WTVJ is the NBC owned-and-operated television station for South Florida that is licensed to Miami. Its digital transmitter is located near LandShark 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 currently share studios at Peacock Plaza in Miramar. Syndicated programming on WTVJ includes: Access Hollywood , Extra and Ellen .
Formerly the audio signal of analog channel 6 was located at 87.75 MHz, and the audio signal could be heard on 87.7 MHz on the FM dial in most parts of South Florida. This frequency assignment applies to all channel 6 television stations in countries using the NTSC-M standard. During the year, WTVJ promoted the use of 87.7 MHz for those listening in their automobiles, and during hurricanes as an emergency conduit of information for viewers unable to view on a television. With the June 12, 2009 digital transition the analog signal is no longer available, and it is likely that WTVJ will instead air their newscast audio over a traditional radio station in emergency situations.
Repeaters
In addition to its main signals, WTVJ is also carried on two repeaters.
Prior to the analog shutdown and digital conversion, W58BU was necessary because of WTVJ's former analog transmitter location in Redland, which is 20 miles (32 kilometers) southwest of Downtown Miami. This location is farther south than other Miami television stations. As a result, Fort Lauderdale and the rest of Broward County received a Grade B signal from the analog tower. WTVJ shut off the analog transmitter for the last time on June 26, 2009, though both translators are still operational from their existing towers. With WTVJ's digital transmitter now located in the same area as other major Miami television stations, W58BU is still necessary because WTVJ's digital signal, although it reaches further into the Fort Lauderdale area with a "city-grade" signal, still does not cover the entire city. W58BU has applied to move its signal from channel 58 to channel 51 due to the auctioning of the UHF frequencies above channel 51.
At one point, WTVJ was carried by a third translator, W52BB channel 52, in Big Pine Key. However, there are no longer any FCC records of this station.
History
Florida's First Television Station
WTVJ 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 of that era (ABC, NBC, CBS, and DuMont), but was a primary CBS affiliate. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.
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 until 1964. 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 in honor of George B. Storer, the company's president. Storer owned the station as an independent until it went dark sometime in 1956. The frequency which was used by WFTL-TV/WGBS-TV is now occupied by WLTV, whose only common tie to the earlier station is the fact that it was launched by the same company that took the earlier station off the air years before.) 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.
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, and is currently in his 60th consecutive year at WTVJ. On February 6, 2008 Rosen was presented with the prestigious 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. While many of South Florida's veteran television personalities have received the Silver Circle Award for marking 25 years in the business, the Golden Circle Award has been given only once before in South Florida, in 2004 when it went to Bob Weaver, also a lifelong WTVJ employee.
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.
Acquisition by KKR
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 stations with no more than five on VHF 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, 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.
Joining the Peacock
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 VHF station affiliated with another network.
CBS did not believe that KKR would 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 a.m. to noon, as well as an occasional primetime show. NBC was far less tolerant of preemptions than CBS and ABC at the time, and was particularly annoyed at losing valuable advertising in such a fast-growing market. This wasn't a problem at first since NBC was able to find alternate stations in the area to carry any programs that WSVN didn't air, plus, any programs pre-empted by WSVN aired on NBC's affiliate in West Palm Beach, WPTV, and WPTV's signal covered most of the Miami area, and was available on every cable system in the area. However, by 1985, WPTV had disappeared from most Miami cable systems to make way for new cable channels, resulting in some NBC programming preempted by WSVN being unavailable to some viewers. NBC realized that buying its own station with less restrictive ownership l
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