WSVN (channel 7) 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 ea ...

Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is the

flagship station In broadcasting, a flagship (also known as a flagship station or key station) is the broadcast station which originates a television network, or a particular radio or television program that plays a key role in the branding of and consumer loyalt ...

of locally based

Sunbeam Television Sunbeam Television Corporation is a privately held broadcasting company based in Miami, Florida, that owns three television stations in the United States. History Sunbeam Television was formed on December 16, 1953, by Sidney Ansin, who inherite ...

. WSVN's studios are located on 79th Street Causeway ( SR 934) in North Bay Village (though with a Miami postal address), and its transmitter is located in

Miami Gardens, Florida Miami Gardens is a city in north-central Miami-Dade County, Florida. It is located north of Downtown Miami with city boundaries that stretch from I-95 and Northeast 2nd Avenue to its east to Northwest 47th and Northwest 57th Avenues to its w ...

History

WCKT

The station first signed on the air on July 29, 1956, as WCKT. Originally operating as an

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

affiliate, it was founded by the Biscayne Television Corporation, a partnership between the

Cox Cox may refer to: * Cox (surname), including people with the name Companies * Cox Enterprises, a media and communications company ** Cox Communications, cable provider ** Cox Media Group, a company that owns television and radio stations ** ...

and

Knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...

publishing families (from which the original call letters were derived ox Knight Television, who respectively owned Miami's two major newspapers: the now-defunct '' Miami News'' and the still-operating ''

Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a city in western Miami-Dade County and the Miami metropolitan area, several miles west of Downtown Miami.WIOD, and 97.3 FM, now

WFLC WFLC (97.3 FM) is a radio station in Miami, Florida. Owned by Cox Media Group, WFLC's studios and offices are located on North 29th Avenue in Hollywood. The transmitter site is off NW 210 Street in Miami Gardens. WFLC broadcasts in the HD Rad ...

). Niles Trammell, a former NBC president, held a 15 percent ownership interest in WCKT. Before WCKT signed on, NBC programming had been carried on

Fort Lauderdale A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facer ...

's WFTL-TV (channel 23, later known as WGBS-TV after it had been acquired by

Storer Broadcasting Storer Broadcasting, Inc. was an American company which owned several television and radio stations in the Northeastern United States. It was incorporated in Ohio 1927, and was broken up in 1986. History 1920s–1940s In 1927, George B. Storer ...

), which also held a secondary affiliation with the

DuMont Television Network The DuMont Television Network (also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont Television, simply DuMont/Du Mont, or (incorrectly) Dumont ) was one of America's pioneer commercial television networks, rivaling NBC and CBS for the distinction of being ...

. However, WFTL struggled because television sets were not required to have UHF tuning capability (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 jurisdicti ...

(FCC) would later require such tuners to be included in sets manufactured from 1964 onward). It didn't help matters that much of the area, particularly Fort Lauderdale, got a fairly strong signal from WJNO-TV (channel 5, now

WPTV WPTV-TV (channel 5) is a television station in West Palm Beach, Florida, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Stuart-licensed news-formatted independent station WHDT (channel 9); Scripps also ...

) in

West Palm Beach West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...

. When the Cox/Knight partnership won a

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 ...

and

broadcast license A broadcast license is a type of spectrum license granting the licensee permission to use a portion of the radio frequency spectrum in a given geographical area for broadcasting purposes. The licenses generally include restrictions, which vary f ...

to operate a station on VHF channel 7, NBC quickly agreed to move its affiliation to WCKT, since WCKR radio had been the longtime Miami affiliate of the

NBC Blue Network The Blue Network (previously known as the NBC Blue Network) was the on-air name of a now defunct American radio network, which broadcast from 1927 through 1945. Beginning as one of the two radio networks owned by the National Broadcasting Comp ...

(the forerunner to today's

American Broadcasting Company The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, Calif ...

(ABC)). Until WPST-TV (channel 10, now

WPLG WPLG (channel 10) is a television station in Miami, Florida, United States, affiliated with ABC. The station is owned by Berkshire Hathaway as its sole broadcast property. WPLG's studios are located on West Hallandale Beach Boulevard in Pembrok ...

) signed on in August 1957, WCKT also shared ABC programming with WTVJ (channel 4), as part of an arrangement with the network to provide its programming throughout the market as television sets were not required to have UHF tuning capability at the time, preventing many in the area from receiving the market's original ABC affiliate, WITV (channel 17). Channel 23 became an

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, marke ...

and eventually went dark, and later came back to the air in 1967 as WAJA-TV (it is 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 include ...

flagship WLTV-DT). In 1962, the Cox/Knight/Trammell partnership was stripped of its broadcast licenses due to violations of the FCC's licensing rules and ethics violations. In hearings that began in June 1960, it was found that some of the principals of Biscayne Television, as well as some of James Cox's personal friends, had made improper contact with FCC commissioner Richard Mack in order to influence the awarding of the construction permit and licenses. Biscayne had competed for the license with two other applicants, East Coast Television and South Florida TV. Mack had also been found guilty of taking payoffs and was forced to resign by

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Dwight D. Eisenhower, as well as the rest of the FCC commissioners. Biscayne Television originally planned to appeal its license revocation, but was advised that the appeal would be turned down due to the gravity of the situation. Mack had also been found guilty of taking payoffs in the licensing process of WPST, to the broadcasting subsidiary of National Airlines. WPST had its license revoked and Biscayne then opted to put WCKT up for sale. The owners of WPST were forced to sell the station only after they had to cease broadcasting.

