WTVJ
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WTVJ is an NBC-owned-and-operated station licensed to Miami, Florida. It has broadcast facilities in Miramar, Florida, near Fort Lauderdale, as does sister station WSCV channel 51, the local Telemundo station. WTVJ also operates three translators. Two of them are in the Florida Keys: W44AC in Key West, and W52BB in Big Pine Key. The third translator, W58BU, is in Hallandale, near Fort Lauderdale. The third repeater is necessary because of WTVJ's transmitter location in Homestead, Florida; 20 miles southwest of Miami. WTVJ's transmitter is located farther south than the other Miami stations, resulting in a weak signal to Broward County.
WTVJ's audio signal can also be heard on 87.7 FM in most areas the video signal can be received (and some that it cannot); this is because of the electromagnetic field effect which puts the audio signal of channel 6 at the location of 87.75 MHz with tuners getting the signal at 87.7.
History
WTVJ went on the air at noon on March 21, 1949. Not only was it Miami's first television station, it was also the first in Florida overall, and the 16th in the country. Originally broadcasting on channel 4, WTVJ was owned by Wometco Enterprises, a national movie theater chain headquartered in Miami. The original studio was the former Capitol Theater in downtown Miami, Wometco's first theater when the company was founded in 1926. It carried programming from all three major networks, but was a primary CBS affiliate.
WTVJ was the only commercial station in Miami until 1954, when WFTL-TV signed on from Fort Lauderdale as an NBC affiliate. However, WFTL had no success whatsoever against WTVJ, in part because television sets were not required to have UHF tuning. NBC continued to allow WTVJ to cherry-pick NBC programming until WCKT (now WSVN) signed on in 1956 and WFTL went dark. It continued to share ABC with WCKT until 1957, when WPST (now WPLG) signed on. It also doubled as the CBS affiliate for West Palm Beach until WTVX (now a UPN affiliate) signed on in 1966.
Soon after WTVJ signed on, it hired Ralph Renick, who had just graduated from the University of Miami, as its first anchorman and news director. Renick would be the face of WTVJ for over 40 years, best known for his catchphrase at the end of every newscast, "Good night, and may the good news be yours." At the same time, the station also hired Bob Weaver. Considered one of the first ever TV news meteorologists, he reported weather for the station for over 5 decades.
Wometco founder and president Mitchell Wolfson died in 1983, but the company probably did not have any successors to choose from. As such, it quickly unraveled, making it a ripe takeover target. Investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. took over Wometco in 1984. In 1985, the Federal Communications Commission raised the television station ownership limit from seven VHF stations and any number of UHF stations to twelve stations regardless of frequency. KKR sold most of Wometco's entertainment assets to Wometco chief operating officer Arthur Hertz in 1985. With the cash from this sale, KKR bought Storer Broadcasting. It bought the stations because values were rising rapidly and the goal was to sell the stations in a few years.
In 1986, KKR opted to sell WTVJ and the Storer stations to separate owners. It had plans to sell WTVJ for a record price of close to half a billion dollars, although the station was actually worth far less. CBS saw a chance to get an O&O in the fast-growing Miami market. However, it lost a bidding war to television syndication firm Telepictures (now part of Warner Bros. Television). CBS then suggested that it intended to purchase WCIX, a Fox affiliate owned by Taft Broadcasting of Cincinnati. Such a deal would have made WTVJ a Fox affiliate. Although CBS only made a half-hearted bid for WCIX, Telepictures realized that the value of its purchase would be significantly depreciated with the loss of CBS. Also, while it was a major force in television syndication in its own right, it did not anticipate having to buy an additional 15 hours per day of programming (Fox had just debuted, and would not air a full week's worth of programming for seven years). It walked away from the deal later in 1986, and sold off its only other TV station, WPGH-TV in Pittsburgh, to Renaissance Broadcasting.
Over the next few months, the only offers for WTVJ came from companies that owned large amounts of independent stations, such as Tribune Broadcasting, Pappas Telecasting Companies, and Chris-Craft Industries/United Television. These and other companies wanted to make WTVJ an independent station -- or a Fox affiliate -- for a price far lower than KKR's asking price. The only way that KKR could make such a large profit was to sell WTVJ to another network, as the only potential buyers who had no interest in keeping CBS while paying the asking price were ABC and NBC. A major network had never bought a station affiliated with another network.
