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WSCV (channel 51) is a
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 to
Fort Lauderdale, Florida Fort Lauderdale () is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and largest city in Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the 2020 census, making it the tenth ...
, United States, broadcasting
Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language Terrestrial television, terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Television and Streaming#NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a divi ...
programming to the
Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
area. It is one of two flagship stations of the Spanish-language network (the other being WNJU in the
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
market). WSCV is
owned and operated 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 ...
by
NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. NBCUniversal is primari ...
's
Telemundo Station Group Telemundo Station Group is the division of NBCUniversal Owned TV Stations (NBCUniversal), a subsidiary of Comcast that oversees their Telemundo owned-and-operated television stations and the TeleXitos network. The NBC owned-and-operated stations ...
alongside NBC outlet
WTVJ WTVJ (channel 6) is a television station in Miami, Florida, United States, airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Fort Lauderdale–licensed WSCV (ch ...
(channel 6). Both stations share studios on Southwest 27th Street in Miramar, while WSCV's transmitter is located in
Pembroke Park, Florida Pembroke Park is a town in Broward County, Florida, United States. The town took its name from its location along Pembroke Road. As of the 2020 census, the population was 6,260. It is part of the South Florida metropolitan area, which was home to ...
. The station also serves as the ''de facto'' Telemundo outlet for the West Palm Beach market, as that area does not have a Telemundo station of its own. Channel 51 in Fort Lauderdale did not begin broadcasting until 1968. It operated as a primarily English-language independent station as WSMS-TV from 1968 to 1970 and as WKID from 1972 to 1980. From 1980 to 1984, the station primarily broadcast the
ON TV ONTV or variant may refer to: * ''ONTV'' (pay TV), now-defunct American UHF subscription television service owned by National Subscription Television * ''ONTV'' (Egyptian TV channel), now known as ''ON'', an Egyptian digital television channel lau ...
subscription service until its owner, Oak Communications, sold it to John Blair & Co., which relaunched it the next year as Spanish-language WSCV. It was one of Telemundo's charter stations in 1987 and has since experienced ratings increases and expanded its local news offerings.


History


WSMS-TV

The construction permit for channel 51 was awarded in 1965, but channel 51 did not begin broadcasting until December 6, 1968, as WSMS-TV. The Broward Broadcasting Company, owned by attorney Paris G. Singer, was the original permit holder. The call letters had been selected to mean "Where Sun Meets Sea"; a proposed sister station for
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 ...
would have been WTSS, for "Where The Sun Sets". Delayed from a planned October 1 start due to bad weather, WSMS was the first station in Fort Lauderdale in 12 years, operating from its studios on Federal Highway. The station aired syndicated programming as well as all-color local news and sports, alongside other local productions including '' Romper Room'', the afternoon interview show ''Talk About Town'' and the cartoon show ''Capt'n' Zero'', plus local stock market reports. Channel 51's news moved to 10 p.m. in July 1969, making it the only local newscast in that time slot in South Florida. Engineering difficulties forced WSMS-TV to suspend operations on February 6, 1970; while local news reports only mentioned engineering problems, in its request for silence with the
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 ...
(FCC), WSMS-TV also cited financial difficulties. In April, the station announced it would remain off air, citing the financial condition of Gold Coast Telecasting, the licensee.


