| WBFS-TV | |
|---|---|
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| Miami / Fort Lauderdale, Florida | |
| Branding | My 33 CBS 4 News |
| Slogan | TV To The Max |
| Channels | Digital: 32 (UHF) |
| Subchannels | 33.1 MyNetworkTV |
| Owner | CBS Corporation (Miami Television Station WBFS, Inc.) |
| First air date | December 9, 1984 |
| Call letters’ meaning | Broadcasting from Florida's South |
| Sister station(s) | WFOR-TV |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 33 (UHF, 1984-2009) |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1984-1995) UPN (1995-2006) FOX Kids / 4Kids TV (2002-2008) |
| Transmitter Power | 1000 kW |
| Height | 307.6 m |
| Facility ID | 12497 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | 25°58′7″N 80°13′20″W / 25.96861°N 80.22222°W |
| Website | cbs4.com/wbfs |
WBFS-TV is the MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for South Florida that is licensed to Miami. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 32 from a transmitter in Miramar. Owned by the CBS Corporation, the station is sister to CBS affiliate WFOR-TV. The two stations share studios on Northwest 18th Terrace in Doral. Syndicated programming on WBFS includes: The King of Queens, My Wife and Kids, TMZ on TV, and Tyra. The station can be considered an alternate CBS affiliate. As such, it may take on the responsibility of airing CBS programs whenever WFOR may not be able to do so as in a news-related emergency. WBFS has been known to air Miami Dolphins games that air on CBS if the game is postponed due to weather (usually hurricanes).
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History
WBFS-TV debuted on December 9, 1984 as an independent station under the ownership of Grant Broadcasting. Before then, the channel 33 frequency had been occupied by a low-power translator for independent station WCIX, whose main signal on channel 6 could not be received very well in Broward County. The station ran numerous off-network classic TV sitcoms from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s along with a number of cartoons. It also ran some off-network drama shows, classic western, and martial arts movies that were shown on Saturday afternoons.
WBFS soon made a name for itself in South Florida for its slick on-air look. It billed itself "Florida's Super Station" (a moniker that Tampa Bay's WTOG also gave itself around the same time) and frequently used CGI graphics of near-network quality. WBFS' sister stations, WGBS-TV in Philadelphia and WGBO-TV in Chicago, adopted a similar look. The station was available on cable in the West Palm Beach area as well and identified as "Miami / Fort Lauderdale / West Palm Beach" until the 1990s. Unfortunately, while the station was profitable, Grant overextended himself buying programming for his stations. After Christmas in 1986, he filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The pressure came from his debt with Viacom which owned the distribution rights for half of Grant's shows.
In January 1987, a deal was made to cut back the runs of the shows the stations owned and pay some reduced prices. WBFS continued to do well considering its problems and scored a major coup by becoming the on-air home of the brand-new Miami Heat of the NBA in 1988. It added Florida Marlins of baseball's National League and the Florida Panthers of the NHL in 1993. Still in 1989, Grant Broadcasting was put into receivership due to the fact it could not get out of debt. Combined Broadcasting, a company consisting of executives from the program distributors that Grant owed, took over WBFS and its sister stations. The company pumped a lot of money into WBFS and WGBS, but ran primarily barter programming on WGBO. In 1994, Combined sold WBFS and WGBS (now WPSG) to Paramount Stations Group who sold its original Philadelphia station, WTXF-TV, to FOX. Almost immediately, Paramount announced WBFS and WGBS would join the soon-to-be created United Paramount Network. WGBO went to Univision, who entered the deal after its then-affiliate in Chicago, WCIU-TV, refused to drop non-Spanish shows, thus angering Univision.
