Bernie Dittman

Bernard Sidney Dittman (September 3, 1927 – October 25, 2006) was the longtime owner, president, and general manager of radio stations WABB and WABB-FM in Mobile, Alabama. Since Dittman assumed ownership in 1959, WABB has been one of the longest running Top-40 radio stations in the United States.

Career Born in Ohio, Dittman's interest in broadcasting became known in the sales and marketing department of his family's appliance store in Cleveland, Ohio. He was involved in the purchasing of advertising time on local radio stations. When Dittman attended St. Louis University, he did not study broadcasting, but engineering. After earning his engineering degree, Dittman's interest in broadcasting kept him away from a career in engineering. His interest finally peaked when he decided to buy a radio station up for sale, with the help of a broker. Dittman found out that the Mobile Register was selling its country music station WABB. He seized the opportunity in 1959 and shortly after arriving in Mobile a year later, the station began broadcasting Top-40 music.

Death In October 2006, Dittman had a stroke and was placed in a hospital. On the night of October 25, he died at the age of 79 following an illness that had begun just the week before. In the days following his death, friends and family expressed their feelings and shared memories of the man many came to know as someone who cared deeply for his stations, current staff, and former staff. fulfilling the promise Bernie Dittman had of never selling out in an age when a single corporation can own multiple stations and radio stations are mostly automated.

In 2012 the Dittman Family sold WABB-FM to Educational Media Foundation (EMF) for an undisclosed price. That station flipped to the EMF's Christian Contemporary network, K-LOVE, on March 1, 2012, and soon after adopted the callsign WLVM. (EMF would trade WLVM to Cumulus Media that July, and became WABD, re-adopting the CHR format and many elements of WABB-FM's past identity.) The EMF sale excludes WABB AM, which the Dittman family has chosen to retain for the time being.

Bernie Dittman's favorite song was The Beatles' Strawberry Fields Forever; the staff of WABB-FM played the song several times throughout the station's final day on-air as a public tribute to Dittman. It was also WABB-FM's penultimate song, the last having been the station's first, Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again by Bob Dylan.