WKID

In 1971, a buyer appeared for the silent television station. A subsidiary of Recreation Corporation of America (RCA), owner of the
Pirates World Pirates World was a pirate-themed amusement park in Dania, Florida, that opened April 8, 1967. Developed by Recreation Corporation of America, it was located on the north side of Sheridan Street between U.S. Route 1 and A1A. With the opening of ...
amusement park in Dania, filed to acquire channel 51; Singer became an officer in the new company. The new owners changed the call letters to WKID and planned to target a youth audience, with the studios to be at Pirates World. Though one objection was made to RCA's plans, by Hank Zinkil—a state representative and former mayor of
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...
attempting to exaggerate that Pirates World had been "the source of great controversy" due to rock concerts which required consistent crowd control, and a
drug dealing The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs throug ...
site—the FCC dismissed Zinkil's challenge. From a new tower affording market-wide coverage, WKID returned to the air on February 14, 1972. Pirates World closed in December 1973 after the opening of
Walt Disney World The Walt Disney World Resort, also called Walt Disney World or Disney World, is an entertainment resort complex in Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, United States, near the cities of Orlando and Kissimmee. Opened on October 1, 1971, th ...
sapped its customer base. The amusement park site became an eyesore with 48 abandoned buildings, amidst which WKID continued to operate through 1975. On the night of February 24, two bombs went off at the studios in Dania and a production office the station leased in Miami; a Cuban exile group took credit, blaming WKID's policy of rapprochement with communist Cuba in its Spanish-language programming. Licensee Channel 51, Inc., went bankrupt in March, and Pirates World with the WKID studio was condemned in September. Channel 51 moved the next month to temporary quarters in
Pembroke Park Pembroke Park is a town in Broward County, Florida, United States. The town took its name from its location along Pembroke Road. As of the 2020 census, the population was 6,260. It is part of the South Florida metropolitan area, which was home to ...
as WKID was acquired by an investment group headed by Bill Johns and Alvin Koenig in 1976; the group became known as CB TV Corp. in 1977. Johns and Koenig had already been operating the station on RCA's behalf since 1972. In the 1970s, WKID was the second-largest source of Spanish-language television programming in South Florida, providing the only prime time shows not being aired on WLTV. In the evening hours in 1977, it leased out airtime to Latin Network, which programmed "TV Sol", complete with news and entertainment programs in Spanish. During this era, cable providers that carried competing independent WCIX outside of the Miami market, especially in the Tampa and Orlando areas, carried WKID during the overnight hours, after WCIX signed off for the night; channel 51 served up ''The All Night Show'', a campy mix of movies hosted by Dave Dixon, to this audience. WKID-TV was also among the first broadcast outlets for what would become the Christian Television Network, as the network purchased a block of evening airtime every night on channel 51 prior to the establishment of its first station, WCLF in Tampa. In 1980, CB TV Corp. sold WKID to Oak Industries, a cable television equipment manufacturer and owner of
ON TV ONTV or variant may refer to: * ''ONTV'' (pay TV), now-defunct American UHF subscription television service owned by National Subscription Television * ''ONTV'' (Egyptian TV channel), now known as ''ON'', an Egyptian digital television channel lau ...
, a subscription television (STV) service that was carried during the evening hours. ON TV could only be viewed for a monthly fee and required a set-top decoder box and outdoor antenna for adequate reception. The station's advertiser-supported programming during this period included business news from the Financial News Network during the daytime hours and a
horse racing Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic p ...
show hosted by Bob Savage in the early evening. Subscription service from ON TV initially commenced at 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and at 10 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, expanding in 1982 to a 4 p.m. start. With the expansion of cable television in the Miami area, ON TV proved to be an ill-fated venture; by July 1984, when it laid off half its staff, subscriptions had fallen from a 1982 high of 44,700 to 28,500, making it the smallest of Oak's STV operations at the time.


