WFTS-TV

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WFTS-TV ("ABC Action News") is the ABC affiliate for the Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida market, owned by the E.W. Scripps Company. It broadcasts its analog signal on UHF channel 28, and its digital signal on UHF channel 29. Its transmitter is located in Riverview, Florida.

History

WFTS-TV first went on the air on December 14, 1981 as an independent station. Being a flagship of the locally-based Family Group Broadcasting, the station programmed a family-oriented general entertainment format with cartoons, off-network dramas, old movies, and religious shows. An era of local ownership ended on April 22, 1984, when it was acquired by Capital Cities Communications. It was Capital Cities' first station in Florida, the group's first -- and only -- independent station, and was also the last station acquired by the group prior to its merger with ABC.

Under Capital Cities, the station added more off-network sitcoms and reduced the amount of religious shows and dramas on its schedule. In 1986, Capital Cities stunned the world with its purchase of ABC -- the network was 10 times bigger than CapCities was at the time. CapCities owned several ABC affiliates, and 2 CBS affiliates: KFSN-TV in Fresno, California and WTVD in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. The company's combined assets exceeded FCC ownership limits at the time, so CapCities decided to keep its CBS affiliates and change their affiliations to ABC, along with WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and KTRK-TV in Houston, Texas, and sold WFTS and ABC's O&O in Detroit, Michigan, WXYZ-TV, to the E. W. Scripps Company, while selling several other stations to minority-owned firms.

Scripps continued the format on WFTS, running cartoons, sitcoms, movies, and dramas. A 10pm newscast was planned for the station, but did not come to fruition. WFTS picked up the Fox affiliation in 1988 after WTOG dropped it, and the station began to identify on air as "FOX28".

On May 22, 1994, New World Communications came to an agreement with Fox, and most of New World's stations, including WTVT, Tampa Bay's longtime CBS affiliate, were to affiliate with Fox. CBS would also lose longtime affiliates in Detroit and Cleveland, Ohio, and as a result, wooed WXYZ and Cleveland's ABC affiliate that was also owned by Scripps, WEWS-TV (which incidentally was a CBS affiliate in the past), for affiliation. Scripps informed ABC that in order not to lose 2 of its longest standing and strongest affiliates, that ABC would have to affiliate with 4 other stations owned by Scripps: WFTS, KNXV-TV in Phoenix, Arizona (which was also due to lose its Fox affiliation to a New World station), WMAR-TV in Baltimore, Maryland and WCPO-TV in Cincinnati, Ohio -- the latter had to wait until the expiration of ABC's affiliation agreement with WKRC-TV in June 1996 to switch.

As a result, in 1994, WFTS assumed the ABC affiliation from longtime affiliate WTSP, which became the new CBS affiliate, sent the Fox affiliation to WTVT, and sent most of its syndicated programming to WTTA, which would also air Fox Kids.

The station is not available on cable in southern Sarasota County due to the presence of WWSB, an ABC station formed after WTSP's coverage of the Sarasota area was insufficient when WTSP was an ABC affiliate.

Tampa-St. Petersburg is the largest market with an ABC affiliate on the UHF dial, and the third largest market with a major network on the UHF dial, while the larger markets with a major network on the UHF dial are Atlanta, Georgia (WGCL-TV, channel 46) and Detroit, Michigan (WWJ-TV, channel 62). Both are CBS affiliates.

Controversy

On January 7, 2006, outside the Tampa Bay Buccaneers playoff game against the Washington Redskins, WFTS handed out free "Go Bucs" t-shirts, which the National Football League said violated trademark rights. WFTS ignored a cease-and-desist letter by the NFL on the same day. The Buccaneers, after getting the green light from the NFL, refused to allow WFTS to attend a press conference held by coach Jon Gruden, said Bucs spokesman Jeff Kamis. Complicating matters even further, WFLA and The Tampa Tribune have an exclusive coverage partnership with the team. WFTS-TV's studios are outside Raymond James Stadium, the Buccaneers stadium. [link]

Newscasts

During its days as an independent station and Fox affiliate, WFTS presented hourly newsbreaks and weatherbreaks, featuring a person reading the day's headlines or the current forecast. During the station's first few months on the air, the newsbreaks were provided by WNSI-AM 1380 (now WWMI) in audio only, over a slide that said News Check. Later on, News Checks began to feature newsreaders on camera at WFTS's studios. By the late-1980s, the newsbreaks became 28 Newsbreak or 28 Weatherbreak. These newsbreaks were discontinued in December 1994 after the station became an ABC affiliate and launched a full-scale news operation.

