WTVJ
Encyclopedia : W : WT : WTV : WTVJ
WTVJ is an NBC-owned-and-operated station licensed to Miami, Florida, owned by the NBC Universal media conglomerate. 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. The third translator, W58BU, is in Hallandale (Broward County), which gives the Fort Lauderdale area the best possible signal. The third repeater is necessary because of WTVJ's transmitter location, which is 20 miles south of Miami, making the signal hard to reach in 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. Other examples of this include WDSU, WLNE-TV, WSYX and WRGB.
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. Originallly broadcasting on channel 4, WTVJ was affiliated with the CBS television network, and was owned by Wometco Enterprises. WTVJ broadcasted out of a studio at the former Capitol Theater in downtown Miami.WTVJ was the only commercial station in Miami until 1956. Originally, the FCC was considering making Miami and West Palm Beach a single television market. However, there was probably some question about whether they could be considered a single market, because a Miami station's signal would be hard to reach in West Palm Beach, and vice versa. Nonetheless, WTVJ would double as the CBS affiliate for West Palm Beach for another 10 years until WTVX channel 34, now a UPN affiliate, signed on in 1966. Meanwhile, it carried secondary affiliations with NBC until 1956 (when WCKT, now WSVN, signed on) and with ABC until 1957 (when WPST, now WPLG, signed on).
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."
Longtime Wometco president Charles Wolfson died in 1984, but the company probably did not have any successors to choose from. As such, the company was ripe for takeover, and so, investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., who also took over Storer Broadcasting, would take over Wometco as well. At the same time, 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 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 the Wometco stations to separate owners. It had plans to sell WTVJ for a record price of close to half a billion dollars. CBS saw a chance to get an O&O in the fast-growing Miami market. However, they ended up losing a bidding war to television syndication firm Telepictures (now part of Warner Bros. Television). CBS then stated it intended to purchase WCIX, a Fox affiliate owned by the Taft Broadcasting Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. Such a deal would have made WTVJ a general entertainment station, while taking the Fox affiliation. Never before had a major network bought a station affiliated with another network, especially affiliated with one that had just launched (Fox began in October 1986). With the prospect of losing the CBS affiliation and having to buy syndicated programming to fill an additional 15 hours a day, Telepictures walked away from the deal later in 1986, and sold off its only other TV station, WPGH-TV in Pittsburgh, to Renaissance Broadcasting.
KKR, without a buyer, really wanted to sell WTVJ and make the money. However, the station was actually worth roughly half the asking price that Telepictures almost paid. The only offers 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 have WTVJ as an independent station -- or a Fox affiliate -- and planned to pay a much lower price than KKR asked for. 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. CBS did not believe that KKR would not sell to another network, so they returned with a very low offer. KKR then approached the other networks. ABC wasn't interested, seeing as they were satisfied with their existing affiliate, WPLG, owned by Post-Newsweek. However, NBC was interested because its longtime affiliate, WSVN, pre-empted whatever shows NBC had on at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., or noon, as well as an occasional prime time show, this annoyed NBC because Miami was one of the fastest growing markets, as well as the fact that NBC did not tolerate any pre-emptions of network programming on any of their affiliates. NBC realized that by buying its own station with less restrictive ownership laws, they would get all of its shows aired. 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.
However, WTVJ was bound to keep its CBS affiliation until December 31, 1988, because its contract with CBS did not run out until then. WSVN's deal with NBC would also expire at that same time. NBC and CBS both approached WSVN's owner, Ed Ansin, about ending the deal 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. However, CBS wanted to switch immediately, because the network was very uncomfortable with NBC owning one of its affiliates. NBC was also very unhappy about having to run CBS programming on a station owned by NBC itself, seeing as CBS was their rival, as was ABC. 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 moved ahead on its deal with WCIX, despite the fact that their transmitter was located 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 they could continue to get a clear signal in Broward County. In the spring of 1988, just before Ansin could sign a deal to affiliate WSVN with CBS starting in January 1989, 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 relationship with CBS, becoming an NBC owned and operated station, Florida's first and only such station. CBS moved the rest of its programming over to WCIX, while WSVN became the new Fox affiliate for Miami-Fort Lauderdale, and most of the syndicated programming on WCIX went to WDZL channel 39, now WBZL.