WSCV

Oak's financial difficulties and the failure of ON TV motivated the company to sell WKID. At the end of July 1984, Oak announced that it had sold the station to John Blair & Co. for $17.75 million; the new buyers intended to program it as a Spanish-language station. Blair, led by Cuban-American media entrepreneur Julio Rumbaut, completed the acquisition in December. Channel 51 then went off the air as Blair prepared to implement the station's relaunch as WSCV, south Florida's second Spanish-language television station. The new call letters, when pronounced in Spanish, read "Doble-U Ese Se Ve," which is translated into English as "that one is seen"). The launch took longer than expected due to transmitter troubles; WSCV finally launched on June 2, 1985. The new WSCV positioned its programming as a local, independent Miami-targeted alternative to the Mexican-dominated Spanish International Network (now
Univision Univision () is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the Latino public and includes ...
) and its station WLTV (channel 23), with a program hosted by
Rolando Barral Rolando Barral (27 June 1939 – 21 January 2002) was a Cuban actor, television presenter and radio host. He appeared in dozens of telenovelas and television series for more than 40 years. He was the host of the long-running talk show ''El Show d ...
as part of its charter lineup. (Barral left within months to return to WLTV.) Reflecting the market it aimed to serve, the station played both the United States and Cuban national anthems at sign-on and sign-off; its logo incorporated features of the Cuban flag. Another feature in the station's early months were Major League Baseball telecasts; announcers in the channel 51 studio produced Spanish-language commentary for games of the
Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East division. As one of the American L ...
and other teams. In 1986, the Reliance Group acquired WSCV and WKAQ-TV in
San Juan, Puerto Rico San Juan (, , ; Spanish for "Saint John") is the capital city and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2020 census, it is the 57th-largest city under the jur ...
, from John Blair & Co., which was paid $300 million to thwart a hostile takeover. The year before, Reliance had purchased Oak's Los Angeles station, KBSC-TV, and relaunched it as Spanish-language KVEA—much like WSCV, the first competition to a long-running SIN station in a large Hispanic market. In October 1986, Reliance then bought WNJU serving the
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
area. On January 12, 1987, the new stations were integrated into one network: Telemundo, supplying additional programming and national news coverage. While Rumbaut had done much to build WSCV in the early years of what he called "the World Series of Spanish television", his exit would be acrimonious. In February 1988, WSCV was the only Telemundo station (of a total of nine) to air a speech by President
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
about aid to the
Contras The Contras were the various U.S.-backed and funded right-wing rebel groups that were active from 1979 to 1990 in opposition to the Marxist Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction Government in Nicaragua, which came to power in 1979 fol ...
, after the news staff petitioned Rumbaut to air the address. The move was poorly received by the network; after a meeting in New York, he presented his resignation. Roberto Rodríguez Tejera then attempted to present editorials relating to Rumbaut's resignation; on orders from the Telemundo Group, engineers shut the station's signal off during the editorial, infuriating staffers. He was replaced by Alfredo Durán, formerly of WLTV. Later that year, the station moved news production from its original facilities in
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...
to Telemundo's
Hialeah Hialeah ( ; ) is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. With a population of 223,109 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Hialeah is the sixth-largest city in Florida. It is the second largest city by population in the Mi ...
headquarters, coinciding with a top-to-bottom station relaunch; offices and other station functions followed suit in 1990. Durán would leave in 1991, seeking new career challenges. The next year, José Cancela jumped from Univision, at the time in a process of a sale, to run WSCV. On October 11, 2001, NBC acquired the Telemundo network, including WSCV, from
Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
and
Liberty Media Liberty Media Corporation (commonly referred to as Liberty Media or just Liberty) is an American mass media company controlled by chairman John C. Malone. The company has three divisions, reflecting the company's ownership stakes in Formula One ...
for $1.98 billion (increasing to $2.7 billion by the sale's closure) and the assumption of $700 million in debt, in an equal cash and stock split by NBC's then-parent
General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
. The acquisition was finalized on April 12, 2002, making WSCV part of a
duopoly A duopoly (from Greek δύο, ''duo'' "two" and πωλεῖν, ''polein'' "to sell") is a type of oligopoly where two firms have dominant or exclusive control over a market. It is the most commonly studied form of oligopoly due to its simplicit ...
with NBC's
WTVJ WTVJ (channel 6) is a television station in Miami, Florida, United States, airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Fort Lauderdale–licensed WSCV (ch ...
. WSCV and WTVJ were the first stations to be fully integrated among the several duopolies the deal produced; the WTVJ studio center in Miramar had been designed when NBC was considering purchasing another Spanish-language station, facilitating some of the task. In 2020, WSCV's general manager assumed oversight of WTVJ after its general manager retired.