Sunbeam Television ownership

Shortly afterward, a new company called Sunbeam Television Corporation bought the station for $3.4 million and assumed ownership of channel 7 on December 19, 1962. Upon the change in ownership, Sunbeam retained the WCKT call letters and claimed the Cox/Knight station's history as its own. Sunbeam was a partnership between

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter of which ...

–based real estate developer Sydney Ansin, and his son

Edmund Ansin Edmund N. Ansin (March 9, 1936July 26, 2020) was an American billionaire and co-founder of Sunbeam Television. He was credited with being an innovator in the television news industry, breaking away from the conventional mold that had been used b ...

. The younger Ansin succeeded his father as president of Sunbeam Television in 1971. The station began using its own version of the

circle 7 logo The Circle 7 logo is an often-used television station logo in the United States. Designed in the early 1960s for the American Broadcasting Company's five owned-and-operated stations (all of which broadcast on VHF channel 7), the logo, or a v ...

(which is moderately similar to the version originally created for ABC's owned-and-operated stations, but with the "7" not connected to the circle and being somewhat shaped differently) in the mid-1970s. On June 7, 1983, the station's callsign was changed to the current WSVN, after those call letters were acquired from a PBS satellite member station in

Norton, Virginia Norton is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia, located in the far western tip of the state in Wise County, Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,687, making it the least populous city in Virginia. The Bureau of E ...

(which subsequently became WSBN-TV; it went

off the air In the broadcasting industry, a dark television station or silent radio station is one that has gone off the air for an indefinite period of time. Usually unlike dead air (broadcasting only silence), a station that is dark or silent does not e ...

in 2017).

Network affiliation switch

NBC experienced a resurgence in the second half of the 1980s, resulting in it becoming the top-rated U.S. television network–a status helped by the crime drama ''

Miami Vice ''Miami Vice'' is an American crime drama television series created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by Michael Mann (director), Michael Mann for NBC. The series stars Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo ...

'', which was set and filmed in and around Miami. The Miami–Fort Lauderdale area was also developing into one of the largest media markets in the United States. But NBC's standing in the area was deemed unsatisfactory, as WSVN was the third-ranked affiliate in the market (behind WTVJ and WPLG). As a result, NBC decided that it needed to acquire its own station in the growing

South Florida metropolitan area The Miami metropolitan area (also known as Greater Miami, the Tri-County Area, South Florida, or the Gold Coast) is the ninth largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States and the 34th largest metropolitan area in the world with a ...

. The network got its chance at doing so in the late 1980s, when

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strate ...

put WTVJ on the market. NBC's then-corporate 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 ene ...

purchased that station in 1987, but WTVJ's affiliation contract with CBS was not set to expire until December 1988. CBS was willing to let WTVJ out of its contract one year early. However, Ed Ansin was not interested in letting NBC out of its affiliation agreement with WSVN, which also expired at the same time; Ansin even made an unsuccessful petition to the FCC to stop NBC's purchase of WTVJ. He wanted channel 7 to air NBC's strong fall 1988 lineup, which included

NBC Sports NBC Sports is an American programming division of the broadcast network NBC, owned and operated by NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and subsidiary of Comcast. The division is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its ...

' coverage of

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (A ...

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the Worl ...

and the

Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The ina ...

, along with most

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team p ...

games as part of NBC's

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the majo ...

package. As a result, NBC was forced to run WTVJ as a CBS affiliate for more than a year, with all of the NBC shows that were preempted by WSVN airing on WTVJ instead. This situation did not sit well with either network. Ansin made an offer to take the CBS affiliation, but CBS turned the offer down. Instead, CBS bought Miami's longtime independent station and original Fox affiliate, WCIX channel 6, even though that station had an inadequate signal in

Broward County Broward County ( , ) is a county in the southeastern part of Florida, located in the Miami metropolitan area. It is Florida's second-most populous county after Miami-Dade County and the 17th-most populous in the United States, with over 1.94 m ...

(WCIX's transmitter was located in Homestead, farther southwest than those of other Miami area stations, to avoid signal interference with WCPX-TV (now

WKMG-TV WKMG-TV (channel 6) is a television station in Orlando, Florida, United States, affiliated with CBS and owned by Graham Media Group. The station's studios are located on John Young Parkway ( SR 423) in Orlando, and its transmitter is located i ...

) in

Orlando Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures re ...

and WPTV). In May 1988, Ed Ansin filed an antitrust lawsuit against General Electric/NBC and CBS, one week after he had claimed that CBS backed out of contract negotiations to affiliate with WSVN. With WCIX planning to switch to CBS at the start of 1989, Fox began negotiations with other area stations to carry its programming. It ultimately reached an agreement with Sunbeam Television to affiliate with channel 7.

Fox affiliation

January 1 January 1 or 1 January is the first day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 364 days remaining until the end of the year (365 in leap years). This day is also known as New Year's Day since the day marks the beginning of the ye ...

