WFLX
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| WFLX | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| West Palm Beach, Florida | |
| Branding | FOX 29 |
| Slogan | Something for Everyone |
| Channels | |
| Subchannels | 29.1 FOX HD 29.2 WFLX-DT 2 |
| Owner | Raycom Media (WFLX License Subsidiary, LLC) |
| First air date | 1982 |
| Call letters’ meaning | FLorida FoX |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 29 (UHF, 1982-2009) |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1982-1986) The Tube (on DT2) |
| Transmitter Power | 630 kW (digital) |
| Height | 458 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 39736 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | 26°34′37″N 80°14′32″W / 26.57694°N 80.24222°W |
| Website | wflx.com |
WFLX is the FOX-affiliated television station for West Palm Beach, Florida. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 28 from a transmitter south of Wellington. Owned by Raycom Media, the station has studios on West Blue Heron Boulevard in Riviera Beach. Syndicated programming on WFLX includes: Family Guy, Everybody Loves Raymond, Matlock, The Simpsons, and Seinfeld.
Contents |
[edit] History
WFLX began operation in 1982 as the West Palm Beach market's first independent station. It was owned by Malrite Communications and ran a lineup typical of independent stations at the time. This included early morning cartoons, late morning religious programming, movies in early afternoons / primetime, classic sitcoms in the late afternoon, and current sitcoms during early / late evenings. Unlike most independents, the amount of children's programming seen on WFLX during this time was low compared to similar stations in other markets (a trend owing to the older demographics of the West Palm Beach market). On October 9, 1986, WFLX became one of the launch affiliates of FOX and retained this affiliation through the network swap in January 1989. This involved WPEC, WTVX, and then-startup WPBF. As the 1990s approached, WFLX picked up FOX Kids programming in afternoons and phased out older sitcoms for talk and reality shows. After the 1993 / 1994 season, WFLX was recognized as the "FOX Affiliate of the Year".
In September 1998, Malrite merged with current owner Raycom Media. Shortly after the merge, ratings came out affirming that WFLX was one of FOX's highest affiliates in terms of network ratings and has even shown ratings numbers in the Miami / Fort Lauderdale market. In April 2002, WFLX was the first station in the West Palm Beach market to broadcast in high definition. Raycom itself would merge with The Liberty Corporation in mid-2006. Until its shutdown on October 1, 2007, WFLX offered The Tube (a 24-hour digital music video channel) on its second digital subchannel. It was also offered on Comcast digital cable channel 220. Today, WFLX-DT2 is not officially occupied but shows a simple station identification and the current time of day. After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which took place on June 12, 2009 at Noon, WFLX's broadcasts continue to be on its current pre-transition channel number, 28. However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display their virtual channel as 29.
[edit] News operation
After FOX requested most of its affiliates air local news in 1990, WFLX entered in a news share agreement with CBS affiliate WPEC. On September 11, 1991, that station started producing a nightly 10 o'clock newscast on WFLX known as the FOX 29 10 O'Clock News. Originally 30 minutes long, it soon expanded to a full hour. In 2000, a hour-long weekday morning newscast at 7 began to air known as the FOX 29 Morning News (which on September 6, 2006) expanded to two hours. All news programs originate from a secondary set at WPEC's studios on Fairfield Drive in Mangonia Park. WFLX and WPEC maintain separate news sets and on-air identities but share a weather set and news personnel. As with FOX programming, the newscasts have also rated in the Miami / Fort Lauderdale market (a trend some have attributed to backlash to that market's FOX affiliate, WSVN). As a result, Adelphia (now Comcast) pulled WSVN off of its cable lineup in 2005. On January 31, 2008, WPEC, and WFLX became the second, and third stations in South Florida to broadcast local news in high definition behind NBC affiliate WPTV. The WFLX broadcasts were included in the upgrade. On both stations, the launch included new sets, graphics, logos, and music packages. WFLX had been the only station in the West Palm Beach market to air a 10 P.M. newscast until August 4, 2008 when CW affiliate WTVX began airing one at that time. This changed on March 2, 2009 when the station moved the newscast to 6:30 to air against the national news programs that air on the big three stations.
[edit] News team
Anchors
- Ric Blackwell - weekday mornings 7am-9am
- Claudia Shea - weekday mornings 7am-9am
- Eric Roby - weeknights 10pm-11pm and investigative reporter
- Suzanne Boyd - weeknights 10pm-11pm and investigative reporter
- John Bachman - weekends 10pm-11pm and reporter during the week
- Althea Paul - Saturdays 10pm-11pm and reporter during the week
- Tara Cardoso - Sundays 10pm-11pm and reporter during the week
FOX 29 StormTrac Meteorologists
- John Matthews (Certified Broadcast Meteorologist and NWA Seal of Approval) - Chief seen weeknights 10pm-11pm
- Chris Farrell (AMS Seal of Approval) - weekday mornings 7am-9am
- Michael Ehrenberg (Certified Broadcast Meteorologist) - weekends 10pm-11pm and fill-in
Sports
- Pat Murphy - Director seen weeknights
- Josh Samuels - weekends and reporter
Reporters
- Rachel Leigh - web journalist
- Marci Ross - weekday morning traffic
- Allison Bybee - Treasure Coast Bureau
- Juan Carlos Fanjul
- Emily Pantelides
- Lindsay Cohen
- Ben Becker
- Kara Kostanich
- Al Pefley
- Chuck Weber
- Alex Zequeira
- Kelly Downey
[edit] External links
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
