WSNN-LD,

virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...

39 (

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals **Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...

channel 26), is a low-powered

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...

licensed A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

Sarasota Sarasota () is a city in Sarasota County on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The area is renowned for its cultural and environmental amenities, beaches, resorts, and the Sarasota School of Architecture. The city is located in the sout ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Owned by

Citadel Communications Citadel Communications Ltd. is an American private broadcasting company. It is based in Bronxville, New York and owns 1 Low-power broadcasting#Television, low-power television station on which it operates a regional 24-hour news cycle, 24-hour Un ...

and managed by LDB Media, LLC, the station's Suncoast News Network (SNN) service provides news coverage focusing primarily on the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota Metropolitan Statistical Area (including

Manatee Manatees (family Trichechidae, genus ''Trichechus'') are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows. There are three accepted living species of Trichechidae, representing three of the four living species ...

, and

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...

counties). SNN operates in conjunction with the ''

Sarasota Herald-Tribune The ''Sarasota Herald-Tribune'' is a daily newspaper, located in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 1925 as the ''Sarasota Herald''. History The newspaper was owned by The New York Times Company from 1982 to 2012. It was then owned by Halifax Media ...

'', and is headquartered in downtown Sarasota. On

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

, the station is carried on

Comcast Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...

channel 6 (SD) and 400 (HD) in Sarasota and Charlotte Counties; Frontier FiOS on channel 9 (SD) and 509 (HD); and

Spectrum A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors i ...

channel 20 (SD) and 1020 (HD). WSNN's transmitter is located on Cedar Hammock Lane in Sarasota.

History

The SNN operation was launched on July 17, 1995, exclusively on

. Over its history, it was branded as SNN Local News, SNN Local News 6, SNN News 6 and Six News Now, which were often used interchangeably. SNN received national attention in 2007, when a clip of chief meteorologist Justin Mosely (who worked with the channel from 2004 to 2013 and returned in March 2014) reacting frightened after a

cockroach Cockroaches (or roaches) are a paraphyletic group of insects belonging to Blattodea, containing all members of the group except termites. About 30 cockroach species out of 4,600 are associated with human habitats. Some species are well-known as ...

crawled up his leg during a live weather segment went viral after it was posted on various video websites including

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

. In November 2008, the ''Sarasota Herald-Tribune'' (then owned by

The New York Times Company The New York Times Company is an American mass media company that publishes ''The New York Times''. Its headquarters are in Manhattan, New York City. History The company was founded by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones in New York City. T ...

) announced that it would sell SNN News 6, and stop broadcasting at the end of December 2008. This deadline was extended after the company struck agreements with a group of investors, led by SNN general manager Linda DesMaris and her husband Doug Barker, to purchase the channel; however on January 25, 2009, one of the investors dropped out of the deal. On January 29, 2009, the ''Herald-Tribune'' announced that SNN News 6 would go

dark Darkness, the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black or brown. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low lum ...

, effective at midnight on January 29, 2009. The company would later find another investor in Phil Lombardo, CEO of the television station group

in Bronxville, New York. On February 26, 2009, after a four-week hiatus, SNN was back on the air under the management of LDB Media, LLC, with the majority of its former on-air staff. Since its inception, the channel was exclusively carried on Comcast's systems in Sarasota and Charlotte Counties. In the summer of 2012, SNN struck a carriage deal with Verizon FiOS to add the channel; FiOS began carrying SNN in the Sarasota area at 2:00 a.m.

