WFOR-TV

This article is about CBS 4 in Miami. For other uses, see CBS 4. For the station in Springfield, Illinois that currently uses the former callsign of this station, see WCIX.

WFOR-TV

WFOR "CBS 4" logo, used from August 9, 2010.
Miami–Fort Lauderdale, Florida United States
City	Miami, Florida
Channels	Digital: 22 (UHF) Virtual: 4
Branding	CBS 4 (general) CBS 4 News (newscasts)
Programming
Affiliations	4.1: CBS (O&O) 4.2: Start TV 4.3: Dabl 4.4: Fave TV
Ownership
Owner	CBS Television Stations Inc. (a subsidiary of ViacomCBS)
Sister stations	WBFS-TV
History
First air date	March 21, 1949 (1949-03-21)
Former call signs	WTVJ (1949–1995) WCIX (9/12/1995)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 6 (VHF, 1949–1995) 4 (VHF, 1995–2009)
Former affiliations	Primary: CBS (1949–1989) NBC (1989–1995) Secondary: ABC (1949–1957) DuMont (1949–1956) DT2: NBC WX (2004–2008)
Call sign meaning	Channel 4
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	47902
ERP	1,000 kW
HAAT	296.9 m (974 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	25°58′8″N 80°13′19″W
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	miami.cbslocal.com

WFOR-TV, virtual channel 4 (UHF digital channel 22), is a CBS owned-and-operated television station licensed to Miami, Florida, United States and also serving Fort Lauderdale. Owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of ViacomCBS, it is part of a duopoly with MyNetworkTV affiliate WBFS-TV (channel 33). Both stations share studios on Northwest 18th Terrace in Doral, while WFOR-TV's transmitter is located in Andover, Florida.

History

Florida's first television station

Archived WTVJ news tape as seen from the Florida Moving Image Archive. The logo shown was adopted shortly before the switch to NBC in 1989 (before the station officially switched to NBC, the "4" was used by itself).

The station first signed on the air on March 21, 1949, at 12:00 p.m. WTVJ was the first television station to sign on in the state of Florida, and the 16th station in the United States. Originally broadcasting on VHF channel 4, the station was founded by Wometco Enterprises (founded by Mitchell Wolfson and Sidney Meyer), a national movie theater chain that was headquartered in Miami. The station's original studio facilities were located in the former Capitol Theater on North Miami Avenue in Downtown Miami, which was the first theater operated by Wometco when the company was founded in 1926. The station was a primary CBS affiliate, but also carried programming from the other three major broadcast networks of that era (ABC, NBC and DuMont). During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.

WTVJ was the only commercial television station in the Miami market until Fort Lauderdale-based WFTL-TV (channel 23) signed on the air on December 24, 1954, operating as an NBC affiliate. However, WFTL had no success whatsoever in competing against WTVJ, in part because television sets were not required to have UHF tuning capability until the All-Channel Receiver Act went into effect in 1964. NBC continued to allow WTVJ to cherry-pick programs broadcast by the network until WCKT (channel 7, now Fox affiliate WSVN) signed on in July 1956 and WFTL went dark (that station's former channel 23 allocation is now occupied by Univision owned-and-operated station WLTV-DT). Channel 4 shared ABC programming with WCKT, by way of an arrangement with the network to allow both stations to cherry-pick programming. Although ABC had a full-time affiliate in WITV (channel 17), due to the aforementioned lack of UHF penetration at that time, this arrangement continued until WPST-TV (channel 10, now WPLG) signed on in August 1957. WTVJ also served as the de facto CBS affiliate for West Palm Beach, until WTVX (channel 34, now a CW affiliate) signed on in 1966.

WTVJ served as the producing station for CBS' Jackie Gleason Show after Gleason 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. The 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 $1 billion deal, the largest corporate buyout in history to that date. KKR sold most of Wometco's entertainment assets to the latter company's chief operating officer Arthur Hertz in 1985. With the cash from this sale, KKR then purchased Storer Broadcasting's station properties, shortly after the Federal Communications Commission raised the television station ownership limit from seven stations (with no more than five located on the VHF band) to twelve. KKR's intent was to sell the properties within a few years at a higher price.