CBS did not believe that KKR would not sell WTVJ to another network, so it returned with a very low offer. KKR turned the CBS offer down almost out of hand, and then approached the other networks. ABC wasn't interested, since it was more than satisfied with its longtime affiliate, WPLG. However, NBC was very interested because its longtime affiliate, WSVN, pre-empted whatever shows NBC aired from 10 a.m. to noon, as well as an occasional prime time show. NBC was far less tolerant of pre-emptions than CBS and ABC, and was particularly annoyed at losing valuable advertising in such a fast-growing market. NBC realized that buying its own station with less restrictive ownership laws would guarantee that all of its shows would air. Hence, it made an offer almost as high as Telepictures did a few months before, and in 1987, KKR agreed to sell WTVJ to NBC, giving Florida its first O&O.
However, both stations' existing affiliation contracts lasted until December 31, 1988. As a result, NBC faced the prospect of having to run CBS programming on its new purchase for over a year. This didn't sit well with NBC and CBS, and both approached WSVN's owner, Ed Ansin, about ending his station's NBC affiliation early. However, Ansin refused because he wanted to air NBC's strong lineup that year, which included the Summer Olympics and the Major League Baseball World Series, along with the many hit shows airing on NBC at that time. He also wanted to take the CBS affiliation at the beginning of 1989. NBC did begin to pre-empt some low rated CBS shows on WTVJ to run NBC shows that WSVN was pre-empting, and in turn, those pre-empted CBS shows aired on WCIX.
CBS then formally approached WCIX, despite the fact that it would have provided a much weaker signal to Fort Lauderdale than that provided by WTVJ or WSVN. WCIX' transmitter was located in Homestead, 20 miles southwest of downtown Miami. This gave Fort Lauderdale only a grade B signal, which was weaker than all of the other TV stations in the Miami market. Accordingly, CBS persuaded longtime ABC affiliate WPEC in West Palm Beach to change its affiliation to CBS, so that it could continue to get a city-grade signal in Broward County. In the spring of 1988, CBS announced that it purchasing WCIX from the TVX Broadcast Group, who had purchased the station in 1987 as Taft was restructing to become Great American Broadcasting.
The changeover occurred on January 1, 1989. WTVJ ended its 40-year affiliation with CBS and became the third station in Miami to carry NBC. CBS moved the rest of its programming over to WCIX, while WSVN became the new Fox affiliate for Miami-Fort Lauderdale, and most of WCIX' syndicated programming went to WDZL (channel 39, now WSFL).
In 1992, when Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida, WTVJ was the only station to give complete coverage of the story non-stop, until its doppler radar was shut down.
In 1994, Westinghouse and its broadcasting division, Group W, signed a long-term deal with CBS in which the three Group W stations not already affiliated with would become CBS affiliates while two other stations had already been CBS affiliates. One of the stations was Philadelphia's longtime NBC affiliate, KYW-TV. CBS decided to sell off its longtime O&O in that same market, WCAU-TV. This led to a deal in 1995 between CBS and NBC, where CBS sold the channel 6 broadcasting facility to NBC as compensation for the loss of KYW-TV and Westinghouse's other NBC affiliate, WBZ-TV in Boston. In return, CBS received the stronger channel 4 broadcasting facility and cash as compensation for the loss of WCAU.
On September 12, 1995, WTVJ and WCIX swapped dial positions. WTVJ's entire intellectual unit (calls, shows, NBC network and staff) moved from channel 4 to channel 6. However, its studios remained the same. The entire WCIX intellectual unit moved to channel 4, but changed its call letters to WFOR-TV. Even though FCC records list channel 6 as changing its calls from WCIX to WTVJ on September 12, the stations themselves did not change hands, only the broadcasting facilities.
In 2000, WTVJ moved to new studios in Miramar, becoming the first station in the market to base its main studio in Broward County.
WTVJ, along with the Sun-Sentinel, produces a daily 10 PM newscast for WSFL called CW News at 10.
The station has 2 radar systems: "Weather Plus Doppler" and "Weather Plus VIPIR".
Logos
Ad from 1967 announcing the first color broadcasts on WTVJ. Note the CBS affiliation and the distinctive "Eye4" logo.
News Music
Newscasts
Alumni
External links |