Eastern Time The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small port ...

on September 13, 2012. Over time other cable networks were added, to expand coverage around the Sarasota/Manatee area. In January 2014, Lombardo and Citadel Communications acquired a majority interest in the company. As a result, Citadel took over broadcast operations of SNN. During February 2014, the SNN studio facilities underwent a major remodeling. One month earlier on February 12, SNN debuted a new graphics package. weather graphics were rolled out on February 22. On March 2, the channel debuted a new logo (an "SNN"

wordmark __notoc__ A wordmark, word mark, or logotype, is usually a distinct text-only typographic treatment of the name of a company, institution, or product name used for purposes of identification and branding. Examples can be found in the graphic iden ...

with a blue wave underneath) and rebranded as SNN - Suncoast News Network. The following day on March 3 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern, SNN unveiled a new main news set and weather center (the latter of which incorporates the logo previously used under the "SNN Local News 6" brand). The station's image resembles those of Citadel stations

WLNE-TV WLNE-TV (channel 6) is a television station licensed to New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, serving as the ABC affiliate for the Providence, Rhode Island area. The station is owned by Standard Media, and maintains studios in the Orms Bu ...

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

and

KLKN KLKN (channel 8) is a television station in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States, affiliated with ABC. Owned by Standard Media, the station maintains studios on 10th Street south of downtown Lincoln and broadcasts from a transmitter located near Ut ...

Lincoln, Nebraska Lincoln is the capital city of the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Lancaster County. The city covers with a population of 292,657 in 2021. It is the second-most populous city in Nebraska and the 73rd-largest in the United Sta ...

, who have become sister stations to SNN. It was also the only non-ABC affiliated television station owned by Citadel; in 2019, Citadel sold WLNE and KLKN to

Standard Media Standard Media Group is an American broadcast and digital media company based in Nashville, Tennessee. Standard Media was founded by Deborah A. McDermott, who serves as the company's CEO. Previously, McDermott was the chief operating officer of ...

, with WSNN being the remaining station under Citadel ownership. On September 24, 2014, Citadel announced that SNN's operations would be merged with its over-the-air television station in Sarasota, WLWN-LD (channel 39), on October 15; as part of the consolidation, WLWN changed its call letters to WSNN-LD. The combined station retains SNN's existing programming and cable carriage. On April 15, WSNN launched two subchannels from

Katz Broadcasting Katz Broadcasting, LLC, doing business as Scripps Networks, is an American specialized digital multicasting network media company and a subsidiary of E. W. Scripps Company. The company owns (as of 2022) nine television networks that each carry ...

: Grit and

Laff Laff (legal name: Laff Media, LLC) is an American digital multicast television network headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and is owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network specializes in comedy programmi ...

. On May 16, 2019, it was announced that Standard Media, led by former

Young Broadcasting Young Broadcasting, LLC was an American media company that owned or operated 12 television stations in 10 markets with a total U.S. television household coverage of 5.9%. The company was formerly known as Young Broadcasting Inc. and was the outgro ...

and

Media General Media General was an American media company based in Richmond, Virginia. The company's origins can be traced back to 1887 when Richmond attorney Joseph Bryan acquired ''The Richmond Daily Times'', which later became ''The Richmond Times-Dispatch' ...

executive Deb McDermott, would acquire Citadel's WLNE and KLKN for $83 million. The sale was completed on September 5."Consummation Notice"
''CDBS Public Access'',

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

, Retrieved 6 September 2019. SNN was the first television news operation to convert to an all digital-disk-based

non-linear editing system Non-linear editing is a form of offline editing for audio, video, and image editing. In offline editing, the original content is not modified in the course of editing. In non-linear editing, edits are specified and modified by specialized sof ...

through Avid. SNN was one of the first news operations to have a combined print and broadcast newsroom, collaborating with the ''Sarasota Herald-Tribune'' on news content. Since 2002, SNN has maintained a content-sharing agreement with

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...

-based

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

affiliate

WFLA-TV WFLA-TV (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Tampa, Florida, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for the Tampa Bay area. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside St. Petersburg–licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate WTTA (channe ...

(channel 8) and

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...

, which allows SNN to use stories from WFLA, NBC News and NBC-affiliated stations (that agreement replaced an earlier deal between the channel,

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...

WTVT WTVT (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Tampa, Florida, United States, broadcasting the Fox network to the Tampa Bay area. Owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division, WTVT maintains studios on Kennedy Bo ...