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 three Westinghouse-owned stations would become CBS affiliates -- two other stations had already been CBS affiliates. Because one of the stations, NBC-affiliated KYW-TV, was located in Philadelphia, CBS would have to sell off its longtime O&O, WCAU, in that same market. 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 two Westinghouse-owned NBC stations, KYW and WBZ-TV in Boston, Massachusetts. 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 would change its call letters to WFOR-TV. Even thought 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 also produces a 10 p.m. newscast for WBZL, the local WB station, along with the Sun-Sentinel.
The station's radar is called "Weather Plus Vipir".
Newscasts
- Today in South Florida 5:00-7:00 a.m. (Co-anchors: Bob Mayer and Pam Giganti)
- South Florida Today 10:00-11:00 a.m. (Co-anchors: Bob Mayer, Lonnie Quinn, Trina Robinson and Kelly Craig)
- NewsNet at Noon 12:00 p.m.-12:30 p.m. (Anchor: Bob Mayer)
- NBC 6 News at 5PM 5:00-6:00 p.m. (Co-anchors: Jackie Nespral and Julia Yarbough)
- NBC 6 News at 6PM. 6:00-6:30 p.m. (Weekday co-anchors: Tony Segreto and Jackie Nespral, Weekends: Joel Connable)
- WB39 News at 10PM 10:00-10:30 p.m. on WBZL (Weekday co-anchors: Julia Yarbough and Martha Sugalski, Weekends: Joel Connable)
- NBC 6 News at 11PM 11:00-11:35 p.m. (Weekday co-anchors: Jackie Nespral and Michael Williams, Weekend anchor: Joel Connable)
- Today in South Florida Saturday 6:00-7:00 a.m. & 9:00-10:00 a.m. (Anchor: Kelly Craig)
- Today in South Florida Sunday 9:00-10:00 a.m. (Anchor: Kelly Craig)
- Sports Final 11:30 p.m.-12Midnight (Co-Anchors: Joe Rose, Guy Rawlings and Adam Kuperstein)
External links
- [NBC6 Homepage]
- [WTVJ history]
- [Query the FCC's TV station database for WTVJ]
- [Query the FCC's TV station database for W44AC]
- [Query the FCC's TV station database for W52BB]
- [Query the FCC's TV station database for W58BU]
| Broadcast television in the South Florida (Miami / Fort Lauderdale) market [(Nielsen DMA #17)]''' | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| WPBT 2 (PBS) - WFOR 4 (CBS) - WTVJ 6 (NBC) - WSVN 7 (Fox) - WGEN 8 / WSBS 22 (Ind) - WPLG 10 (ABC) - WLMF-LP 13 (Ind/Edu.) - WLRN 17 (PBS) - WLTV 23 (UNI) - WIMP-CA 25 (HSN) - WBFS 33 (UPN/MNTV) - WPXM 35 (i) - WPMF-LP 38 (Ind) - WBZL 39 (The WB/The CW) - WJAN-CA 41 (Ind) - WHFT 45 (TBN) - WFUN-LP 48 (HSN) - WSCV 51 (TEL) - WEYS-LP 56 (ALMA) - WPPB 63 (EDU) - WAMI 69 (TFU) | |||
| Local digital television channels | |||
| WHDT-LP 44 (Ind) | |||
| '''NBC Network Affiliates in the state of Florida | |
|---|---|
| WESH 2 ([[Template:Orlando TV|Daytona Beach-Orlando]]) - WPTV 5 ([[Template:WPB TV|West Palm Beach]]) - WTVJ 6 ([[Template:Miami TV|Miami]]) - WJHG 7 ([[Template:Panama City TV|Panama City]]) - WFLA 8 ([[Template:Tampa Bay TV|Tampa]]) - WTLV 12 ([[Template:Jacksonville TV|Jacksonville]]) - WBBH 20 ([[Template:Ft. Myers TV|Fort Myers]]) - WTWC 40 ([[Template:Tallahassee TV|Tallahassee]]) | |
| See also: [[Template:ABC Florida|ABC]], [[Template:CBS Florida|CBS]], [[Template:Fox Florida|Fox]], [[Template:PBS Florida|PBS]], [[Template:UPN Florida|UPN]], [[Template:WB Florida|WB]], [[Template:Florida Religous Stations|Religious]], [[Template:Florida Spanish Stations|Spanish]] and [[Template:Other Florida Stations|Other]] stations in the state of Florida | |
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