, 1989, South Florida's first network affiliation switch occurred, with NBC moving to WTVJ full-time, WCIX switching from Fox to CBS, and WSVN taking the Fox affiliation. Channel 7 had far fewer network shows to preempt as a result, as Fox only ran prime time programming on weekends at the time and would not air an entire week's worth of programming until 1993. As a result, WSVN was for essential intents and purposes programmed as a ''de facto'' independent station (even referring to itself as such in promotions regarding the switch, despite still being affiliated with a network). Until Fox began airing programming every weeknight, WSVN aired a movie in prime time at 8:00 p.m. on nights where network programming was not scheduled to air. WSVN's affiliation with Fox could be seen as a major coup for the fledgling network, as WSVN had been a longtime NBC affiliate and Fox was pleased to affiliate with a station that had been with a " Big Three" network for years. At the time, WSVN was one of the largest heritage "Big Three" stations to join Fox. The combination of WSVN not following a similar pattern to other Fox affiliates at the time (which focused more on syndicated programming and movies, than news), and WCIX becoming a "Big Three" affiliate had also led then-struggling independent WDZL (channel 39, now CW affiliate

WSFL-TV WSFL-TV (channel 39) is a television station in Miami, Miami, Florida, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Ion Television owned-and-operated station WPXM-TV (channel 35), also licensed to Mia ...

) to rise to a higher profile, as WDZL had picked up many shows that were formerly seen on WCIX (now WFOR-TV on channel 4). WSVN, meanwhile, picked up some of WCIX's movie packages, as well as a couple of cartoons that it aired on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Instead of acquiring a large amount of off-network sitcoms and cartoons, WSVN opted to pour most of its resources into its news department and took on a news-intensive format—expanding its newscasts to seven hours on weekdays—a move that was pilloried at the time since its newscasts had consistently finished well behind WTVJ and WPLG in the ratings. Because of this, the station had a higher local newscast output than the rest of Fox's stations did at the time of the switch; when WSVN became a Fox affiliate, only a small number of Fox stations ran local newscasts, which were largely limited to late prime time slots (as of 2014, about three-fourths of Fox's stations have morning newscasts, but only about one-third of its owned-and-operated stations and affiliates carry newscasts in either the midday or late afternoon/early evening time periods). In addition to newscasts, WSVN began to air a lot of first-run syndicated

talk show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Sh ...

s, court shows, and off-network

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

series. As Fox lacked a national evening newscast (a situation which continues to this day), the station also ran a half-hour late afternoon simulcast of

CNN Headline News HLN is an American basic cable network. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, the network primarily carries true crime programming. The channel was originally launched on January 1, 1982 by Turner Broadcasting as CNN2 (later renamed Headline News ...

during the early and mid-1990s. The station ran some cartoons on weekend mornings as well. In the early 1990s, the station added a few off-network sitcoms to its schedule such as ''

Designing Women ''Designing Women'' is an American television sitcom created by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason that aired on CBS from September 29, 1986, to May 24, 1993, producing seven seasons and 163 episodes. It was a joint production of Bloodworth/Thomason M ...

'', ''

The Golden Girls ''The Golden Girls'' is an American sitcom created by Susan Harris that aired on NBC from September 14, 1985, to May 9, 1992, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes, spanning seven seasons. With an ensemble cast starring Bea Arthur, Betty Wh ...

'', and ''

Empty Nest ''Empty Nest'' is an American television sitcom that aired for seven seasons on NBC from October 8, 1988, to April 29, 1995. The series, which was created as a spin-off of ''The Golden Girls'' by creator and producer Susan Harris, starred Ri ...

'' (the latter two being set in Miami). As a Fox affiliate, the station brands itself as "WSVN 7", rather than "Fox 7" under Fox's branding guidelines for its owned-and-operated stations and affiliates (

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

sister station WHDH formerly used its affiliated network's name in its branding as "7 NBC" until it became an independent station in January 2017, although NBC is not as strict with station branding as Fox is), and is one of a handful of Fox affiliates that omit network references entirely from their branding. However,

Fox News Channel The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is ...

refers to the station as "Fox 7" when carrying WSVN's coverage of breaking news stories from South Florida; until its website was remodeled in late 2009, the Fox logo also occasionally appeared in a rolling marquee alongside the station's "circle 7" logo on the top left hand corner of the site. At the time of the 1989 switch, the network's owned-and-operated stations and certain affiliates were the only Fox stations to use full network references, while other stations—like original Miami affiliate WCIX used limited to no references to Fox in their branding. Miami–Fort Lauderdale is one of three U.S. television markets in which the Fox affiliation had moved from one VHF station to another (the others being

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

, if stations not operating as

satellites A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotop ...

are counted, as Fox charter affiliate

KHNL KHNL (channel 13) is a television station in Honolulu, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, serving the Hawaiian Islands as an affiliate of NBC. It is owned by Gray Television alongside CBS affiliate KGMB (channel 5) and Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, Kailua ...

(channel 13) and NBC affiliate

KHON-TV KHON-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, serving the Hawaiian Islands as an affiliate of Fox and The CW. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate KHII-TV (channel 9). Both s ...

(channel 2) swapped affiliations on January 1, 1996, and

Boise, Idaho Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown ar ...

