WTVJ
WTVJ is a television station in Miami, Florida, United States. It is owned and operated by the NBC television network through its NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Fort Lauderdale–licensed WSCV, a flagship station of Telemundo. The two stations share studios on Southwest 27th Street in Miramar; WTVJ's transmitter is located in Andover, Florida.
WTVJ began broadcasting March 21, 1949, on channel 4 as Florida's first television station. Owned by Wometco Enterprises, a Miami movie theater operator, the station nearly did not launch due to a disputed transfer of the construction permit. A primary affiliate of CBS, WTVJ was Miami's only television station for four years, establishing a head-start in local programming. Anchorman Ralph Renick had Miami's highest-rated television newscast for 34 years, Chuck Zink's children's show Skipper Chuck ran for more than 20 years, and the station featured sports coverage and local Spanish-language programming. WTVJ produced a series of notable reporters and anchors, including Jane Chastain, Katie Couric, Bernard Goldberg, and Martha Teichner. This era of stability and ratings success began to decay considerably after Wometco's owner, Mitchell Wolfson, died in 1983. The firm's television stations were sold to investment company Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, which instituted cost cuts and management changes that prompted Renick to exit in 1985, months after his evening newscast fell to second place for the first time. After Renick's departure, WTVJ fell to third place in news ratings.
KKR acquired Storer Communications soon after purchasing WTVJ, creating a cross-ownership conflict between Storer's cable systems in South Florida and WTVJ. Lorimar-Telepictures initially agreed to purchase the station but backed out once it emerged that CBS was looking at buying another Miami station, WCIX, at a discount. The effect was to scare off buyers that were not themselves television networks. NBC agreed to buy WTVJ in 1987, displacing its longtime Miami affiliate, WSVN. WSVN's affiliation agreement with NBC expired at the end of 1988, until which NBC continued to run WTVJ as a CBS affiliate. The purchase catalyzed a six-station, two-market affiliation switch on January 1, 1989, when WTVJ became an NBC affiliate; CBS moved to WCIX; and WSVN became an independent station affiliated with Fox. The switch came amidst a multi-million-dollar publicity campaign that critics considered grating and off-putting. Though NBC made a significant investment in the news department and its coverage of Hurricane Andrew won industry acclaim, WTVJ's local newscasts remained mired in third place. The newsroom was beset by problems: turnover of news anchors, an unsuccessful attempt to clone WSVN's news presentation style, and low ratings for NBC's daytime programming.
Another round of television affiliation realignment, this time affecting markets nationwide, led to a September 10, 1995, channel switch with WCIX as part of an asset trade between NBC and CBS. On that date, WTVJ and its NBC and local programming moved to channel 6, while WCIX and its CBS and local programming moved to channel 4 as WFOR-TV. The switch was an upgrade for CBS and a downgrade for NBC, as the analog channel 6 facility in Miami faced location restrictions that reduced its population coverage. Despite this, WTVJ found a news identity under general manager Don Browne, who led the station to its best newscast ratings performance since the Renick years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Browne oversaw WTVJ's move from downtown Miami to its Miramar studios in 2000 and the integration of WSCV with WTVJ after NBC bought Telemundo in 2001. The station has run generally first or second among English-language local newscasts since the early 2000s, complimenting overall market leader WSCV.
The Wometco years
Permitting, construction, and hearings
The Southern Radio and Television Equipment Company applied to the Federal Communications Commission on January 6, 1947, for permission to build a television station in Miami on channel 4. The permit was granted on March 12, 1947, and president Robert G. Venn announced that Miami would have television by August. In addition to Venn, principals in Southern Radio and Television Equipment included Edward N. Claughton, a banker and title insurance company owner, and attorney E. J. Nelson.In March 1948, Southern Radio and Television Equipment filed to transfer the construction permit for WTVJ to Wolfson-Meyer Theatre Enterprises, Inc., better known as Wometco Enterprises. From the beginning, Wometco was headed by co-founder Mitchell Wolfson. On July 29, the FCC moved to revoke WTVJ's construction permit, having learned that Claughton had backed out. The commission's action came as WTVJ was nearly ready to begin broadcasting, just weeks before an announced August 15 date to start testing and after a contract had been leased to turn a Wometco theater on Third Street into studios for WTVJ and a transmitter had been shipped. The commission believed that the transfer of interests from Claughton to Wometco was a misrepresentation and concealment. Construction activity halted after the revocation order was issued. It was the first time the FCC had revoked a television station permit.
A hearing was requested in mid-August, which legally required the revocation order to be stayed. A request to go on the air in the interim was denied, and on October 25, the FCC opened three days of hearings in Miami. At the hearings, Venn explained that Claughton had withdrawn his participation in the firm in March 1947, the same month it won the permit. He made this decision after stocks he owned lost value. As a result, Venn held $193,500 in checks Claughton had put up to obtain a 32-percent stake in Southern Radio and Television Equipment. When Wometco agreed to buy Southern Radio, it advanced funds for station construction, and Wometco had become associated with Venn through its plan to build a new Miami radio station, WMIE. FCC vice chairman Paul A. Walker, who had led the hearings, issued an initial decision in January 1949 that recommended rescinding the revocation and approving WTVJ's sale to Wometco. Though he said that "neither Wometco nor Venn acted prudently in this matter", he found Wometco qualified to run the station and did not find that there was any deliberate concealment. The FCC approved on January 27, 1949, and granted authority to put interim station facilities on the air.
