WSNS-TV (channel 44) 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 ...

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, United States, airing programming from the Spanish-language

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 ...

network. It 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 ...

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 ...

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 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 ...

outlet

WMAQ-TV WMAQ-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Telemundo outlet WSNS-TV (chan ...

(channel 5); it is also

sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to ...

regional sports network In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel (many of which are also distributed on direct broadcast satellite services) that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region. ...

NBC Sports Chicago NBC Sports Chicago (formerly Comcast SportsNet Chicago) is an American regional sports network that broadcasts regional coverage of professional sports teams in the Chicago metropolitan area, as well as college sports events and original sports- ...

. WSNS-TV and WMAQ-TV share studios at the

NBC Tower __NOTOC__ The NBC Tower is an office tower on the Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois located at 454 North Columbus Drive (455 North Cityfront Plaza is also used as a vanity address for the building) in downtown Chicago's Magnificent Mile area. ...

on North Columbus Drive in the city's

Streeterville Streeterville is a neighborhood in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States, north of the Chicago River. It is bounded by the river on the south, the Magnificent Mile portion of Michigan Avenue on the west, and ...

neighborhood and transmitter facilities atop the

Willis Tower The Willis Tower (originally the Sears Tower) is a 108-story, skyscraper in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, United States. Designed by architect Bruce Graham and engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), ...

in the

Chicago Loop The Loop, one of Chicago's 77 designated community areas, is the central business district of the city and is the main section of Downtown Chicago. Home to Chicago's commercial core, it is the second largest commercial business district in Nort ...

. WSNS-TV began broadcasting in 1970. Originally specializing in the automated display of news headlines, it evolved into Chicago's third full-fledged

independent station An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, market ...

, carrying local sports, movies, and other specialty programming. This continued until 1980, when WSNS became the Chicago-area station for the

subscription television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, but ...

(STV) service

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 ...

, whose owner,

Oak Industries Oak Industries Inc. was an American electronics company that manufactured a variety of products throughout seven decades in the 20th century. In existence from 1932 to 2000, the company's business lines primarily centered around electronic comp ...

, took a minority ownership stake in the station. While ON TV was successful in Chicago and the subscription system became the second-largest in the country by total subscribers, the rise of cable television precipitated the end of the business in 1985, with WSNS-TV as the last ON TV station standing. On July 1, 1985, the station became Chicago's first full-time Spanish-language outlet, affiliated with the Spanish International Network (

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 ...

after 1987) and airing local news and other programming. Indiscretions from the station's STV era led to a license challenge in which 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) ruled at one point that a challenger should be awarded the channel over Video 44, the station's ownership consortium; a groundswell of support helped the station to survive and led to an $18 million settlement that kept it in business. WSNS-TV switched to Telemundo in 1989 and was the network's largest affiliate until being purchased outright in 1996. As part of NBC's purchase of Telemundo in 2002, WSNS and WMAQ became a combined operation.

The independent years (1970–1980)

Construction and "instant news"

Top of the John Hancock Center - 2009 (3610660545)

On September 27, 1962, Essaness Theatres, a chain of Chicago motion picture houses, filed under the name Essaness Television Associates for a construction permit to build a new UHF television station on channel 44 in Chicago, which it initially proposed to transmit from the

Woods Theatre The Woods Theatre was a movie palace located at the corner of Randolph and Dearborn Streets in the Chicago Loop. It opened in 1918 and was a popular entertainment destination for decades. Originally a venue for live theater, it later converted to s ...

in the Loop and air programming "designed to serve the needs and interests of significant minority groups", particularly Chicago's Black community. The

(FCC) approved the application on May 15, 1963, the second such request it had granted that month. It would be the better part of a decade before channel 44 was in service. In 1965, Essaness proposed constructing instead at the

Civic Opera Building The Civic Opera Building is a 45-story office tower (plus two 22-story wings) located at 20 North Wacker Drive in Chicago. The building opened November 4, 1929, and has an Art Deco interior. It contains a 3,563-seat opera house, the Civic Opera ...

on Wacker Drive. That year, it also signed for antenna space on the

John Hancock Center The John Hancock Center is a 100-story, 1,128-foot supertall skyscraper located in Chicago, Illinois. Located in the Magnificent Mile district, the building was officially renamed 875 North Michigan Avenue in 2018. The skyscraper was designed ...