(channel 13), and the now-defunct CONUS Communications), and also allowed for cooperation between the ''Herald-Tribune'' and the ''

Tampa Tribune ''The Tampa Tribune'' was a daily newspaper published in Tampa, Florida. Along with the competing ''Tampa Bay Times'', the ''Tampa Tribune'' was one of two major newspapers published in the Tampa Bay area. The newspaper also published a ''St. Pe ...

'', prior to

's sale of that paper to World Media Holdings in 2012. SNN is partnered with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and

. National stories come from

and

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

. SNN also operates one weather and traffic camera since April 2014, the camera was installed atop of One Sarasota Tower, under a brand licensing deal with various local companies over the years. SNN began multiplex programming on February 2, 2015. On June 15, 2015, Verizon FiOS changed channels of SNN from 26/526 to channel 9/509. In 2016, SNN upgraded graphics and slightly updated logo. Later that year, the Herald Tribune moved out of their former space and made their way next door into the old SunTrust building. It is unclear if SNN will be moving to the new facility as in 2018,

Sarasota Memorial Hospital Sarasota Memorial Hospital (SMH) is an 839-bed health care facility located in Sarasota, Florida. The hospital was founded in 1925, and is a level II trauma center. History Early years Local residents started to raise funds for the hospital in ...

announced it would buy out the old Herald Tribune building and re-construct the entire area. In 2018, SNN re-vamped their website, now offering live-streams of their Skycam, newscasts as they happen, job offerings, calendars and event planning.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

Programming

SNN features live newscasts for 7½ hours on weekdays and 2 hours on weekends, barring any

breaking news Breaking news, interchangeably termed late-breaking news and also known as a special report or special coverage or news flash, is a current issue that broadcasters feel warrants the interruption of scheduled programming or current news in orde ...

that could extend its time, as well as live weather segments during the morning and evening hours, with more frequent updates during

severe weather Severe weather is any dangerous meteorological phenomenon with the potential to cause damage, serious social disruption, or loss of human life. Types of severe weather phenomena vary, depending on the latitude, altitude, topography, and atm ...

events. The station occasionally broadcasts parades in the area, including boat shows and firework shows near Christmas and New Years. In addition to regular rolling news programming, SNN also shows airs two local talk shows: * ''Suncoast FYI'', hosted by Nancy O'Neil, is focused on speaking with non-profit and volunteer leaders around the Sarasota Area about events and programs * ''Suncoast POV'', hosted by Craig Burdick, is focused on speaking with civil, political, and business leaders about current events SNN also airs a collection of syndicated programs, including: * ''Business First'' * ''Law & Crime'' * ''Access Daily'' * ''Daily Mail'' * ''Dateline'' * ''Celebrity Page'' * ''Small Town, Big Deal'' * ''Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien'' * ''Raceweek''

Personalities

* Kathy Leon (2003–present) Morning Edition anchor * Jenna Brew (2020–present) Morning Edition anchor * Don Brennan (2017–present) Evening Edition anchor * Cynthia McLaughlin (2021–present) Evening Edition anchor * Emma Sears (2021-present) Weekend Edition anchor * John Reynolds (2021–present) Sports Director * Justin Mosely (2004–2013, 2014-present) Chief Meteorologist * Marco La Manno (2016–present) Morning Meteorologist * Leslie London (2021–present) Weekend Meteorologist * Samantha Sonner (2017–present) Reporter * Annette Gutierrez (2019–present) Reporter * Valezka Nava (2020–present) Reporter

References

External links

Official website

SNN Facebook page

SNN Twitter page

SNN YouTube page
* {{LocalCableNews Sarasota, Florida 24-hour television news channels in the United States Grit (TV network) affiliates Laff (TV network) affiliates English-language television stations in the United States Independent television stations in the United States Television channels and stations established in 2012 Low-power television stations in the United States SNN-LD 2012 establishments in Florida