, when CW affiliate KNIN-TV (channel 9) took the Fox affiliation from charter affiliate KTRV (channel 12) on September 1, 2011) and the only known instance of a longtime "Big Three" affiliate switching to Fox prior to its 1994 affiliation agreement with New World Communications and the affiliation transactions that resulted from the deal. On January 14, 2012, WSVN and Boston sister stations WHDH and

WLVI WLVI (channel 56) is a television station licensed to Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, serving the Boston area as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Sunbeam Television alongside WHDH (channel 7), an independent station. WLVI and W ...

were pulled from

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...

after negotiations with Sunbeam Television on a new carriage contract broke down due to a proposal to increase retransmission fees paid to the company by a reported 300%. In response, a

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

page called "Boycott WSVN" was started to pressure businesses to pull their advertising from the station. However, WSVN did allow DirecTV customers to view the

NFC championship game The NFC Championship Game is the annual championship game of the National Football Conference (NFC) and one of the two semi-final playoff games of the National Football League (NFL), the largest professional American football league in the world ...

and an episode of ''

American Idol ''American Idol'' is an American singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It aired on Fox from June 11, 2002, to ...

'' that aired immediately after the game while negotiations were still ongoing. Sunbeam and DirecTV reached a new carriage deal on January 26, 2012, ending the blackout. On September 27, 2017, three workers were killed after a crane collapsed off the side of WSVN's television tower. The tower, shared with WPLG, was having to install a new transmitter for WSVN as part of the mandated FCC spectrum repack.

Averted loss of Fox affiliation

On February 22, 2018, it was reported that

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, ...

would sell CW affiliate WSFL-TV to

Fox Television Stations Fox Television Stations, LLC (FTS; alternately Fox Television Stations Group, LLC), is a group of television stations located within the United States, which are owned-and-operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of the Fox Co ...

as part of its larger deal to acquire WSFL parent

Tribune Media Tribune Media Company, also known as Tribune Company, was an American multimedia conglomerate headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Through Tribune Broadcasting, Tribune Media was one of the largest television broadcasting companies, owning 39 ...

; the deal was officially announced on May 9, 2018. A purchase of WSFL by FTS would likely result in WSFL becoming a Fox O&O and WSVN losing its affiliation, similar to sister station WHDH in Boston losing its NBC affiliation to WBTS-LD (now

Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by Comcast. It provides content nationally with pr ...

O&O WYCN-LD in

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 ...

) after NBC purchased that station; executives at Fox parent company

21st Century Fox Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc., doing business as 21st Century Fox (21CF), was an American multinational mass media corporation that was based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was one of the two companies formed on June 28, 2013, fo ...

declined to immediately announce any plans regarding WSFL in an earnings call, with CEO

Lachlan Murdoch Lachlan Keith Murdoch (; born 8 September 1971) is a British-Australian businessman and mass media heir. He is the executive chairman of Nova Entertainment, co-chairman of News Corp, executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation, and the f ...

stating that "We're not making any announcements of any affiliate changes today." On May 11, 2018, Ed Ansin stated that WSVN would remain a Fox affiliate through at least June 30, 2019 (when its affiliation contract was scheduled to expire), and that WSVN would be run as a news-intensive independent station modeled on WHDH if the Fox affiliation was lost; in an interview with the ''

Sun-Sentinel The ''Sun Sentinel'' (also known as the ''South Florida Sun Sentinel'', known until 2008 as the ''Sun-Sentinel'', and stylized on its masthead as ''SunSentinel'') is the main daily newspaper of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as well as surrounding B ...

'', Ansin said that Fox had not informed him of its intentions, and that the station would replace Fox's prime time programming with syndicated programming and an additional newscast. Three weeks after the FCC's July 18, 2018, vote to have the deal reviewed by an

administrative law judge An administrative law judge (ALJ) in the United States is a judge and trier of fact who both presides over trials and adjudicates claims or disputes involving administrative law. ALJs can administer oaths, take testimony, rule on questions of evi ...

amid "serious concerns" about Sinclair's forthrightness in its applications to sell certain conflict properties, on August 9, 2018, Tribune announced it would terminate the Sinclair deal, intending to seek other M&A opportunities. The termination of said merger also made the Fox purchase of WSFL unsuccessful. On December 3, 2018,

Irving, Texas Irving is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. Located in Dallas County, it is also an inner ring suburb of Dallas. The city of Irving is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. According to a 2019 estimate from the United States Census Bureau ...

-based

Nexstar Media Group Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...

announced it would acquire the assets of Tribune Media for $6.4 billion in cash and debt, but the fate of Fox's affiliation in Miami remained in question. On March 20, 2019, WSFL was agreed to be divested to

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

-based E. W. Scripps Company upon the consummation of the Nexstar-Tribune merger, as part of the company's sale of nineteen Nexstar- and Tribune-operated stations to Scripps and Tegna Inc. in separate deals worth $1.32 billion. Scripps chose to retain the CW affiliation for the market. On September 26, 2019, WSVN announced that it had renewed its Fox affiliation.

Programming

When WSVN became a Fox affiliate in January 1989, its programming format was quite unusual for the network's affiliates as it did not include

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...

s as part of its schedule; it ran

cartoons A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...

only on weekend mornings, and aired a heavy amount of talk and court shows, some

movies A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...

, and some drama series. As time went on, though, most Fox stations began relying more on talk and court shows, as well as local newscasts. Channel 7 runs only a slightly heavier amount of local news programming than other Fox stations (which have gradually increased their news outputs over the last 15 years). WSVN continues not to feature any sitcoms as part of its syndication inventory, somewhat atypical for a news-intensive Fox station.