, being the only unbuilt television station confirmed for the new skyscraper's antenna masts. In 1967, the Harriscope Broadcasting Corporation of Chicago took a stake in the licensee, which was renamed Video 44. The transmission facility was completed in late 1969, with channel 44 sharing with

WBBM-TV WBBM-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. Owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, the station maintains studios on West Washington Stre ...

on the east mast. After the death of company founder

Edwin Silverman Edwin Silverman (1898 – February 12, 1970) was an American businessman who co-founded the Essaness Theatres chain and founded WSNS-TV. Biography Silverman was born to a Jewish family in Chicago. WSNS began broadcasting on April 5, 1970. Its format was a radical departure from that of any television station of the time: a continuous printed roundup of news headlines, sports scores, weather, and other actualities alongside advertising. (Yale Roe, the general manager, felt that it was better to offer something different than compete with existing programming as a startup.) It was seven months before the station broadcast any programming featuring live personalities: an 11 p.m. hour featuring two young women (

Mary Jane Odell Mary Jane Neville Odell (July 28, 1923 – December 16, 2010) was an American journalist, lecturer, and politician. She received multiple awards during her life, and was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1979. In 1980, Odell was ...

and Linda Marshall), commentator

Warner Saunders Warner Saunders (January 30, 1935, Chicago, Illinois – October 9, 2018, Chicago, Illinois) was a 10 PM news co-anchor for WMAQ-TV in Chicago. Saunders' primary co-anchor in the NBC 5 evening newscasts was Allison Rosati. A Chicago native, ...

, and Chuck Collins with the ''Underground News'', sponsored by "head shops and paperback bookstores". This program ran for three years and was also syndicated to other cities; when tapes of it resurfaced in the late 1980s, viewers at a Chicago nightclub saw interviews with such figures as

Jesse Jackson Jesse Louis Jackson (né Burns; born October 8, 1941) is an American political activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. senator ...

Jim Croce James Joseph Croce (; January 10, 1943 – September 20, 1973) was an American folk and rock singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, he released five studio albums and numerous singles. During this period, Croce took a series of odd jobs to pa ...

, and

Steve Goodman Steven Benjamin Goodman (July 25, 1948 – September 20, 1984) was an American folk and country singer-songwriter from Chicago. He wrote the song "City of New Orleans", which was recorded by Arlo Guthrie and many others including John Denver, ...

, as well as an interview with

John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...

and

Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...

in which the former explained he was moving to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

—where he was killed in 1980—"for his safety". The format failed to inspire much loyalty, and a motley crew of programs appeared on WSNS-TV's air. Many were talk shows and religious programs, ranging from

Rex Humbard Alpha Rex Emmanuel Humbard (August 13, 1919 – September 21, 2007) was an American television evangelist whose ''Cathedral of Tomorrow'' show was aired on over 600 stations at the peak of its popularity. Life and career Humbard was born on ...

Paul Harvey Paul Harvey Aurandt (September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009) was an American radio broadcaster for ABC News Radio. He broadcast ''News and Comment'' on mornings and mid-days on weekdays and at noon on Saturdays and also his famous ''The Rest o ...

. Several programs featured psychics. At midnight, the station aired ''Heart of the News'', which featured anchor Linda Fuoco reading news headlines while reclining on a heart-shaped bed; a mattress company was the sponsor of the program, which ''

Broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution (business), distribution of sound, audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio ...

'' magazine called "boudoir journalism". In November 1971, the "instant news" service ceased, with the station running enough non-automated programming to broadcast evenings and all day on Sundays.

