WSFL-TV

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = WSFL-TV
city =
station_
station_slogan = Non-Stop Entertainment
station_branding = SFL
analog = 39 (UHF)
digital = 19 (UHF)
other_chs =
affiliations = The CW
network =
founded =
airdate = October 16, 1982
location = Miami / Fort Lauderdale, Florida
callsign_meaning = South FLorida
former_callsigns = WDZL (1982-1998)
WBZL (1998-2006)
former_channel_numbers =
owner = Tribune Company
licensee = Channel 39, Inc.
sister_stations =
former_affiliations = Independent (1982-1995)
The WB (1995-2006)
The Tube (on DT2, 2006-2007)
effective_radiated_power = 5,000 kW (analog)
1,000 kW (digital)
HAAT = 276 m (analog)
239 m (digital)
class =
facility_id = 10203
coordinates = coord|25|58|8.3|N|80|13|19.2|W|type:landmark_scale:2000
homepage = [http://sfl.southflorida.com/pages/main sfl.southflorida.com]

WSFL-TV, channel 39, is the CW-affiliated television station for South Florida that is licensed to Miami. Its transmitter is located in Miramar. Owned by the Tribune Company, the station shares studios with co-owned newspaper the "Sun-Sentinel" on East Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. WSFL can be seen on Comcast and DirecTV channel 39. On Dish Network, it is located on channel 8834. Syndicated programming on the station includes: "Everybody Loves Raymond", "Seinfeld", "Two and a Half Men", "Family Guy", and "The Simpsons".

History

Channel 39 signed on as WDZL-TV on October 16, 1982. It was owned by Channel 39 Broadcasting Ltd. As an independent station, it aired a general entertainment format consisting of cartoons, off-network dramas, old movies, a few old off-network sitcoms, and religious shows. Michael Finkelstein of "Odyssey Partners" (who owned WTXX in Waterbury, Connecticut) owned an interest in WDZL. In 1984, WBFS-TV (owned by Grant Broadcasting System II) signed on with a stronger general entertainment lineup and surpassed WDZL in the ratings immediately. Still, WDZL was profitable especially with the huge amount of barter cartoons available to the station. It was still running shows other stations passed up until the wave of affiliation switches in 1989. By then, the station was owned by Renaissance Communications which was also headed by Michael Finkelstein. When WCIX (now WFOR-TV) was sold to CBS and dropped most of its syndicated shows, Fox programming moved to WSVN. The rest of the programming dropped from WCIX moved to WDZL. By the early-1990s, WDZL had become a far stronger independent station. It acquired Fox Kids programming from WSVN in 1993.

WDZL became a charter WB affiliate on January 11, 1995. In 1997, the Tribune Company acquired the six television station group that was owned by Renaissance Communications. Kids' WB programming on WDZL expanded to three hours on weekdays and the station dropped Fox Kids (which moved to Home Shopping Network station WYHS (now WAMI-TV). WDZL changed its call letters to WBZL in 1998 to emphasize its affiliation with The WB. Throughout this affiliation, the station was known on-air as "WB 39". By then, the station began airing more first-run talk and reality shows during the day along with children programming and off-network sitcoms in the evenings. By 2005, it was the only remaining station to run children shows weekday afternoons with Kids' WB (a practice which ended on January 6, 2006). On January 24, The WB and UPN announced they would end broadcasting and merge. The newly combined network would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of its soon-to-be corporate parents: CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner.

Tribune announced that most of its WB affiliates, including WBZL, would become affiliated with The CW. This was a result of Tribune signing a ten year affiliation agreement with the new network. It would not have been an upset had WBFS been chosen, however. CW officials were on record as preferring the "strongest" WB and UPN stations for their new network and South Florida was one of the few markets where The WB and UPN stations were both relatively strong. Also, WBFS is owned by CBS who would own a 50 percent stake in The CW. Throughout the summer, WBZL started using their CW logo for local television ads and also began referring to itself as "CW South Florida". On September 17, WBZL changed its call letters to the current WSFL-TV to remove the reference to the no-longer-existent WB in its calls and generalize them to its geographic location. The next day, The CW debuted on WSFL. Starting in 2006, the station aired The Tube, a 24-hour music video channel, on its second digital subchannel and Comcast digital cable channel 224. It was dropped on October 1, 2007 when the network closed due to low advertising sales. On September 1, 2008, in a corporate move by Tribune to de-emphasize the references of the "CW" branding for their CW affiliates, channel 39 was rebranded as "SFL" and it debuted a logo resembling that of the ""Sun-Sentinel".

Newscast

In 1997, NBC affiliate WTVJ and the "Sun-Sentinel" began to co-produce a nightly 10 o'clock newscast on WDSL known as "WB 39 News at 10". When the station became a CW affiliate, the news title changed to "CW News at 10". On March 5, 2008, WSFL began broadcasting the 10 o'clock newscast in high definition when WTVJ made the upgrade. For the duration of the 2008 Summer Olympics, WSFL's newscast featured two anchors and closely mirrored news programs that air on WTVJ. The 10 P.M. news was broadcasted from a secondary set at WTVJ's studios on Peacock Plaza in Miramar. The WTVJ news on WSFL was a similar operation to Tribune-outsourced newscasts that air on sister stations WPHL-TV and KRCW-TV. On August 26, 2008, WTVJ and WSFL agreed to end the 10 o'clock newscast (likely due to WTVJ's tentative acquisition by Post-Newsweek Stations who owns ABC affiliate WPLG), with the final broadcast airing on August 31. A weekday morning newscast is slated to begin airing in January of 2009. It will air out of the newspaper's newsroom from 5 to 9 A.M. The station continues to airs a public affairs program, "South Florida Voices", on Sundays mornings at 6 that is hosted by Deborah Ally.

External links

* [http://sfl.southflorida.com/pages/main WSFL-TV/DT]
* [http://www.cwtv.com The CW]
*TVQ|WSFL-TV