Past program preemptions and deferrals

As an NBC affiliate, WCKT/WSVN aired a local newscast in place of programs that NBC had aired at noon on weekdays. It also occasionally preempted network shows that aired during the 10:00 a.m. or 11:00 a.m. timeslot (but ran at least one of these hours) and preempted an occasional prime time program. While NBC was traditionally far less tolerant of program preemptions than the other major broadcast networks, it did not mind this at first provided that the network was able to get Miami area independent stations to air whatever programs that WSVN chose not to air. In addition, NBC programs that were not broadcast by WSVN were cleared by WPTV, whose signal provides city-grade coverage of Fort Lauderdale and was available on nearly every

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 ...

provider in the area. However, in the early 1980s, WPTV was removed from some Miami area cable systems to make room for new channels due to limited headend channel capacity. Largely due to those preemptions, WCKT/WSVN was one of NBC's weaker affiliates. Though NBC continued to arrange for independent stations to air network programs that were not shown on WSVN, the network grew increasingly annoyed at having to resort to such an arrangement in what had grown into a major market. As a Fox affiliate, it originally aired

Fox Kids Fox Kids (originally known as Fox Children's Network and later as the Fox Kids Network; stylized as FOX KIDS) was an American children's programming block and branding for a slate of international children's television channels. Originally a jo ...

when Fox launched the block on September 8, 1990, but would become the first Fox station in the country to stop carrying the block in 1993. Fox Kids subsequently moved to WDZL, before moving again to WAMI (channel 69) in 1998. WBFS-TV (channel 33) aired the successor

4Kids TV 4Kids TV (often stylized as 4K!DSTV and formerly known as FoxBox from September 14, 2002 to January 15, 2005) was an American television programming block and Internet-based video on demand children's network operated by 4Kids Entertainment. I ...

block until it ended on December 27, 2008. By coincidence, when

New World Communications New World Pictures (also known as New World Entertainment and New World Communications Group, Inc.) was an American independent production, distribution, and (in its final years as an autonomous entity) multimedia company. It was founded in 197 ...

switched most of its "Big Three"-affiliated stations to Fox between 1994 and 1996, the programming on those stations was very similar in format to WSVN, except that their news formats may have been aimed at an older audience than WSVN's, many stations owned by New World also passed on Fox Kids just as WSVN did. Since Fox acquired

National Hot Rod Association The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) is a drag racing governing body, which sets rules in drag racing and hosts events all over the United States and Canada. With over 40,000 drivers in its rosters, the NHRA claims to be the largest motorspo ...

(NHRA) broadcast rights in 2016, WSVN has constantly been the target of viewer and NHRA complaints, the station preempts '' Fox NHRA'' in favor of

infomercial An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of dire ...

s, resulting in the NHRA sending a formal complaint on their website. This usually amounts to four NHRA events a season, including the U.S. Nationals. The station often preempts live coverage of the NHRA and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footb ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

matches to after the late news in order to retain paid programming revenue for those afternoon timeslots that Fox uses to carry prestigious sporting events.

Sports programming

In 1966, with the establishment of the

of the

American Football League The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...

, the station, via NBC, which held the league's broadcast rights, became the station of record for the new team. The station provided coverage of the Dolphins' victory in

Super Bowl VII Super Bowl VII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Miami Dolphins and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Washington Redskins to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for ...

after their perfect season in 1972. The station during this time also provided local coverage of Super Bowls

III III or iii may refer to: Companies * Information International, Inc., a computer technology company * Innovative Interfaces, Inc., a library-software company * 3i, formerly Investors in Industry, a British investment company Other uses * ...

, V, and XIII, which were hosted at the

Miami Orange Bowl The Miami Orange Bowl was an outdoor athletic stadium in Miami, Florida from 1937 until 2008. The stadium was located in the Little Havana neighborhood west of Greater Downtown Miami, Downtown Miami. The Miami Orange Bowl was considered a landm ...

. This alliance continued until the end of the 1988 season, when most games moved over to WTVJ (today, most games are aired by WFOR). Since 1994, the station airs at least two Dolphins games a season via the ''

NFL on Fox The ''NFL on Fox'' (also known as ''Fox NFL'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games produced by Fox Sports and televised on the Fox broadcast network. Game coverage is usually preceded by '' Fox NFL Kick ...

'', usually when the team plays host to an NFC team at

Hard Rock Stadium Hard Rock Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium located in Miami Gardens, Florida. The stadium is the home field for the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League (NFL) and the Miami Hurricanes, the University of Miami's NCAA Division I coll ...

, however, starting in

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wa ...

, with the institution of the NFL's new broadcast 'cross-flex' rules, more games can be seen on Channel 7 when they are moved from WFOR, and from 2018 to 2021, via Fox's exclusive contract, ''

Thursday Night Football ''Thursday Night Football'' (often abbreviated as ''TNF'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that broadcast primarily on Thursday nights. Most of the games kick off at 8:15 Eastern Time (8:20 prior to 2 ...

'' games. In addition, any

Miami Marlins The Miami Marlins are an American professional baseball team based in Miami. The Marlins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The club's home ballpark is LoanDepot Park. The fra ...

games featured as part of Fox's MLB broadcast contract are aired on channel 7, this included their victory in the

2003 World Series The 2003 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 2003 season. The 99th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the National League (NL) champion Florida Marlins and the American Lea ...