Chicago's third independent

1972 was a key year in the history of the young television station as new general manager Ed Morris sought to revamp a station that was losing money. Under his direction, WSNS-TV began airing more classic reruns and movies—having programmed just one movie a week prior to the changes—and extended its broadcast day while removing significant portions of the previous schedule. Even more significant than the new programming was the acquisition of the television rights to

Chicago White Sox The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and p ...

baseball, which opted not to remain on

WFLD WFLD (channel 32) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside Gary, Indiana–licensed MyNetworkTV ...

(channel 32) after an unprofitable five-year relationship and moved their games to channel 44 in 1973, with

Harry Caray Harry Christopher Caray (; March 1, 1914 – February 18, 1998) was an American radio and television Sports commentator, sportscaster. During his career he called the play-by-play for five Major League Baseball teams, beginning with 25 years of ...

as play-by-play announcer. They joined a programming lineup that also included 15 hours of Spanish-language fare a week, second only to

WCIU-TV WCIU-TV (channel 26) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is the flagship television property of locally based Weigel Broadcasting, which has owned the station since its inception, and is siste ...

(channel 26), from independent producers. 1973 also saw the debut of

Chicago Bulls The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago. The Bulls compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division. The team was founded on January 1 ...

basketball on channel 44, broadcasting their full 41-game road schedule on WSNS-TV (making the Bulls the only team in the NBA to do so), plus

World Hockey Association The World Hockey Association (french: Association mondiale de hockey) was a professional ice hockey major league that operated in North America from 1972 to 1979. It was the first major league to compete with the National Hockey League (NHL) ...

hockey with the

Chicago Cougars The Chicago Cougars were a franchise in the World Hockey Association from 1972 to 1975. The Cougars played their home games in the International Amphitheatre. During the 1974 Avco Cup Finals against Gordie Howe and the Houston Aeros, the team's ...

, college basketball, and local professional wrestling. The Cougars and Bulls were called by

Lorn Brown Lorn Brown (September 18, 1938 – June 24, 2010) was a sports broadcaster who worked for baseball's AAA Iowa Oaks 1973–1974 (St. Louis Cardinals September 1974 fill-in), Chicago White Sox (1976–1979, 1983–1988), Milwaukee Brewers (1980� ...

, who later joined Caray in the White Sox booth from 1976 to 1979. The station filled its other hours with

City Colleges of Chicago The City Colleges of Chicago is the public community college system of the Chicago area. Its colleges offer associate degrees, certificates, free courses for the GED, and free English as a second language (ESL) courses. The City Colleges system ...

telecourses, which moved in 1975 from educational station

WTTW WTTW (channel 11) is a PBS member television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by not-for-profit broadcaster Window to the World Communications, Inc., it is sister to commercial classical music radio station WFMT (98.7 FM). The ...

after 19 years, and the new ''Super Slam'' drawing from the

Illinois Lottery The Illinois State Lottery (known simply as the Illinois Lottery) is an American lottery for the U.S. state of Illinois, operated by Camelot Illinois. Overview The Illinois Lottery began operations on July 1, 1974, when lotteries in the United ...

. That same year, it endured a nine-week strike by

NABET The National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET-CWA) is a labor union representing employees in television, radio, film, and media production. A division of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), NABET represents abou ...

technicians that saw management run the station and striking workers picket the station in

Popeye Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, Elzie Crisler Segar. In 1976, the Bulls moved their games to

WGN-TV WGN-TV (channel 9) is an Independent station (North America), independent television station in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is sister station, sister to the company's sole radio property, talk ra ...

(channel 9) after experiencing falling ratings and the collapse of their TV rights deal. Three reasons were cited for the latter. The team went 24–58 in the 1975–76 season; sponsors, one apparently thinking the viewership was predominantly Black and had "limited sales potential", were reportedly hesitant to advertise; and Olympic Broadcasting Service, which had packaged the rights, opted to exit the business and focus on its activities in the savings and loan industry. The

Chicago Black Hawks (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

took up residency at WSNS-TV two years later, marking their return to local television after not having a regular-season broadcast partner in two seasons. After the deal ended in 1980, the hockey club did not have another free broadcast television partner until 2008.

