a grade B signal in the western and northern parts of the market. WABM also suffered because Krypton had run into financial problems during the early 1990s, which placed WABM at a severe disadvantage when it came to acquiring the strongest programming. The station filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1993.[1]
After selling off its sister stations in West Palm Beach (WTVX, now a CW affiliate) and Jacksonville, Florida (WNFT, now CBS affiliate WJAX-TV), Krypton sold WABM to a small locally based group in 1993. The new owners immediately entered into a local marketing agreement with Abry-owned WTTO. Under the LMA, WTTO and WABM began sharing certain programs—although both stations continued to maintain separate schedules—and WTTO provided advertising services for WABM on their behalf. In September of that year, the station began carrying programming from the Prime Time Entertainment Network syndication service. In 1994, Sinclair Broadcast Group assumed the rights to the LMA with WTTO/WDBB, when it acquired the latter upon its merger with Abry.
UPN affiliation and brief disaffiliation
On January 16, 1995, WABM became the Birmingham charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN). However, it essentially continued to program as an independent station, since UPN only provided prime time programming on Monday and Tuesday evenings when the network launched (and would not carry five nights a week of programming until September 1998). It was one of three stations unaffected by the September 1996 affiliation switches that saw WBRC become a Fox owned-and-operated station, and its longtime ABC affiliation move to WBMA-LD (channel 58) and former CBS affiliates WCFT-TV (channel 33, now Heroes & Icons affiliate WSES) in Tuscaloosa and WJSU-TV (channel 40, now Heroes & Icons affiliate WGWW) in Anniston.
In March 1998, WABM disaffiliated from UPN over concerns by Sinclair over ratings and monetary issues, as other stations owned by the company did in several additional markets following Sinclair's signing of a lucrative affiliation deal with The WB (which WTTO/WDBB affiliated with in an unrelated deal two years earlier). For five months, the station reverted to being an independent station, though the only effect on the station's schedule was the replacement of UPN programming with syndicated film packages during prime time and on Saturday afternoons, and infomercials taking the place of the network's UPN Kids
MyNetworkTV affiliation
On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of MyNetworkTV, a new "sixth" broadcast network that would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created to compete against another upstart network that would launch at the same time that September, The CW (which assumed the scheduling model and most programming operations of The WB, but originally consisted primarily of a mix of UPN and The WB's higher-rated programs) as well as to give UPN- and WB-affiliated stations that were not named as charter CW affiliates another option besides converting into independent stations.[2][3]
On March 1, 2006 (five days before Sinclair announced an agreement to affiliate 17 of its UPN, WB and independent stations with the network), Sinclair Broadcast Group and Fox Entertainment Group announced that WABM would become the market's charter affiliate of MyNetworkTV. WABM joined the network when MyNetworkTV launched on September 5, 2006; WTTO/WDBB became Central Alabama's CW charter affiliate when that network launched on September 18. For a time, WABM had considered acquiring the local broadcast rights to 4Kids TV, the Fox network's children's program block via a time-lease agreement with
WBMA simulcast on WABM-DT2 and -DT3
On July 29, 2013, Allbritton Communications announced that it would sell its seven television stations, including WBMA-LD and its satellite stations, WCFT-TV and WJSU-TV, to Sinclair, which purchased the stations for $985 million.[4] As part of the deal, Sinclair had intended to sell the license assets of WABM and WTTO to Deerfield Media, and retain operational responsibilities for those stations through shared services and joint sales agreements.[5] However, on December 6, 2013, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) informed Sinclair that all related applications to the deal need to be "amended or withdrawn", due to a longstanding time-brokerage agreement between WTTO and WDBB (which is nominally owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, a Sinclair partner company whose stock is majority owned by the family of the latter group's founder, Julian Sinclair Smith). The original structure of the deal would have effectively created a new LMA between WBMA and WDBB, even though the Commission had ruled in 1999 that such agreements made after November 5, 1996, covering more than 15% of the broadcast day would count toward the ownership limits for the brokering station's owner.[6]
On March 20, 2014, as part of a restructuring of the deal in order to address these ownership conflicts as well as to expedite the Allbritton acquisition because of them due to the FCC's increased scrutiny of outsourcing agreements used to circumvent in-market ownership caps, Sinclair announced that it would sell WABM to a third-party buyer and retain ownership of WTTO (as well as the outsourcing agreement with Cunningham for WDBB), forming a new duopoly with WBMA+ acting as the senior partner.