, when the team was still the Florida Marlins. The station was also the local broadcaster of

Super Bowl LIV Super Bowl LIV was an American football game played to determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2019 season. The American Football Conference (AFC) champion Kansas City Chiefs defeated the National Football Conferenc ...

which was held at Hard Rock Stadium, as Fox had the national television rights to the game; it also previously served as the home broadcaster of

Super Bowl XXXIII Super Bowl XXXIII was an American football game played between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Denver Broncos (who were also defending their Super Bowl XXXII championship) and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Atlan ...

which was also on Fox. In 1996 as it carried the ''

NHL on Fox The ''NHL on Fox'' is the branding used for broadcasts of National Hockey League (NHL) games that were produced by Fox Sports and televised on the Fox network from the 1994–1995 NHL season until the 1998–1999 NHL season. NHL games continued ...

'', it also carried the first and only appearance of the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey sports league, league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranke ...

Florida Panthers The Florida Panthers are a professional ice hockey team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference, and initially played their home g ...

(Games 1 and 3, with the others on

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

) in that year's

Stanley Cup Finals The Stanley Cup Finals in ice hockey (also known as the Stanley Cup Final among various media, french: Finale de la Coupe Stanley) is the National Hockey League's (NHL) championship series to determine the winner of the Stanley Cup, North America ...

, albeit a sweep by the

Colorado Avalanche The Colorado Avalanche (colloquially known as the Avs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Denver. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Division in the Western Conference (N ...

News operation

WSVN presently broadcasts hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with hours each weekday and six hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). For the longest time, the station had the highest local newscast output of any local television station in Miami, until ABC affiliate WPLG began producing an additional 16 hours of newscasts for CW affiliate WSFL-TV in June 2021 (giving the former a combined 70½ hours each week), putting WSVN as the second highest. Unlike other news-intensive Fox affiliates, WSVN carries newscasts at 5:00 p.m., 6:00 p.m., and 6:30 p.m. on both Saturdays and Sundays (others either air early evening newscasts on weekends at different times on Saturdays and Sundays .e., Saturdays at 6:00 p.m. and Sundays at 5:00 p.m. air them either at only 5:00 p.m. or 6:00 p.m. on both nights or do not carry newscasts in that particular weekend time period at all); however, WSVN's weekend 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. newscasts are subject to preemption and/or delay due to network sports telecasts running into the timeslot. In addition, the station produces the entertainment news/lifestyle program ''

Deco Drive Deco Drive is a daily live celebrity gossip and entertainment news magazine style program featuring reports on trends and celebrities in South Florida. It has aired continuously since January 8, 1996 on WSVN-TV in Miami, Florida, and has also been ...

'' (which airs at 7:30 p.m. weeknights). The station is affiliated with CNN for news. When the station gained the Fox affiliation on January 1, 1989, it retained a news schedule similar to the one it had as an NBC affiliate, in its early years with Fox, local news programming on the station ran on weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., Noon to 1:00 p.m., 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., weekends from 6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and nightly from 10:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. The station became the second Fox affiliate to have a weekday morning newscast as a result and was the first one with weeknight 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. newscasts. On the date of the network switch, WSVN debuted a locally produced early evening

news magazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories, in greater depth than do newspapers or n ...

program, ''Inside Story'', the program eventually evolved into its present entertainment-based format as ''7:30'' (in reference to its timeslot) in 1991, and later changed its title to the current ''Deco Drive'' in 1996. Under

news director A news director is an individual at a broadcast station or network or a newspaper who is in charge of the news department. In local news, the news director is typically in charge of the entire news staff, including journalists, news presenters, ...

Joel Cheatwood Joel Cheatwood is an American television executive. Cheatwood served as news director at WSVN in Miami (the flagship station of Sunbeam Television) starting in 1989, soon after it had switched to Fox. Cheatwood was often criticized for an emphas ...

, WSVN became well known in South Florida, and throughout the nation, for its emphasis on crime stories and sensationalistic reporting—summarized in the phrase, "if it bleeds, it leads." Although this embrace of

tabloid television Tabloid television, also known as teletabloid, is a form of tabloid journalism. Tabloid television news broadcasting usually incorporate flashy graphics and sensationalized stories. Often, there is a heavy emphasis on crime and celebrity news. G ...

was criticized, it rejuvenated a station that had languished in third place for most of its tenure with NBC. Within a few years, with anchor

Rick Sanchez Rick Sanchez is one of the two eponymous characters from the Adult Swim animated television series ''Rick and Morty'' and resulting franchise. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon and voiced by the former, Sanchez is a misanthropic alco ...