ON TV subscription television (1980–1985)

Pre-launch

In November 1975, Video 44 requested authority to operate a

(STV) service over WSNS-TV. As a result of a similar request from WCIU-TV, the application sat for several years, as the FCC did not change its policy to permit more than one subscription station in large markets until 1979. Channel 44's plans rapidly shifted twice on STV. In June 1979, an agreement was reached with Oak Industries, a maker of broadcast and cable equipment and other electronics then headquartered in

Crystal Lake Crystal Lake or Crystal Lakes may refer to: Lakes Canada * Crystal Lake (Saskatchewan) * Crystal Lake (Ontario), drain into the Lynn River, which drains into Lake Erie United States * Crystal Lake, California, a mountain lake in Nevad ...

and the owner of the

operation in Los Angeles, to use Oak's technology for a subscription service on WSNS-TV, though Oak would not own the station or the STV operation. Less than two weeks after announcing its initial accord with Oak, Video 44 instead agreed to sell 50 percent of the company to American Television and Communications (ATC), the cable TV division of

Time, Inc. Time Inc. was an American worldwide mass media corporation founded on November 28, 1922, by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden and based in New York City. It owned and published over 100 magazine brands, including its namesake ''Time'', ''Sports Illu ...

, for more than $5 million; among the issues that would need to be resolved was that ATC used equipment from

Zenith Electronics Zenith Electronics, LLC, is an American research and development company that develops ATSC and digital rights management technologies. It is owned by the South Korean company LG Electronics. Zenith was previously an American brand of consumer el ...

instead of the Oak stack. ATC had initially applied for channel 66 in nearby Joliet as part of preparations to launch its own STV service, which ultimately was called

Preview Preview may refer to: Theatre, film, television * Preview (subscription service), an early subscription television service in the United States * Preview (theatre), a public performance of a theatrical show before the official opening * Previe ...

; Chicago was a prime market for STV, as the city had no cable television. The ATC transaction, however, attracted high-powered opposition that September. Five major movie studios, led by

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

, urged the FCC to deny the transaction, noting that Time already held a monopoly in pay TV programming markets through its ownership of the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

pay cable service and claiming that only WSNS-TV could break that monopoly in Chicago. The next month, citing the petition to deny, Video 44 and ATC dropped the proposed sale. After finally winning FCC approval for STV the month before, in March 1980, Video 44 initially agreed to sell 49 percent of its joint venture to two groups:

Capital Cities Communications Capital Cities/ABC Inc. was an American media company. It was founded in 1985 when Capital Cities Communications purchased the much larger American Broadcasting Company. It eventually proposed a merger of equals with The Walt Disney Company and ...

, which owned major television stations in Philadelphia and Houston, and Oak. Capital Cities bowed out, leading Oak to purchase the full 49% by itself for $7.5 million. As WSNS prepared for a subscription television future, it dropped the White Sox after eight seasons following the 1980 campaign.

Operation

On September 22, 1980, WSNS began offering ON TV beginning at 7 p.m. on weekdays and 5 p.m. on weekends, with Oak supplying first-run movies and specials to subscribers who paid $21.95 a month plus a $52.95 installation fee. A year after ON TV began broadcasting, it got competition when

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 ...

, originally owned by Buford Television, began airing over Focus Broadcasting-owned

WFBN WYTU-LD (channel 63) is a low-power television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with the Spanish-language Telemundo network. Owned by Weigel Broadcasting (as the company's only Telemundo affiliate), it is sister to CBS ...

