WFTS-TV

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = WFTS-TV
city =
station_
station_slogan = Taking Action For You
First in HD
Start Here
station_branding = ABC Action News
analog = 28 (UHF)
digital = 29 (UHF)
other_chs =
affiliations = ABC (since 1994)
The AccuWeather Channel (DT2)
network =
founded = December 14, 1981
location = Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida
callsign_meaning = Family
Television
Station
(referring to original owner, Family Group Broadcasting)
former_callsigns =
former_channel_numbers =
owner = The E.W. Scripps Company
licensee = Tampa Bay Television, Inc.
sister_stations =
former_affiliations = independent (1981-1988)
Fox (1988-1994)
effective_radiated_power = 2630 kW (analog)
500 kW (digital)
HAAT = 471 m (analog)
476 m (digital)
class =
facility_id = 64588
coordinates = coord|27|50|33|N|82|15|45.1|W|type:landmark_scale:2000
homepage = [http://www.abcactionnews.com/ www.abcactionnews.com]

WFTS ("ABC Action News") is the ABC affiliate for the Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida market, owned by The E.W. Scripps Company. It broadcasts its analog signal on UHF channel 28 and its digital signal on UHF channel 29. Its transmitter is located in Riverview, Florida.

History

WFTS-TV first went on the air on December 14, 1981 as an independent station. Being a flagship of the locally-based Family Group Broadcasting, the station programmed a family-oriented general entertainment format with cartoons, off-network dramas, old movies and religious shows. Its call letters originally stood for Family Television Station. An era of local ownership ended on April 22, 1984, when it was acquired by Capital Cities Communications. It was Capital Cities' first station in Florida, the group's first -- and only -- independent station, and was also the last station acquired by the group prior to its merger with ABC.

Under Capital Cities, the station added more off-network sitcoms and reduced the number of religious shows and dramas on its schedule. In 1986, Capital Cities stunned the world with its purchase of ABC -- the network was ten times bigger than CapCities was at the time. CapCities owned several ABC affiliates, and two CBS affiliates: KFSN-TV in Fresno and WTVD in Durham, North Carolina. The company's combined assets exceeded FCC ownership limits at the time, so CapCities decided to keep its CBS affiliates and change their affiliations to ABC, along with WPVI-TV in Philadelphia and KTRK-TV in Houston, and sold WFTS and ABC's O&O in Detroit, WXYZ-TV, to the E. W. Scripps Company, while selling several other stations to minority-owned firms. WXYZ would figure in WFTS' history once again less than a decade later.

Scripps continued the format on WFTS, running cartoons, sitcoms, movies, and dramas. A 10pm newscast was planned for the station, but did not come to fruition. WFTS picked up the Fox affiliation in 1988 after WTOG dropped it and the station began to identify on air as "Fox 28".

On May 22, 1994, New World Communications came to an agreement with Fox, and most of New World's stations, including WTVT, Tampa Bay's longtime CBS affiliate, were to affiliate with Fox. Among the stations making the switch were longtime CBS affiliates WJBK in Detroit and WJW in Cleveland. Not wanting to be relegated to the UHF band, CBS heavily wooed Detroit's longtime ABC affiliate, WXYZ, as well as Cleveland's longtime ABC affiliate, WEWS-TV. Both stations were owned by Scripps. With this as leverage, Scripps told ABC that it would have to affiliate with four other stations owned by Scripps: WFTS, KNXV-TV in Phoenix (which was also due to lose its Fox affiliation to a New World station), WMAR-TV in Baltimore and WCPO-TV in Cincinnati -- the latter had to wait for ABC's affiliation contract with WKRC-TV to expire in June 1996 to switch. Scripps insisted on including WFTS and KNXV in the deal even though neither had a news department (see below).

As a result, in December 1994, WFTS assumed the ABC affiliation from longtime affiliate WTSP, which took over the CBS affiliation from WTVT. WFTS then sent most of its syndicated programming to WTTA, WTOG and/or WTMV, which would also air Fox Kids. A decade later, WFTS became one of three Florida television stations, and one of the many Scripps-owned ABC affiliates that preempted "Saving Private Ryan."

The station is not available on Comcast cable in Venice (Southern Sarasota County) due to the presence of WWSB, an ABC station formed after WTSP's coverage of the Sarasota area was insufficient when WTSP was an ABC affiliate. This means WFTS is not available to over 91,000 cable subscribers. [http://research.backchannelmedia.com/providers/Comcast_Venice/FL09432/Digital/2007-04-26_11%3A00] In September 2007, both WFTS and WWSB began to carry "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!"; previously WTSP had aired the two game shows from 7-8 p.m.

Tampa-St. Petersburg is the the fourth largest market with a major network on the UHF dial, while the larger markets with a major network on the UHF dial are Phoenix (KNXV-TV, channel 15), Atlanta (WGCL-TV, channel 46) and Detroit (WWJ-TV, channel 62). KNXV is an ABC affiliate while WGCL and WWJ are CBS affiliates.

Newscasts

During its days as an independent station and Fox affiliate, WFTS presented hourly newsbreaks and weatherbreaks, featuring a person reading the day's headlines or the current forecast. During the station's first few months on the air, the newsbreaks were provided by WNSI-AM 1380 (now WWMI) in audio only, over a slide that said "News Check". Later on, News Checks began to feature newsreaders on camera at WFTS's studios. By the late-1980s, the newsbreaks became "28 Newsbreak" or "28 Weatherbreak". These newsbreaks were discontinued in December 1994 after the station became an ABC affiliate and launched a full-scale news operation.