In 1986, KKR opted to put WTVJ and the Storer stations on the market. The firm had plans to sell channel 4 for a record price of close to $500 million (as part of a $1.85 billion group deal with six of the Storer stations), although the station was actually worth far less. CBS saw a chance to acquire an owned-and-operated station in the fast-growing Miami market. However, it lost a bidding war to television syndication company Lorimar-Telepictures. CBS, however, tried to block the deal; Lorimar produced Dallas, Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, and other shows for the network and did not want them controlling the clearance rights of those particular programs. Thus, CBS threatened to yank its affiliation with WTVJ if the Lorimar deal went through, which would force the station to become an independent. Lorimar then walked away from the group deal in May 1986. CBS then made an offer to buy WTVJ for $170 million, which was far below KKR's asking price of at least $270 million.

WTVJ's former newsroom.

Acquisition by NBC

Over the next few months, the only offers to buy 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 convert WTVJ into 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 some potential buyers had no interest in keeping CBS while the only ones that could purchase the station for the asking price were ABC and NBC.

CBS did not believe that KKR would sell WTVJ to another network, so it returned with a very low offer. KKR turned CBS's 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, heavily preempted the network's daytime lineup—including programs that the network aired in the noon timeslot, in favor of running a local newscast—as well as an occasional prime time 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 had not been a problem at first since most of the programs that were preempted by WSVN aired on West Palm Beach-based WPTV, which provided at least grade B signal coverage to nearly the entire Miami-Fort Lauderdale market, and had been available on cable in the area for decades. In the few cases where WPTV and WSVN both turned down an NBC program, the network usually arranged for other stations in the area to carry its programming. However, by 1985, WPTV had been dropped from most Miami cable systems to make way for new cable channels (partly due to limited headend channel capacity), resulting in some NBC programs that were preempted by WSVN being unavailable to some viewers. NBC realized that purchasing its own station with less restrictive ownership laws would guarantee that its entire network schedule would be cleared. 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 for $270 million.

NBC assumed control of WTVJ in mid-September 1987. However, both WTVJ's and WSVN's respective affiliation contracts with CBS and NBC did not expire 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 either NBC or CBS, and both approached WSVN's parent Sunbeam Television about ending the station's NBC affiliation contract early. However, Sunbeam balked; its owner, Edmund Ansin, did not want to lose NBC's strong lineup of sports programming that year, including the Major League Baseball World Series and the Summer Olympics. Sunbeam also made an unsuccessful play to take the CBS affiliation. NBC did strip nearly all CBS branding from channel 4 and began airing nearly all NBC programs that were preempted by channel 7. In turn, this resulted in WTVJ preempting some CBS programs, with the affected shows airing instead on WCIX. CBS then formally approached channel 6, 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 (32 km) southwest of downtown Miami, giving Fort Lauderdale only a weaker, "Grade B" signal. Accordingly, West Palm Beach's longtime ABC affiliate, WPEC, was persuaded by CBS to switch to the network in order to ensure full coverage in Fort Lauderdale and northern Broward County. In August 1988, CBS announced that it would purchase WCIX from the TVX Broadcast Group, which itself had purchased the station from Taft in 1987.

WTVJ ended its 40-year affiliation with CBS on January 1, 1989, and became the third station in Miami to have carried programming from NBC. CBS moved the rest of its programs over to WCIX, while WSVN became the new Fox affiliate for South Florida; most of WCIX's syndicated programs, such as most of its cartoons and sitcoms—with exceptions such as I Love Lucy, Family Ties, Star Trek: The Next Generation and a few others—went to WDZL (channel 39, now CW affiliate WSFL-TV). In a bit of irony, WTVJ also continued to preempt NBC's noon offerings in favor of carrying a local newscast. That timeslot would be given back to the network's affiliates in 1991. Shortly after the switch, the station debuted an image campaign based on the Bobby McFerrin song "Don't Worry, Be Happy", that lasted until 1993.

WTVJ's former set.