(channel 66) on September 29, 1981. At the same time, WSNS extended its transmission of ON TV programming by two hours on weekdays (now starting at 5 p.m.) and by three hours on weekends (to 12 p.m.). In January 1982, WSNS began carrying ON TV for 20 hours per day, and after the repeal of the limits on STV operating hours later that year, it moved to 23 hours a day of subscription programming—resulting in the dismissal of WSNS's own sales unit and other station staffers. In June 1982, ON TV counted 120,600 subscribers in Chicagoland, making it the second-largest STV service in the country, only surpassed by Oak's enormously successful Los Angeles operation with 379,000 subscribers. The loss of most of WSNS's non-STV programming motivated action by a consortium of Chicago businessmen organized as Monroe Communications Corporation. Later in 1982, WSNS-TV's license came up for renewal. On November 1, 1982, Monroe filed its own application for a station on channel 44, which specified conversion to Spanish-language programming; in proposing its own station, Monroe challenged the license renewal of the existing WSNS-TV. In July 1983, the FCC designated the Monroe proposal and WSNS-TV's license renewal for comparative hearing.

STV double: SportsVision

At the same time that ON TV was gaining subscribers,

SportsVision Sportsvision (SV) was a subscription sports television service founded by Chicago White Sox owners Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn and media mogul Fred Eychaner. The service broadcast live sporting events, and for much of its time of operati ...

International, a consortium of four Chicago sports franchises—the White Sox, Bulls, Blackhawks, and

Sting Sting may refer to: * Stinger or sting, a structure of an animal to inject venom, or the injury produced by a stinger * Irritating hairs or prickles of a stinging plant, or the plant itself Fictional characters and entities * Sting (Middle-eart ...

—had reached a deal to set up a new subscription television station on channel 60 (the shared time

WPWR WPWR-TV (channel 50) is a television station licensed to Gary, Indiana, United States, broadcasting the MyNetworkTV programming service to the Chicago area. It is one of two commercial television stations in the Chicago market to be licensed in I ...

WBBS WBBS (104.7 FM "B-104.7 FM") is a country music-formatted radio station serving the Syracuse area. The studios and offices are located at on Plum Street in Syracuse. It is the Syracuse affiliate station. The iHeartMedia outlet broadcasts with ...

), which would carry their games. Both Oak and Buford competed for the right to manage the service, and Oak won out; ON TV subscribers could receive SportsVision for an extra $14.95 a month, and a special run of two-channel decoders was made. SportsVision finally launched May 25, 1982, having been delayed due to issues with the new decoders and then again due to low uptake, airing as a free preview for two extra weeks. The second STV operation, however, did not reach the subscriber base needed to maintain its viability. By March 1983, it had 25,000 subscribers, half of the amount needed to break even, not helped by the poor performance of the White Sox in the 1982 season. In November, still at just 35,000 subscribers and losing $300,000 a month, it was announced that SportsVision would be folded into ON TV on January 1, 1984, with channel 44's STV service televising a significant number of games and SportsVision continuing as a premium cable channel in suburban areas and outside of Chicagoland; the remaining service was then sold to

SportsChannel SportsChannel is the collective name for a former group of regional sports networks in the United States that was owned by Cablevision, which from 1988 until the group's demise, operated it as a joint venture with NBC. Operating from March 1, ...

Later STV years

While subscription television had seen meteoric growth nationally, its fortunes began to reverse significantly in 1982, as a national recession limited disposable income and increasing cable television penetration meant significant subscriber erosion at many systems. By August 1983, ON TV in Chicago had dropped from its 1982 high of 120,600 subscribers to just 89,500. The system entered 1984 battered by piracy problems, which had also been cited by White Sox owner

Eddie Einhorn Eddie Einhorn (January 3, 1936 – February 24, 2016) was minority owner and vice chairman of the Chicago White Sox. Biography Einhorn grew up in a Jewish family in Paterson, New Jersey, the son of Mae (née Lippman) and Harold B. Einhorn and resi ...