WFTS began airing full-scale newscasts in 1994, under the "28 Tampa Bay News" handle. The newscasts initially originated from Telemation studios in Clearwater, since WFTS's studios on Tampa's east side (at the corner of I-4 and Columbus Drive) didn't have enough room for a full-sized newsroom or set. The station's news operation then moved to its new studios on Himes Avenue across from Raymond James Stadium in 1996. The station gradually added newscasts at 5-7am, 12noon-12:30pm, 5-6:30pm, and 11-11:35pm. Given the fact that many former Fox stations have switched to ABC, NBC or CBS at the time, WFTS did not falter with many stations of such that launched newscasts with no success at competing with long-standing (mostly VHF) news stations (some stations cancelled their newscasts as a result), but rather it competes somewhat well with long standing stations WTVT, WFLA and WTSP, though it continually places fourth.

The newscast title was changed to "28 News" briefly in 2002, before being changed again to "ABC Action News" later that year. The "Action News" all day branding is also shared with sister station KSHB-TV in Kansas City, which is an NBC affiliate. It should be noted that WFTS' former sister station under CapCities, WPVI-TV, was the station that popularized the "Action News" name and format.

In fall 2005, the station extended its midday newscast to a full hour, from 12noon-1pm, following the cancellation of ABC's soap Port Charles.

Newscast Lineup

Weekdays only

• ABC Action News at 5 AM - 5 AM-6 AM
• ABC Action News at 6 AM - 6 AM-7 AM
• ABC Action News at Noon - Noon-1 PM
• ABC Action News at Five - 5 PM-6 PM

All Week Long

• ABC Action News at Six - 6 PM-6:30 PM
• ABC Action News at Eleven - 11 PM-11:35 PM

Sundays

• Sports Zone - 11:35 PM-12:05 AM

Ownership

• 1981: founded by Ian Wheeler
• 1984: sold to Capital Cities/ABC
• 1986: sold to The E.W. Scripps Company

Slogans

• "Catch Familyvision on Channel 28" (1981-1982)
• "Tampa Bay's Independent" (1987-1988)
• "Your Fox Television Station" (early-1990s). Coincidentally, this term was trademarked by the actual Fox Television Stations Group which never owned WFTS in the first place (though they now own WTVT).
• "Working Hard To Be Your Favorite" (1994-1995)
• "You Need to Know" (2002)
• "Taking Action for You" (2002-present)

Logos

Image:Wfts1996.jpg|ABC28 logo, used from December 1994 until 2002. The "28" portion dates back to 1990, when it was known as "Fox 28" (the colors, however, were gold on blue). Image:WFTSactionnews.PNG|Present logo used from 2002-present

Key personalities

• Walt Maciborski, 5pm anchor
• Linda Hurtado, 5pm anchor
• Al Keck, sports director (since 2001)
• Brendan McLaughlin, 6pm and 11pm anchor
• Denis Phillips, chief meteorologist
• Wendy Ryan, 6pm and 11pm anchor
• Deiah Riley, morning anchor
• Dan Shaffer, morning anchor
• Wayne Shattuck, morning meteorologist
• Matthew Schwartz, action news investigator

Trivia

The first incarnation of channel 28 was to have been WTSS-TV, an affiliate of the DuMont Television Network in the 1950s. [link] It is very likely that that station never made it to air.

External links

• [Official site]
• [Query the FCC's TV station database for WFTS-TV]
• [mcsittel.com: 1990s DX screengrabs from Tallahassee -- includes WFTS "Fox 28" screengrabs from 1992 and 1993]

Broadcast television in the Tampa / St. Petersburg / Sarasota market  [(Nielsen DMA #12)]
WEDU 3 (PBS) - WFLA 8 (NBC) - WTSP 10 (CBS) - WINK 11 (CBS) - WTVT 13 (Fox) - WLWA-LP 14 (TBN)  - WPDS-LP 14 (Edu.) - W15CM 15 (AS) - WUSF 16 (PBS)  WHRT-CA 17 (Ind) - WSVT-LP 18 (DS) - WARP-CA 20 (MTV2) - WCLF 22 (CTN) - WXAX-LP 26 (AZA) - WFTS 28 (ABC) - WTAM-LP 30 (TV Informa) - WMOR 32 (Ind)  W33CC 33 (Ind) - W34AW 34 (3ABN) - WSPF-CA 35 (St. Pete city access) - W36CO 36 (TBN) - WTTA 38 (The WB/MNTV) - WWSB 40 (ABC) - W43CE 43 (Ind)  WTOG 44 (UPN/The CW) - WYKE-LP 47 (FN) - W48CN 48 (TBN) - WZRA-CA 48 (Ethnic/A1/NTV/CTV) - WRMD-LP 49 (TEL) - WFTT 50 (TFU) - W56EB 56 (TBN)  W60CE 60 (TBN) - WVEA 62 (UNI) - WXPX 66 (i)
Local cable television channels
Bay News 9  -  SNN 6  -  Catch 47  -  FSN Florida  -  Sun Sports

 

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