WTVJ
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Categories: WikiProject Miami articles | Television stations in Miami / Fort Lauderdale | NBC network affiliates | Television stations in Florida | Channel 6 TV stations in the United States | Television channels and stations established in 1949
WTVJ, channel 6, is the NBC owned-and-operated television station for South Florida, licensed to Miami. Its analog transmitter is located in Redland. The station's digital transmitter is located near Dolphin Stadium in north Miami-Dade County. Owned by NBC Universal, the station is sister to South Florida's Telemundo owned-and-operated station, WSCV. The two stations share studios at Peacock Plaza in Miramar.
OverviewWTVJ's audio signal can be heard on 87.7 MHz on the FM dial in most parts of South Florida. This is because the audio signal of channel 6 is located at 87.75 MHz. This frequency assignment applies to all channel 6 television stations in countries using the NTSC-M standard. During hurricane season, WTVJ promotes the radio signal as an additional way to follow the station's hurricane coverage. In addition to its main signals, WTVJ operates two repeaters: W44AC channel 44 (in Key West) and W58BU channel 58 (licensed to Hallandale with a transmitter located in Pembroke Park). W58BU is necessary because of WTVJ's transmitter location in Redland which is 20 miles (32 kilometers) southwest of Miami. This location is farther south than other Miami television stations. As a result, Fort Lauderdale and the rest of Broward County receives a weak signal. At one point, WTVJ had operated a third translator, W52BB channel 52, in Big Pine Key. However, there are no FCC records of this station. HistoryWTVJ went on the air at Noon on March 21, 1949. It was Florida's first television station 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 studios were located in the former Capitol Theater in Downtown Miami, which was Wometco's first theater when the company was founded in 1926. The station carried programming from all four major networks but was a primary CBS affiliate. WTVJ was the only commercial station in Miami until December 24, 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. (By this time, WFTL had been purchased by Storer Broadcasting and changed its call letters to WGBS-TV. Storer owned the station as an independent until it went dark sometime in 1956.) 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 CW affiliate) signed on in 1966. WTVJ served as the producing station for CBS's Jackie Gleason Show after the comedian moved the program from New York City to Miami Beach in 1964. 
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 nearly 36 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 Bernie Rosen and Bob Weaver. One of the nation's first ever television news meteorologists, Weaver reported weather for the station for more than 5 decades. Rosen, who went on to run the station's award winning sports department for more than three decades, is the only remaining original employee still working at the station. He is now in his 59th consecutive year at WTVJ. On February 6th, 2008 Rosen was presented with the prestigeous Golden Circle Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The Academy honored Rosen for his more than 50 years of service to the South Florida television community. Many of South Florida's veteran television personalities have received the 'Silver Circle' Award, honoring them for 25 years in the business. But the 'Golden Circle' Award has been given only once before in South Florida. In 2004 it went to the late Bob Weaver, also a lifelong WTVJ employee. Wometco founder and president Mitchell Wolfson died in 1983 and a long-rumored secret plan to run the company after his death was never found. Remaining Wolfson heirs had no desire to keep the company in the family, and it quickly unraveled, making it a ripe takeover target. Investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. took over Wometco in 1984 in a deal worth one billion dollars, the largest corporate buyout ever to that date. In 1985, the FCC 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 owned and operated television station 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 (now WFOR-TV), South Florida's Fox affiliate owned by Taft Broadcasting of Cincinnati. Such a deal would have made WTVJ the area's 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, Telepictures 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 television station, WPGH-TV in Pittsburgh, to Renaissance Broadcasting. Image:WTVJ WSCV 004.jpg
WTVJ's newsroom.
Over the next few months, the only offers for WTVJ came from companies that owned large groups 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 was not 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 weekdays from 10 AM to Noon, as well as an occasional primetime 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 owned and operated television station. NBC assumed control of WTVJ in mid-September of 1987. However, both WTVJ's and WSVN's existing affiliation contracts lasted until December 31, 1988. As a result, NBC faced the prospect of having to run WTVJ as a CBS affiliate for over a year. This did not 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, the MLB 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 strip nearly all CBS branding from the station, and began pre-empting some low rated CBS shows on WTVJ. 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's transmitter was located near Homestead, 20 miles southwest of Downtown Miami. This gave Fort Lauderdale only a Grade B signal which was weaker than all of the other television stations in the 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 was purchasing WCIX from the TVX Broadcast Group, who had purchased the station in 1987 as Taft was restructuring to become Great American Broadcasting. Image:WTVJ WSCV 032.jpg
WTVJ's news set behind the cameras.
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 South Florida, and most of WCIX's syndicated programming went to WDZL (channel 39, now WSFL-TV). In 1992, when Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida, WTVJ was the only station to give complete coverage of the story non-stop with meteorologist Bryan Norcross. 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 CBS 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 owned and operated television station in that same market, WCAU-TV. This led to a deal in 1995 between CBS and NBC, where CBS sold the channel 6 facility to NBC as compensation for the loss of KYW and Westinghouse's other NBC affiliate, WBZ-TV in Boston. In return, CBS received the stronger channel 4 facility and cash as compensation for the loss of WCAU. (KCNC Denver and KUTV Salt Lake City were also spun to CBS in this deal, causing NBC to find new homes in both markets on KUSA-TV and KSL-TV respectively.) 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 transmitting facilities. This was the result of the two stations being required to swap licenses in addition to the transmitting facilities. Most, if not all, of WTVJ's archive (as well as other Florida television stations) are stored at the Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archive in downtown Miami. News operationImage:Wtvj open.png
WTVJ's 11 o'clock news open.
WTVJ and the Sun-Sentinel produce a nightly 10 o'clock newscast on CW affiliate WSFL-TV. It is a similar operation to WCAU (NBC) and WPHL-TV (MyNetworkTV) in Philadelphia as well as KNSD (NBC) and KSWB (The CW) in San Diego. On September 10, 2007, in hopes of catching a new audience, WTVJ launched the market's first weeknight 7 o'clock news. Except for WSFL's 10 o'clock news, all of WTVJ's local newscasts can be watched via live streaming video on its website. Unlike most NBC affiliates, WTVJ does not air news at Noon during the week. Instead, it airs a 11 o'clock edition of its morning newscast. There is, however, a webcast at Noon that features the top stories of the day and a updated weather forecast. During weather segments, WTVJ uses two weather radar systems, "Weather Plus TITAN Radar" and "Weather Plus VIPIR" (they are also used on WSFL). WTVJ offers NBC Weather Plus on its second digital subchannel and Comcast digital cable channel 250. On March 5, 2008, WTVJ began broadcasting their local news in high definition. The station is currently the only English language television station in the Miami / Ft. Lauderdale television market to have made the upgrade. It is unknown if the WSFL newscasts are produced in high definition. Newscast titles
News teamImage:Wtvj anchors 2008.png
WTVJ's weeknight 6 o'clock anchors.
Anchors
NBC 6 Weather Plus Meteorologists
Sports
Reporters
Station alumni
External links
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