as a reason for the end of SportsVision as a separate STV service. In January, the service's operations director estimated that, for every paying subscriber, another was pirating its programming. ON TV received something of a reprieve in March 1984 when it was able to buy the business of Spectrum, which had been sold to United Cable, leaving Chicago with one STV service. However, subscriber losses, as they were in other cities, were continuing to accelerate. By August 1984, ON TV had 80,000 subscribers, of which 18,000 were previous clients of Spectrum. The service was also instituting program cutbacks. In November 1984, non-professional sports, children's programs and some other low-rated programming were axed to emphasize movies and a reduced schedule of events from SportsVision. By year's end, Oak had put its remaining STV services up for sale, and the total subscriber count in Chicago had fallen to 75,000. In February 1985, as Oak's financial condition continued to worsen, it emerged that the company was taking writedowns related to the termination of its STV businesses; Burt Harris, owner of WSNS owner Harriscope, stated that he did not see the service making it to the end of the year. In March, with subscribers down to just 35,000, Oak officially announced it would discontinue its STV service on June 30, bringing to a close Oak's eight-year venture into subscription television. February 1985 also brought an initial decision in the license challenge case from FCC administrative law judge Joseph Chachkin. He ruled in favor of Monroe, finding that Video 44 had rendered a "minimal" service with a lack of public affairs and local programming and studios all but shut down; however, the matter could be appealed before the full FCC. The license challenge prevented Oak from unloading its WSNS-TV ownership stake, even though Oak Industries intended to do so, as it had with its other television stations.

Spanish-language broadcasting (1985–present)

SIN/Univision (1985–1989)

On July 1, 1985, nearly five years of subscription television programming on WSNS-TV was replaced by Chicago's first full-time Spanish-language television station, affiliated with the

Spanish International Network 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 ...

(renamed Univision in 1987). The two existing Spanish-language stations in Chicago either also aired other programming, as in the case of WCIU-TV, or shared their channel with another station, as did WBBS-TV. The new programming was an immediate financial success. Revenue for the first year was $9 million, 20 percent above projections; a hard-hit WBBS cut back to weekend movies before disappearing later that year. Whereas previously an estimated 45 percent of Chicago Hispanics had watched channels 26 and 60, 70 percent tuned in to local Spanish-language TV with WSNS's arrival. Meanwhile, the Monroe license challenge continued after Chachkin's initial decision. The FCC review board initially remanded the decision back to him to consider an issue raised by the challengers that some of the films telecast by WSNS as a subscription station were "obscene", including adult films with titles such as ''Pandora's Mirror'', ''Kinky Ladies of Bourbon Street'', and ''The Erotic Adventures of Zorro''. The commission itself intervened to take up the

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

question, declaring in April 1986 that Chachkin could not consider the obscenity issue and that consideration of obscenity should be deferred to local authorities. The case, minus the obscenity matter, then returned to the review board, which overturned Chachkin's findings in 1988 and recommended renewal of the WSNS license. It contended that the administrative law judge had focused unduly on the last 26 weeks of the three-year license term, after STV programming had increased considerably. It also found that the "renewal expectancy" factor in a comparative hearing—an incumbency advantage for Video 44—outweighed Monroe's weaker edges in media diversification and participation of ownership in station management.

Switch to Telemundo and license challenge settlement

On October 13, 1988, WSNS-TV announced that it would switch its affiliation to Telemundo after that station's affiliation agreement with Univision concluded on

December 31 It is known by a collection of names including: Saint Sylvester's Day, New Year's Eve or Old Years Day/Night, as the following day is New Year's Day. It is the last day of the year; the following day is January 1, the first day of the following ...

; two months later on December 16, WCIU—whose contract with Telemundo was set to expire the following month—signed an affiliation agreement with Univision, returning the station to that network after four years. The two stations switched affiliations on January 10, 1989. It was stated that WSNS and Univision had been at a financial impasse regarding new affiliation terms. The license challenge continued to be heard by the FCC and federal courts. In April 1990, a

federal appeals court The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal judiciary. The courts of appeals are divided into 11 numbered circuits that cover geographic areas of the United States and hear appeals fr ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, overturned the full FCC's 1989 decision to renew Video 44's license to operate WSNS-TV, stating that the agency acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" in granting it—partly due to it having "improperly refused to consider" the obscenity issue—and requiring the commission to conduct further proceedings in the dispute. On September 19, 1990, the FCC denied Video 44's application to renew its license; the ruling was upheld on appeal weeks later in a 5-0 decision, and the FCC awarded a new

construction permit Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...