Under Paramount ownership, WBFS became a UPN owned-and-operated station station at the network's launch on January 16, 1995. The station was then known on-air as "UPN 33". It had acquired more recent off-network sitcoms over the years. It began to add more first-run syndicated talk and reality shows. The station began to cut back on children's programming from 1998 on. By 2002, the station was only running a morning kids block. In 2000, Paramount's parent company, Viacom merged with CBS making WBFS a sister station to CBS owned-and-operated WFOR-TV. As a result of the merger, WBFS moved into WFOR's facilities. There were several ironic twists in this deal. Notably, Viacom had been one of Grant's former creditors, and WFOR had once been. When WAMI-TV became a Telefutura station, WBFS picked up a few of WAMI's former shows, including FOX Kids (which by then was only offered on Saturdays). WBFS ran FOX's 4Kids TV until December 27, 2008 which FOX affiliate WSVN did not run. WBFS declined to pick up 4Kids TV's successor, Weekend Marketplace, which currently does not air at all in the Miami market. UPN ended its kids block in Fall 2003. Today, WBFS is owned-and-operated by the CBS Corporation, which was the result of the Viacom / CBS split.
Transition to MyNetworkTV
On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge. The combined network would be called The CW. The letters in the name would represent the first initial of its corporate parents, CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner (part-owner of The WB). The new network announced a 10-year affiliation agreement with Tribune Broadcasting (The WB's other owner) and CBS Corporation. Miami's WB affiliate, WBZL (now WSFL-TV), was chosen as Miami's CW affiliate. 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. The CW began broadcasting on September 18.
On February 22, News Corporation announced that it would start up another new broadcast television network called MyNetworkTV. This new service, which would be a sister network to FOX, would be operated by FOX Television Stations and its syndication division, Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created to give UPN and WB stations, not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates, another option besides becoming independent. It was also created to compete against The CW.
On May 1, CBS initially announced that WBFS, along with its Boston sister station WSBK-TV, would not seek the affiliation. It is believed that CBS's initial decision to deny its larger UPN stations MyNetworkTV affiliation was in retaliation against FOX for refusing to affiliate any of their UPN affiliates with The CW. However on July 12, it was announced that WBFS would become South Florida's MyNetworkTV affiliate. The network began broadcasting on September 5, and at that point, WBFS became known on-air as "My 33".
Throughout the station's existence, WBFS has had its own website. This changed on April 25, 2007 when WBFS's official web address, "33mytv.com", along with the previous one, "upn33.com" (listed on the MyNetworkTV local station list), were both integrated into WFOR's site. Both addresses now redirect to "cbs4.com/wbfs". Its main web address has since lost references to the station and the network.
Following the 2007 sale of WUPL in New Orleans and the 2008 sale of WTCN-CA in West Palm Beach, WBFS is the only MyNetworkTV station owned by CBS Corporation.
News operation
In 2001, soon after the merger between Paramount parent Viacom and CBS, WBFS began to air a nightly 10 o'clock newscast produced by WFOR. In 2004, the station began to air a two-hour long extension of WFOR's weekday morning news at 7. Before this newscast launched, the time slot was filled with children's programming. Starting in June 2007, Beatriz Canals (WBFS's former weeknight co-anchor) began co-anchoring on WFOR weeknights at 5 and 11 o'clock. She took the place of Maggie Rodriguez who left for The Saturday Early Show. This arrangement was temporary until Shannon Hori from KTVT in Dallas was named the permanent replacement. Due to tough financial times, several cuts were made on October 17, 2008; WBFS's weekday morning and weekend newscasts were canceled, and there were also some personalities let go.
Newscast titles
- Evening News:
- UPN 33 News at 10 (2001-2006)
- My 33 News at 10 (2006-2007)
- CBS 4 News at 10 on My 33 (2007-Present)
- Morning News:
- UPN 33 News This Morning (2004-2006)
- My 33 News on the Move (2006-2007)
- CBS 4 News This Morning on My 33 (2007-2008)
- Jim and Jade in the Morning (2008)
Newscast music
- Evening News:
- WBFS 2001 News Theme, Unknown (2001-2002)
- WBFS 2002 News Theme, Unknown (2002-2006)
- WBFS 2006 News Theme, Unknown (2006-2007)
- News Source, Gari Communications (2007-2008)
- Moving Forward, 615 Music (2008-Present)
- Morning News:
- WBFS 2004 Morning News Theme, Unknown (2004-2008)
News team
CBS 4 News at 10 on My 33
(Weeknights 10 to 10:30)
- Anchors:
- Jawan Strader
- Erika Von Tiehl
- Weather:
- Craig Setzer
- Sports:
- Kim Bokamper
WBFS features additional news personnel from WFOR. See that article for a complete listing.
External links
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