News operation

Local news was on WSCV's slate from the moment it relaunched in 1985. The station initially aired a 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. local newscast, anchored by Cuban-born Lucy Pereda and news director Eduardo Arango. Pereda left before the end of 1985 to work for the Spanish International Network (going on to host ''Mundo Latino'', its first national morning show), while Arango was ousted in early 1986 over differences in philosophy with Rumbaut. However, the presence of WSCV's 10 p.m. news, an hour before WLTV's, led the latter station to move up its newscast to match. As with the station in general, the news on WSCV was positioned as "Cuban" to the more Mexican-influenced WLTV. Rafael Orizondo, who replaced Arango in an interim capacity, said at a 1986 forum, "Our newscasts are designed for the Cuban community, not for the Hispanic community. We emphasize the Cuban, and to call
Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...
a dictator and say he is an assassin does not cost us any credibility." In late 1986, WSCV hired María Montoya, a former actress who had arrived in Miami as part of the Mariel boatlift of 1980, and Ambrosio Hernández, who had worked at several radio stations in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
, to complement the team. Upon Alfredo Durán becoming general manager in 1988, aggressive moves were made to improve the ratings. The newscast was moved back from 11 p.m., where it had been relocated earlier in the year, to 10. Durán lured well-known WLTV reporter Alina Mayo Azze to WSCV. Her hiring was soon eclipsed by another with romantic overtones; Durán was in a relationship with Leticia Callava, the main female anchor at WLTV and described by Tom Jicha of ''
The Miami News ''The Miami News'' was an evening newspaper in Miami, Florida. It was the media market competitor to the morning edition of the ''Miami Herald'' for most of the 20th century. The paper started publishing in May 1896 as a weekly called ''The Miami ...
'' as "to Spanish-language news what Ann Bishop is to English-language news". Despite claiming that Callava was not about to jump stations in May, when Callava was demoted by WLTV after Durán's move, she left that station and signed with WSCV in August, teaming with Mayo Azze to become the first two-woman anchor pairing on Spanish-language television in Miami on a relaunched (Newscenter 51). Durán also toned down the Cuban emphasis of channel 51, stripping the Cuban flag colors from the logo and asking weather presenter Ángel Martín to stop referring to Cuba as "that beautiful land where we were born". The move, which helped to lift WSCV's ratings slightly, escalated Miami's Spanish-language news war: Hernández defected to a rebuilding WLTV. When Mayo Azze left in 1990, she was replaced on the anchor desk by
Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...
news anchor Nicolas Kasanzew, who became famous covering the
Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial de ...
( es, Guerra de las Malvinas/Guerra del Atlántico Sur) for the state-run network ATC. Kasanzew was demoted to a reporter two years later as part of a major shakeup in which three newscasters were fired and news production was suspended for a week as the station readied a "clean slate", with Callava the only remaining anchor. At the time, WLTV was still beating WSCV two-to-one in the evening news ratings race. This continued until Hernández returned to WSCV in early 1993. Montoya returned to WSCV in 1999 when the station began to expand its local news with the first Spanish-language midday newscast in the country. Two years later, WSCV expanded to morning news for the first time, debuting the 6 a.m. news hour (First Edition) as part of a national strategy to add local morning newscasts. Weekend news followed that September. After being told that management desired to replace her on the evening news with Montoya, Callava left WSCV in late 2001 after 13 years. While WLTV still led in news ratings into the 2000s, WSCV steadily increased its share of the marketplace. Despite changes in its anchor lineup—Montoya would depart WSCV in 2013, while Hernández departed in 2015 to rejoin Univision—WSCV added several new newscasts in the 2010s as part of national local news expansions across the Telemundo station group. A 5:30 p.m. show debuted at WSCV and 13 other Telemundo stations in 2014, followed by a 5 p.m. newscast in 2016. Steady improvement led to ratings leadership. By 2022, WSCV was the leading station in total households and the 25–54 news demo in the morning, early evening, and late news, regardless of language.


Technical information


Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:


Analog-to-digital conversion

WSCV ended programming on its analog signal, on
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 ...
channel 51, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal moved from its pre-transition UHF channel 52, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to channel 30, continuing to use
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 ...
51.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wscv SCV Television channels and stations established in 1968 1968 establishments in Florida Telemundo Station Group SCV TeleXitos affiliates Hispanic and Latino American culture in Miami ON TV (TV network) Oak Industries