Move to channel 4

Main article: 1994–1996 United States broadcast TV realignment

WFOR "CBS 4" logo, used from April 1999 to January 23, 2010.

On July 14, 1994, after the E. W. Scripps Company signed an affiliation deal with ABC that renewed the network's affiliations with its affiliates in Cleveland and Detroit (which were both heavily targeted by CBS to replace two stations that were slated to switch to Fox) and caused three other stations to switch to the network, Westinghouse Broadcasting (Group W) signed a long-term deal with CBS, in which three Westinghouse-owned stations (one that was aligned with ABC and two that also were aligned with NBC) would become CBS affiliates, joining two other stations owned by the company that were already affiliated with that network. (Westinghouse would later acquire CBS one year later in August 1995, turning all of the Group W radio and television stations into CBS owned-and-operated television and radio stations.) One of the stations involved in the affiliation agreement was Philadelphia's longtime NBC affiliate, KYW-TV. CBS decided to sell off its longtime O&O in that market, WCAU-TV, but later discovered that an outright sale of that station would have forced it to pay taxes on the proceeds from the deal. This led to a deal that was struck on November 21, 1994, between CBS and NBC, in which CBS sold the channel 6 transmitter facility and license to NBC as compensation for the loss of KYW-TV and Westinghouse's other NBC affiliate, WBZ-TV in Boston. In return, CBS received the stronger channel 4 transmitter facility, license, and cash as compensation for the loss of WCAU (KCNC-TV in Denver and KUTV in Salt Lake City [which was acquired by NBC earlier that year] were both purchased by, and ended up switching to CBS as a result of this deal).

In April 1995, WTVJ dropped all references to its channel 4 allocation outside of news programming in preparation for the channel swap. Newscasts continued to be branded as Channel 4 News until the move to channel 6; however, it rebranded as "WTVJ NBC" for all other purposes, using a logo that featured only the NBC peacock logo with the WTVJ call letters (rendered in the Univers typeface) placed below it.

At 1 a.m. on Sunday, September 10, 1995, WTVJ and WCIX swapped channels. WTVJ's entire intellectual unit (calls, shows, NBC network, and staff) moved from channel 4 to channel 6, while the intellectual unit of WCIX, which changed its calls accordingly to WFOR-TV, moved to channel 4. However, both stations retained their respective existing studio facilities. Due to the manner in which the transfer was structured, the two stations were required to swap licenses in addition to their transmitting facilities. As a result, WTVJ legally operated under the old WCIX license until the end of the analog broadcasting era. This move led to WPTV picking up market share of NBC programming in Broward County from WTVJ, as WTVJ moved its transmitter from its longtime home on the Broward–Dade county line to WCIX's former transmitter in Homestead (about 20 miles (32 km) south of Miami). WPTV's signal in Fort Lauderdale is actually closer to city-grade than WTVJ's (though it still transmits a Grade B signal in the area). WTVJ inherited the two translators used by WCIX in Broward County, W27AQ Pompano Beach and W58BU Hallandale, and a third, W19BJ in Sunrise, was activated alongside the switch.

Since 1998, through CBS' broadcast contract with the AFC, WFOR has been the primary station for the Miami Dolphins; starting in 2014, with the NFL's new "cross-flex" broadcast rules, more games can be broadcast on WFOR. The station also aired local coverage of Super Bowls XLI and XLIV, both of which were played at Hard Rock Stadium.

In 1999, the station was given the National Association of Broadcasters Service to America Television Award.

In 2000, Viacom bought CBS, making WFOR a sister station to UPN affiliate WBFS-TV, which subsequently moved into WFOR's studio facility (Viacom was also the owner of some of WFOR's sister stations under TVX by this time). The station also handled some support operations for WTVX in West Palm Beach until it was sold to the Cerberus Capital Management subsidiary Four Points Media Group in 2007. WFOR-TV and WBFS-TV became properties of CBS Corporation, when Viacom split up its assets in December 2005; the split would be reversed 14 years later, as the conglomerates would remerge, making both stations part of ViacomCBS.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel	Video	Aspect	PSIP Short Name	Programming
4.1	1080i	16:9	WFOR-TV	Main WFOR-TV programming / CBS
4.2	480i		WFORTV2	Start TV
4.3			WFORTV3	Dabl
4.4			WFORTV4	Fave TV

Analog-to-digital conversion

WFOR-TV signed on its digital signal on May 1, 2001. The station ended programming on its analog signal, on VHF channel 4, at 12:30 p.m. on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 22. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 4.