at the helm, WSVN became the market's highest-rated English-language station from sign-on to sign-off, a rank it would hold for the better part of two decades until it was overtaken for the title by WFOR, though WSVN has been a solid runner-up and has tied for second with WPLG. WSVN's success also influenced how newscasts on other Fox affiliates would look in later years; the station's decision to take on a news-intensive schedule would eventually serve as the template for the programming formats of the former "Big Three" stations that switched to Fox as a result of its 1994 affiliation agreement with New World Communications and certain transactions related to the deal, and was gradually adopted by many heritage Fox stations and certain news-producing stations that are not affiliated with the network, NBC, CBS or ABC. It was also the first station to take a cue from CNN, integrating its newsroom and studio into one large area, which the station has termed the "newsplex". It evolved out of their initial two sets around the time of the network switch in the late 1980s: one used for its morning and 5:00 p.m. newscasts, which was a small, enclosed area in the newsroom, and its main set, which was positioned in the station's control room. Other stations and networks, both in the U.S. and internationally, have taken cues from WSVN's set. The overall format was successful enough in Miami that in 1993, Ed Ansin assigned Cheatwood to overhaul Sunbeam's newly acquired Boston station WHDH, incorporating a considerably watered-down version of the WSVN format for its newscasts; as in Miami, the tabloid style helped WHDH rise from a perennial third place into a contender for first in the news ratings (against the more traditional

WCVB-TV WCVB-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Hearst Television. The station's studios are located on TV Place (off Gould Street near the I-95/ MA 128/Highland Avenue ...

). WHDH uses many visual cues taken from WSVN including the use of flashy graphics, distinct music packages composed by Chris Crane (who has composed the various custom news themes used by WSVN since 1991) and a similarly designed "newsplex" set; WSVN's "circle 7" logo was also adopted by WHDH after Sunbeam assumed ownership. A similar format was adopted by

KJRH-TV KJRH-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Okmulgee-licensed Ion Television outlet KTPX-TV (channel 44). KJRH-TV's studios are located o ...

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region wit ...

between 1994 and 1997, that station has since reverted to airing traditional newscasts. The station's 11:00 p.m. newscast evolved into an hour-long 10:00 p.m. program after it joined Fox, but was revived in 1995 as a 15-minute wrap-up of the proceedings in the O. J. Simpson murder case, and expanded to a half-hour the following year, the 11:00 p.m. newscast expanded to weekend evenings on September 26, 2009. The station debuted a half-hour 4:00 p.m. newscast on September 11, 2006, which later expanded to one hour in 2007. On January 11, 2009, starting with its 5:00 p.m. newscast, WSVN became the second station in the Miami market (behind WTVJ) to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. With the switch to HD, came an updated newsplex set that premiered two weeks earlier on December 29, 2008, and new HD graphics. On July 11, 2010, WSVN expanded its Saturday and Sunday 6:00 p.m. newscasts to one hour with the addition of half-hour newscasts at 6:30 p.m. On August 22, 2011, WSVN added a fifth hour (from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.) to the weekday edition of ''Today in Florida'', by way of the move of ''

Live! with Regis and Kelly ''Live with Kelly and Ryan'' (or simply ''Live'') is an American syndicated morning talk show hosted by Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest. Executive produced by Michael Gelman, the ''Live with...'' show formula has aired under various hosts since ...

'' to WPLG. On September 13, 2015, the station expanded its ''Today in Florida'' newscast to Sunday mornings airing from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

Notable former on-air staff

* Jessica Aguirre – anchor (later at

KABC-TV KABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast of the United States, West Coast Flagship (broadcasting), flagship of the American Broadcasting Company, ABC network. ...

, then at

KGO-TV KGO-TV (channel 7) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's ABC network outlet. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, KGO-TV ma ...

, now at

KNTV KNTV (channel 11), branded as NBC Bay Area, is a television station licensed to San Jose, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's NBC network outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television ...

) * Jim Berry – sports anchor (now morning news anchor at WFOR-TV, also in Miami) * Ann Bishop – script writer (moved to

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

and became a legendary anchor, died November 14, 1997) * Bob Clayton – staff announcer and host of ''Bobsville'' (later worked on game shows ''

Concentration In chemistry, concentration is the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Several types of mathematical description can be distinguished: '' mass concentration'', '' molar concentration'', ''number concentration'', ...

'' and ''

Pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilate ...

'', died November 1, 1979) *

Penny Daniels Penny Daniels is an American communications consultant and trainer and a former television news anchor who once hosted the TV show '' A Current Affair''. Early life and education Born as Elizabeth Penny Comm, Daniels is a native of Highland P ...

– anchor/reporter (retired) *

Donna Hanover Donna Hanover (born Donna Ann Kofnovec; February 15, 1950) is an American journalist, radio and television personality, television producer, and actress, who appears on CUNY TV in New York City. From 1994 through 2001 she was First Lady of New ...

– (ex-wife of former New York City mayor

Rudy Giuliani Rudolph William Louis Giuliani (, ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 19 ...

) * Robb Hanrahan – evening anchor (later at

WABC-TV WABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios in the Lincoln Square neig ...

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 ...

and at

WHP-TV WHP-TV (channel 21) is a television station licensed to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States, serving the Susquehanna Valley region as an affiliate of CBS, MyNetworkTV, and The CW. Owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station has st ...

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Harrisburg is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the 9th largest city and 15th largest municipality in ...

; died July 1, 2022) * Jackie Johnson – meteorologist (later at

KCBS-TV KCBS-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside independent outl ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

; retired) *

Alycia Lane Alycia Lane (born May 10, 1972) is an American television journalist. Until October 2013, she served as weekday morning anchor at KNBC-TV in Los Angeles. From September, 2003 until January, 2008, she was co-anchor of the weekday evening newscast ...