to Monroe Communications. Video 44, Inc. subsequently appealed the decision, which Howard Shapiro, head of WCIU-TV owner Weigel Broadcasting, called "a remarkable series of circumstances that may never be duplicated again" for its relationship to changes in the composition of the FCC with the turnover of several of its members and resultant new regulatory attitudes. Although Monroe pledged to provide an expanded array of Hispanic programming aimed at Chicagoans of

Mexican Mexican may refer to: Mexico and its culture *Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America ** People *** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants *** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...

and

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

n heritage should its license application be approved, several Hispanic aldermen on the Chicago City Council and other community leaders objected to the FCC's decision, expressing concern that the revocation would deprive Chicago's Hispanic community of a major voice. The FCC denied Video 44's appeal of the license revocation for a second time on July 25, 1991. (In the wake of this decision, the

National Association of Broadcasters The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is a trade association and lobby group representing the interests of commercial and non-commercial over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States. The NAB represents more than ...

expelled WSNS-TV as a member, apparently thinking the revocation action took immediate effect.) The license challenge finally ended after eleven years in June 1993, when Monroe Communications reached an agreement with Harriscope to drop its case against Video 44, Inc., in an $18 million settlement awarded to Monroe by Harriscope. On November 9, 1995, Harriscope and Oak sold their combined 74.5% controlling interest in the station to Telemundo for $44.7 million, with Essaness initially retaining a 25.5% stake. The move allowed Oak to finally exit the television industry and allowed Telemundo to buy the largest station in the network that it did not already own. Despite the sale, the 1995 arrival of a full-time Univision station in

WGBO-TV WGBO-DT (channel 66) is a television station licensed to Joliet, Illinois, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language Univision network to the Chicago area. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside Aurora-licensed UniMás o ...

(channel 66) hurt WSNS in news and total-day ratings. Within two years of starting up, WGBO had triple the audience share of WSNS among Hispanic viewers. In 1999, the station moved from the John Hancock Center to the Sears (now Willis) Tower as part of the construction of its digital facility.

NBC ownership

When NBC purchased Telemundo in 2002, WSNS became part of the newly enlarged conglomerate, creating Chicago's first commercial television duopoly between two full-power television stations. The consolidation of NBC owned-and-operated station

and WSNS-TV led to pressure on NBC to extend the same union benefits to the previously non-union Telemundo staffers that the NBC employees already enjoyed. WSNS-TV's nine anchors and reporters voted unanimously to join the

American Federation of Television and Radio Artists The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) was a performers' union that represented a wide variety of talent, including actors in radio and television, radio and television announcers and newspersons, singers and recording ar ...

. In June 2003, WSNS migrated from its longtime studio facility on West Grant Place and merged its operations with WMAQ-TV at the

on North Columbus Drive in the

Magnificent Mile The Magnificent Mile, sometimes referred to as The Mag Mile, is an upscale section of Chicago's Michigan Avenue, running from the Chicago River to Oak Street in the Near North Side. The district is located within downtown, and one block ...

. On November 11, 2016, WMAQ-TV's president and general manager, David Doebler, was appointed as president and general manager of WSNS-TV, making Chicago the third market where NBC and Telemundo stations reported to the same general manager. In 2021, NBC tapped Kevin Cross, the senior vice president and general manager of regional sports network

, to also serve as president and general manager of WMAQ and WSNS-TV, replacing the retiring Doebler.

