Circa 1960, the 98.9 frequency was home to easy listening-formatted WFMI.
Pre-Bama Country
WBAM was also known as "Oldies 98"; and then "Star 98.9", a Top 40 formatted station, in the late-1990s and early-2000s.
The birth of Bama Country
In April 2004 John Garrett announced on air, "he wanted to play an Alan Jackson record instead". That's when Bama Country was born. WBAM-FM has held on to its heritage call letters while returning to its roots as a country music formatted radio station. The station is still imaged on-air as "The Big BAM in Montgomery". During the first three years as "Bama Country" the station put on a series of concerts known as "The Bama Country Birthday Bash" with many of today's top country music artists.
Notable local programming on WBAM includes: John Garrett, Dr. Sam Faulk, and JR "Bubba" Culpepper. Other programs include: Legends Saturday Night, American Country Countdown with Kix Brooks, Bob Kingsley's Country Top 40 and Rise up Country. WBAM-FM is also a Fox News Radio affiliate.
Technical information
For several years the WBAM-FM transmitter broadcast from the Montgomery Tower Partnership behind the Eastdale Mall in Montgomery, Alabama. The antenna is a shared panel which still broadcasts several other local FM radio stations. In the late 1990s Cox Communications wanted to move a station into the Birmingham, Alabamaradio market. In order to meet Minimum Distance Separation Requirements set by the Federal Communications Commission, WBAM-FM had to first be re-located. The re-location was funded by Cox Communications and the new tower is located a few miles from the WSFA-TV tower in Grady, Alabama. WBAM-FM broadcasts with a transmitter power output of 30.26 kW using a Continental Electronics transmitter into an 8-Bay Shively Labs Super-High-Power 6814 non-directional antenna.
In March 2004, Deep South Broadcasting Co. reached an agreement to sell this station to Bluewater Broadcasting Company, LLC. The sale was part of a multi-company four-station deal valued at a reported $15.3 million. The deal was approved by the FCC on April 21, 2004, and the transaction was consummated on June 21, 2004. At the time of the sale, WBAM-FM was broadcasting a Top 40 format.
Awards and honors
Paul Simpkins, an original WBAM on-air personality from the time of the station's launch in 1953 until the sale in 1984, received a number of honors during his more than three decades with the station. These include being named Sterling Magazine Personality of the Month and TV Radio Mirror Personality of the Month in 1967, 1968 and 1972. Simpkins was inducted into the Country Music DJ Hall of Fame in 1998. Cyril Brennan, the general manager and program director of WBAM, was named the 1976 "Program Director of the Year for Country Music" by Billboard magazine's International Radio Programming Forum.
Popular culture
WBAM is name-checked with "This is country country on WBAM coming to you live, neighbor" in the poem "Pickup" by American poet Paul Allen. Alabama author Paul Hemphill included references to WBAM in his 1979 novel Long Gone as the preferred radio station of the protagonist, Jamie Weeks. In 1987, Long Gone was made into a movie starring Dermot Mulroney by HBO Films.
History of call letters
The call letters WBAM were previously assigned to an FM station in New York City. That station's call letters were changed to WOR-FM June 13, 1948.