WFTS began airing full-scale newscasts in 1994, under the "28 Tampa Bay News" handle. The newscasts initially originated from Telemation studios in Clearwater, since WFTS's studios on Tampa's east side (at the corner of I-4 and Columbus Drive) didn't have enough room for a full-sized newsroom or set. The station's news operation then moved to its new studios on Himes Avenue across from Raymond James Stadium in 1996. The station gradually added newscasts at 5-7am, 12noon-12:30pm, 5-6:30pm, and 11-11:35pm. Given the fact that many former Fox stations have switched to ABC, NBC or CBS at the time, WFTS did not falter with many stations of such that launched newscasts with no success at competing with long-standing (mostly VHF) news stations (some stations cancelled their newscasts as a result), but rather it competes somewhat well with long standing stations WTVT, WFLA-TV and WTSP, though the newscasts continually place last, with the exception of 5-6 am hour and 6-7 am hour of the morning newscast [March 2007] , which placed ahead of WTSP's morning news. WFTS's 11pm newscast [March 2007] was in a statistical tie for last place with WTVT's year-old 11pm newscast. Also, WFTS's noon newscast placed second, ahead of WTVT and WFLA, but behind WTSP [March 2007] . [http://blogs.tampabay.com/media/2007/03/uncle_erics_gui.html] .

The newscast title was changed to "28 News" briefly in 2002, before being changed again to "ABC Action News" later that year due to viewer confusion with the ABC28 branding. The "Action News" all day branding is also shared with sister station KSHB-TV in Kansas City, which is an NBC affiliate.

In fall 2005, the station extended its midday newscast to a full hour, from 12noon-1pm, following the cancellation of ABC's soap "Port Charles".

Newscast Lineup

Weekdays
*" ABC Action News This Morning in HD " - 5-7 AM:Anchors: Dan Shaffer, Deiah Riley:Weather: Stephanie Roberts:Traffic: Captain Al, Meredyth Censullo, Joe Demay
*" ABC Action News at Noon in HD " - 12-1 PM:Anchors: Dan Shaffer, Deiah Riley:Weather: Stephanie Roberts
*" ABC Action News at 5 in HD " - 5-6 PM:Anchors: Walt Maciborski, Linda Hurtado:Weather: Denis Phillips
*" ABC Action News at 6 in HD " - 6-6:30 PM:Anchors: Brendan McLaughlin, Wendy Ryan:Weather: Denis Phillips:Sports: Al Keck
*" ABC Action News at 11 in HD " - 11-11:35 PM:Anchors: Brendan McLaughlin, Wendy Ryan:Weather: Denis Phillips:Sports: Al Keck

Weekends
*" Flashpoint " - 11-11:30 AM (Sundays only):Hosted by: Brendan McLaughlin
*" ABC Action News at 6 in HD " - 6-6:30 PM:Anchors: John Thomas, Sarina Fazan:Weather: Wayne Shattuck:Sports: Tom Korun
*" ABC Action News at 11 in HD " - 11-11:35 PM:Anchors: John Thomas, Sarina Fazan:Weather: Wayne Shattuck:Sports: Tom Korun
*" Sports Zone " - 11:35 PM-12:05 AM (Sundays only):Hosted by: Tom Korun

Digital Television

Ownership

* 1981: founded by Ian Wheeler
* 1984: sold to Capital Cities/ABC
* 1986: sold to The E.W. Scripps Company

Viewing Area

WFTS can be seen mainly in Hernando, Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, Hardee, and Polk Counties. WFTS can also be viewed in portions of Citrus, Sumter, Sarasota, De Soto, Highlands and Lake Counties.

logans

* "Catch Familyvision on Channel 28" (1981-1984)
* "Tampa Bay's Independent" (ca. 1986-1988)
* "Your Fox Television Station" (early-1990s). Coincidentally, this term was trademarked by the actual Fox Television Stations Group which never owned WFTS in the first place (though they now own WTVT).
* "Working Hard To Be Your Favorite" (1994-1995)
* "Real People, Real News" (1996-1999)
* "You Need to Know" (2002)
* "Taking Action for You" (2002-present)
* "First in HD" (2007-present)
* "Start Here" (2007-present, same as ABC's slogan)

Trivia

*The first incarnation of channel 28 was to have been WTSS-TV, an affiliate of the DuMont Television Network in the 1950s. [http://members.aol.com/cingram/television/dumonta10.htm] It is very likely that that station never made it to air.
* has been to the Tampa Bay area twice. During the first visit, host Ty Pennington came to WFTS's studios during a commercial break and took sports director Al Keck in "Stormchaser" to do a play-by-play version of the family's house for the blind head of the family when it was being destroyed to make way for the new one.
*A clip from a WFTS newscast was shown on Jimmy Kimmel Live in early November 2006. In the clip, was reporter Susan Casper.
*WFTS produces 27 1/2 hours of newscasts weekly.
*WFTS has produced two local versions of which asked viewers to nominate someone.

External links

* [http://www.abcactionnews.com/ Official site]
* [http://community.abcactionnews.com/blogs/default.aspx Official ABC Action News Blogs]
* [http://community.abcactionnews.com/forums/default.aspx Official ABC Action News Forums]
*TVQ|WFTS-TV
*BIA|WFTS|TV|TV
* [http://www.mcsittel.com/html/photos2.html mcsittel.com: 1990s DX screengrabs from Tallahassee -- includes WFTS "Fox 28" screengrabs from 1992 and 1993]
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20000303150928/http://wfts.com/ "Tampa Bay Live" website used from 1999-2000. Still works a bit.]
* [http://youtube.com/watch?v=tGHfGV80iSA 28 News Documentary.]
* [http://www.tampabaysgotgame.com/ ABC Action News Super Bowl Website]

References