Early years of operation
From an antenna atop the Everglades Hotel, WTVJ sent out its first test pattern on February 21, 1949, and on March 21, WTVJ began airing regular programs. It was the first television station in Florida and the 58th in the United States. Its original schedule called for at least two hours of programming, six nights a week; the station was off the air on Tuesdays for the part-time engineers to repair equipment.National programming from all four networks—ABC, CBS, NBC, and the DuMont Television Network—exclusively came on film and kinescopes flown from New York, as Miami was not connected to the coaxial cable system used to transmit network television until June 30, 1952. The station aired an array of local programs to complement network shows. Students at the University of Miami trained on WTVJ's equipment and produced a weekly Saturday night show. On the quiz show Quick on the Draw, Air Force recruiting personnel faced off against models. Other local shows included the cooking series Holiday House and the consumer program Shopper's Guide, as well as cartoons and country music. Sports telecasts included Miami Hurricanes football in the 1949 and 1950 seasons—before the university revoked permission, fearing telecasts would hurt attendance—as well as the Orange Bowl, roller derby, horse racing, golf, and jai alai. Old movies also featured; Alec Gibson, faced with a meager inventory of films available to television, hosted what he called "The P.U. Club". In December 1950, the station was on the air for 12 hours each day, with just under half of its output consisting of network shows.
WTVJ's first news effort consisted of a collaboration with the Miami Herald and the Herald radio station WQAM, Televiews of the News, which debuted as a weekly program on December 11, 1949. The Herald photographers and WQAM announcers produced and presented the program. The liaison between WTVJ and The Herald was Ralph Renick, a recent graduate of the University of Miami. On July 16, 1950, amid the backdrop of the Korean War, WTVJ started producing its own local newscasts, with Renick as the anchor. With limited resources and day-old film, Renick slowly began to build up the operation as well as a library of magazine clippings to illustrate news stories.
Another charter WTVJ employee was weatherman Bob Weaver. He worked at the station for 20 years before leaving for a three-year stint at two stations in the Northeast, WCBS-TV in New York and WHDH-TV in Boston, returning to Miami and WTVJ in 1972. One of the first forecasters to be certified by the American Meteorological Society, Weaver was also a ventriloquist, often delivering light jokes alongside weather reports with puppet sidekick "Weavie the Weatherbird".
In November 1952, WTVJ opened a three-story studio facility, connected to the existing facility, in what had been the Capitol Theatre. The conversion of the Capitol for television use included a main stage and was designed to allow the station to originate national television programs for wintering hosts.
After the freeze
By surviving its revocation hearing and getting on the air, WTVJ assured itself of being South Florida's only TV station for several years. In October 1948, the FCC started a years-long freeze on new television station permits, with WTVJ being the only one it had awarded in Miami. Had WTVJ not gone on air, South Florida would have gone without television for years like Denver or Portland, neither of which had pre-freeze stations in operation. In a 1974 retrospective on early Miami TV, Jack E. Anderson of the Miami Herald noted that the head-start WTVJ had received on its competition "in many ways has persisted to this day".The freeze was lifted in 1952. Television competition came to South Florida first on two stations in the ultra high frequency band, originally licensed to Fort Lauderdale. WFTL-TV, the first post-freeze TV outlet in the state, started on May 5, 1953, as an outlet for previously unseen NBC programs; some NBC output remained on WTVJ. The other Fort Lauderdale station, WITV on channel 17, started on December 1, 1953; it had a similar secondary arrangement with ABC and DuMont, though WTVJ retained first call rights to their programs. These stations started while Miami's two additional commercial VHF channels, 7 and 10, were tied up in comparative hearing processes with multiple applicants seeking them.
Over the course of 1954, channel 4 upgraded its facilities. On May 17, 1954, it ceased broadcasting from the Everglades antenna and moved to a new facility in Hallandale on the Dade–Broward county line. With the move came an upgrade to the maximum effective radiated power permitted on channel 4, 100,000 watts. The land was sold to Wolfson by Sidney Ansin, who co-founded Sunbeam Television with sons Ron and Edmund to pursue a license for channel 7. During construction of the new tower, a steeplejack fell to his death. In September, the station aired the first color television broadcast in the area, the NBC special Satins and Spurs. WTVJ discarded its NBC shows that November to become an exclusive affiliate of CBS, leaving NBC's programs to air on WFTL-TV and WJNO-TV in West Palm Beach.
The early UHF stations were supplanted by VHF outlets: WCKT-TV started in July 1956 on channel 7, and WPST-TV debuted in August 1957 on channel 10. With more intense ratings competition from the new stations and increased network offerings from CBS, the "friendly, disjointed" local programming on WTVJ waned. Renick instituted the nation's first regular TV editorials in 1957, focusing on local and state issues; ratings for the already popular Ralph Renick Reporting doubled. The WTVJ news department, led by Renick, gained local and international stature. In 1956, Renick mediated racial tensions in Delray Beach at the request of the mayor, who credited him as the sole reason the situation was resolved. The next year, he embarked on a 10-day, tour through Europe and North Africa, filming footage and conducting interviews.
In 1956, Chuck Zink joined the station from WCMB-TV in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The station had purchased a package of Popeye cartoons, which Zink began to host as Popeye Playhouse. Later retitled The Skipper Chuck Show, the program enjoyed substantial popularity for years. A waiting list to be in its studio audience was two years long at its height. Zink was the first local children's show host to racially integrate his program, with Wolfson's support; the sponsor, the hamburger restaurant Royal Castle, pulled out and was replaced with the little-known Burger King chain. In addition to Skipper Chuck, Zink was a movie host and pageant announcer for WTVJ.