Sports programming

WFOR provided local coverage of Super Bowls XLI and XLIV that were hosted at what is now Hard Rock Stadium.

Since 2020, WFOR shares the over-the-air broadcast rights to Major League Soccer's Inter Miami with sister station WBFS-TV.

News operation

On January 11, 2010, WFOR-TV began broadcasting its newscasts from a temporary set in preparation for production upgrades to broadcast its news programming in high definition. After about two weeks of preparation, on January 24, 2010, WFOR-TV became the last major English-language station in the Miami television market and the last CBS-owned station with a full-time news department to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition (Detroit sister station WWJ-TV was technically the last CBS-owned station with an in-house news operation that continued to broadcast in standard definition, but it upgraded its news production to high definition on February 2, 2012; however, it does not produce or air regular evening or late-night newscasts nor does it have a full-scale news department, and had only carried a morning news program at the time of the upgrade). The newscasts on sister station WBFS-TV were also included in the upgrade at that time (WFOR would discontinue producing newscasts for that station in September 2011). The upgrade included a major retooling of the station's news set, the purchase of new studio equipment, changes to master control operations, and the implementation of new graphics. Along with the revamp, a new logo was introduced, which would further emphasize a "South Florida feel".

On December 4, 2017, WFOR expanded CBS 4 News This Morning from 5–7 a.m. to 4:30–7 a.m.

On-air staff

Notable current on-air staff

• Eliott Rodriguez – anchor
• Jim Berry – sports director; previously sports director until shift to morning anchor in June 2008, but returned to sports in late 2009

Notable former on-air staff

• Gayle Anderson (now at KTLA in Los Angeles)
• Susan Barnett (last at KYW-TV in Philadelphia)
• Lisa Cabrera (moved to WNYW in New York City, has since left the station)
• Giselle Fernández – anchor
• Rick Folbaum – anchor (now at WGCL-TV in Atlanta)
• John Hambrick (1990–1993; deceased)
• Robb Hanrahan – anchor/reporter (last with WHP-TV in Harrisburg, now retired)
• Dave Malkoff (now at The Weather Channel)
• Antonio Mora – 5:00, 6:00 and 11:00 p.m. co-anchor (2008–2011); 6:00 p.m. solo anchor (2011–2012; was at Al Jazeera America)
• Bryan Norcross – "Hurricane Specialist", executive producer storm coverage and CBS News hurricane consultant (from WTVJ, now hurricane specialist for WPLG)
• Bill O'Reilly – political commentator (was at Fox News Channel)
• Jeff Pegues – reporter/anchor (2002–2005; now with CBS News)
• Ralph Renick – anchor/commentator (1988–1990; formerly at WTVJ from 1949 to 1985; died in 1991)
• John Roberts (formerly J.D. Roberts) – anchor/reporter (now at Fox News Channel)
• Maggie Rodriguez – 5, 6, and 11 p.m. anchor (later co-host of The Early Show on CBS; now with WFLA-TV in Tampa)
• Ken Rosato – anchor (2000–2002; now at WABC-TV in New York City)
• Jennifer Santiago (now DirecTV correspondent for Hometown Heroes)

Translators

WFOR-TV previously operated two translator stations located in the Florida Keys: W38AA (analog channel 38) in Marathon and W39AC (analog channel 39) in Key West. Mapale LLC, which has owned them since at least 1979, now operates them as translators of Key West-based Spanish language station WSBS-TV (channel 22), making its entire service area redundant. Their "digital companion channels" are licensed separately from their analog allocations, and have Mapale's own WGEN-TV (channel 8, also from Key West) listed as their primary station.

External links

• Official website
• FCC History Cards for WFOR-TV