– (later at

KYW-TV KYW-TV (channel 3) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside CW affiliate WPSG (channel ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

, last at

KNBC KNBC (channel 4) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Corona- ...

in Los Angeles) * Rick Leventhal – (was at

, departed on June 28, 2021) *

Elita Loresca Elita A. Loresca (born June 28, 1977), is a Filipino-American newscaster. She has worked for KGET-TV, the NBC affiliate in Bakersfield, California, WSVN 7 in Miami, Florida, and KNBC in Los Angeles, California. Loresca currently works at KT ...

– meteorologist (now at

KTRK-TV KTRK-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Houston, Texas, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on Bissonnet Stre ...

in Houston) * Joan Lovett – anchor/reporter (later at

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 ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

) *

Robin Meade Robin Michelle Meade (born April 21, 1969) is a former American television news correspondent. She was the lead news anchor for HLN's morning show ''Morning Express with Robin Meade''. Meade was a former Miss Ohio and began her broadcasting care ...

– anchor/reporter (now at HLN) *

Marilyn Mitzel Marilyn Mitzel is a television reporter and news anchor, originally from North Dakota. Education Journalism at Arizona State University. She worked on her master's degree in journalism at Butler University in Indianapolis. Awards and honours ...

– anchor/reporter (1988–2005) *

Charles Perez Charles Perez (born March 2, 1963) is an American writer and television news reporter, anchor and talk show host. Career Perez was in the news business in the 1990s through the 2000s, during which he anchored and reported for WABC-TV in New ...

– anchor/reporter (later at

, then at WPLG in Miami; retired) * Jillian Warry (Reynolds) – meteorologist (later at

KTTV KTTV (channel 11) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV ou ...

in Los Angeles) * Shaun Robinson – (later weekend anchor and correspondent for syndicated entertainment newsmagazine ''

Access Hollywood ''Access Hollywood'', formerly known as ''Access'' from 2017 to 2019, is an American weekday television entertainment news program that premiered on September 9, 1996. It covers events and celebrities in the entertainment industry. It was create ...

'') *

– (1982–2001) (later at

MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...

and then CNN; WIOD and WJAN-CD in Miami–Fort Lauderdale; now at

RT America RT America was a U.S.-based news channel headquartered in Washington, D.C. Owned by TV Novosti and operated by production company T&RProductions, it was a part of the RT network, a global multilingual television news network based in Moscow fun ...

) *

Gerry Sandusky Gerard Edward Sandusky (born September 5, 1961) is an American sports broadcaster. He works as the sports director at WBAL-TV in Baltimore, Maryland, and does radio play-by-play for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League. Early ...

– now at

WBAL-TV WBAL-TV (channel 11) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is the flagship property of Hearst Television, which has owned the station since its inception, and is sister to the company's sole r ...

in Baltimore and radio play-by-play broadcaster for the

Baltimore Ravens The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its ...

Shepard Smith David Shepard Smith Jr. (born January 14, 1964) is an American broadcast journalist. He served as chief general news anchor and host of '' The News with Shepard Smith'' on CNBC, a daily evening newscast launched in late September 2020; but his ...

– (was at

from its inception in 1996 until his departure on October 11, 2019, now at

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk s ...

) * Stephanie Stahl – anchor (later and now at KYW-TV in Philadelphia for health and science reporter) *

Linda Stouffer Cinnamon Linda Stouffer (born August 5, 1970) is an American television news correspondent. She currently co-anchors the early morning news broadcasts on WSB-TV 2, Atlanta, Georgia. Background Born in San Marcos, Texas, Stouffer attended the p ...

– (now at HLN; went by Cinnamon Stouffer during her stint at WSVN) * Michelle Tuzee – (later at

in Los Angeles)

In popular culture

* WSVN's newscasts were featured in at least two movies, ''

The Mean Season ''The Mean Season'' is a 1985 American thriller film directed by Phillip Borsos and starring Kurt Russell, Mariel Hemingway, Richard Jordan, Richard Masur, Joe Pantoliano, Luis Tamayo and Andy García. The screenplay, written by Christopher Crowe ...

'' (1985) and ''

Flight of the Navigator ''Flight of the Navigator'' is a 1986 American science fiction adventure film directed by Randal Kleiser and written by Mark H. Baker, Michael Burton, and Matt MacManus. It stars Joey Cramer as David Freeman, a 12-year-old boy who is abducted by ...

'' (1986). WSVN can also be seen in several episodes of ''Miami Vice'' before the NBC affiliation for the Miami market moved to WTVJ towards the end of the show's run.

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 ...

: WSVN's second digital subchannel carried

Estrella TV Estrella TV () is an American Spanish-language broadcast television network owned by the Estrella Media subsidiary of HPS Investment Partners, LLC. The network primarily features programs, the vast majority of which are produced by the network ...

from its 2009 launch until July 14, 2017, when it began carrying Light TV.

Analog-to-digital transition

WSVN ended programming on its analog signal, on

VHF Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter. Frequencies immediately below VHF ...

channel 7, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition VHF channel 8 to channel 7. The station was one of four that operated digital signals on the VHF band to be granted a power increase later that month after stations experienced signal problems on VHF that did not occur with the

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 ...

band following the transition.

Out of market coverage

WSVN is carried via cable in

The Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the a ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wsvn SVN Fox network affiliates TheGrio affiliates This TV affiliates Buzzr affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1956 Television channels and stations established in 1962 1956 establishments in Florida National Football League primary television stations