This week on the way to work I wandered the radio dial as is my habit, tooling from highbrow NPR down to the Bubba the Love Sponge Show.

There, I braced myself for his haw-haw-haw topic du jour.

Would it be a graphic chat with a porn star, perhaps? A painfully off-key, seriously crude and not even particularly funny parody song? Bubba and the boys grilling a caller on her cup size, or the host himself detailing his latest trip to the men's room?

What I got, however, was not a salacious shock jock but an actual shock: From my radio came a rollicking rendition of Frosty the Snowman.

At first I figured someone who rides in my car could not take one more minute of that teenage boy breasts-and-bathroom humor and surreptitiously reprogrammed my radio for me. But surprise, Bubba fans: Beasley Broadcast Group this week rebranded the station Santa 98.7, replacing macho mornings with happy, sappy Christmas tunes. A new format is planned for after the holidays. Beasley said it "looks forward to continuing its relationship" with Bubba and his minions on its Fort Myers station. Just not here.

So after all these years — the scandals, the sex tape, that poor slaughtered pig and the overall uncomfortable feeling this could be how the rest of the world sees us — big, bad, embattled Bubba is gone, at least for the moment.

Maybe the reasons the station parted ways are financial. Maybe it's competition. Maybe it has nothing whatsoever to do with the endless array of controversies at different stations over the years — including his current federal court battle over allegations that he tried to tamper with ratings.

Which is a little more serious than just being a bad boy with a microphone.

But if somebody finally did get tired of his particular schtick, what could possibly have been the tipping point given all that's happened?

We had the pig castrated and slaughtered on the air and Bubba's six-figure FCC fines for indecent sex and drugs content. There was even collateral scandal: Those Tampa lawyers disbarred for setting up their opposing counsel for a DUI arrest during a defamation case were from the firm representing Bubba in that very trial.

And who else but Bubba would be recording the video while his wife had sex with Hulk Hogan on that infamous tape leaked to Gawker?

I started listening because I had to, because he kept making news even when it was news you'd really rather ignore, and sometimes he would talk about it on the air like he could not help himself. (I could picture his lawyers yelling at their car radios on their own rides to work.) After awhile, it was like rubbernecking at a car accident or wolfing Twinkies or pausing a little too long on the Kardashians while channel surfing. You know you shouldn't. You know it's awful. But there you go.

Hey, variety is a good thing and there is room in the world for all sorts of voices. I'm just not sure what those ear-bleeding bits on bowel movements and easy women added to the conversation.

On my way to work this week, my radio cheerily played "We need a little Christmas right this very minute." And really, it was hard to argue with that.

Sue Carlton can be reached at carlton@tampabay.com.