Programming

News operation

After the switch to Spanish-language broadcasting, WSNS began producing local newscasts, originally under the title (Newscenter 44), on October 7, 1985. Originally airing in the early evening only, WSNS began producing late newscasts on October 17, 1994, in response to the cancellation of WCIU-TV's Spanish-language local news service. To respond to the challenge posed by WGBO, channel 44 hired personalities from Spanish-language radio, with Luisa Torres of

WIND Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few hou ...

and Alberto Augusto of

WOJO WOJO (105.1 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a Regional Mexican format. Licensed to Evanston, Illinois, United States, the station serves the Chicago area. The station is currently owned by Tichenor License Corporation, a division of Ufor ...

as anchors for the new 10 p.m. broadcast. However, Telemundo fired them in April 1996 as part of budget cuts; at the same time, the station purchased a new vehicle for electronic news gathering. While news ratings also suffered from the entrance of WGBO, channel 44 began to show signs of ratings growth in the 2000s. In January 2001, WSNS launched its first morning newscast, (Good Morning Chicago); a second attempt to air a morning newscast under the title was dropped in 2009 because of budget cuts. It also experimented in 2008 with a 10:30 a.m. mid-morning newscast hosted by Tsi-Tsi-Ki Félix; this evolved into an entertainment and lifestyle program known as . Félix, who anchored news and weather for WSNS for 11 years, left the station in November 2012. Pride Parade 2015 -31 (19250045205)

In August 2013,

Edna Schmidt Edna Schmidt (August 8, 1969June 24, 2021) was a journalist who was a news anchor for ''Noticiero Univision'' Edición Nocturna. The journalist, who was of Puerto Rican descent, covered the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks, the pan ...

(who previously reported for WGBO before becoming a Chicago-based correspondent for

Univision Noticias Univision Noticias was a planned American Spanish language cable news channel. It was owned by Univision Communications and was supposed to be targeted at the Hispanic and Latino community in the United States. History In May 2011, Univis ...

) was named co-anchor of the 5:00 and 10:00 p.m. newscasts, only to be fired by the station that October; Schmidt filed a lawsuit against the station in November of that year, claiming that WSNS and its corporate parent NBC Universal violated the

Americans with Disabilities Act The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA () is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ...

by failing to provide Schmidt "reasonable accommodation" for her alcoholism after she anchored the September 30, 2013, edition of the 10:00 p.m. newscast while intoxicated, leading to her suspension and later dismissal. On September 18, 2014, Telemundo announced that it would expand its early-evening newscast to one hour, with the addition of a half-hour program at 4:30 p.m., as part of a groupwide news expansion across Telemundo's owned-and-operated stations. A 4:00 p.m. half-hour was added in 2016, again as part of a national expansion in the group. Weekend newscasts were added in 2017, and a midday newscast was introduced in January 2018 in Chicago and nine other cities. On June 29, 2015, as part of a national rollout, WSNS launched a consumer investigative unit under the (Telemundo Responds) banner; the unit is currently headed by chief investigative reporter Alba Mendiola, who joined the station as a general assignment reporter in 2001 and formerly hosted ''Enfoque Chicago'', the station's public affairs program.

Sports programming

As part of a five-year broadcast partnership between WMAQ-TV and the

Chicago Bears The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine NF ...

, WSNS aired Spanish-language broadcasts of the Bears' preseason football games from

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

Technical information

Subchannels

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 ...

Analog-to-digital conversion

WSNS-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 44, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 45.

Spectrum reallocation

On April 13, 2017, station manager David Doebler revealed that WSNS-TV's spectrum had been sold in the FCC's

spectrum reallocation The 2016 United States wireless spectrum auction, officially known as Auction 1001, allocated approximately 100 MHz of the United States Ultra High Frequency (UHF) spectrum formerly allocated to UHF television in the 600 MHz band. The spe ...

auction, fetching $141.7 million. WSNS-TV ceased broadcasting on UHF

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 45 on April 23, 2018, and began sharing spectrum with WMAQ-TV on channel 29.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wsns-Tv Television channels and stations established in 1970 SNS-TV Telemundo Station Group SNS-TV 1970 establishments in Illinois National Hockey League over-the-air television broadcasters TeleXitos affiliates Former General Electric subsidiaries Oak Industries ON TV (TV network)