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WBFS-TV
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| WBFS-TV | |
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| Miami / Fort Lauderdale, Florida | |
| Branding | My 33 |
| Slogan | South Florida's TV |
| Channels | Analog: 33 (UHF) Digital: 32 (UHF) |
| Affiliations | MyNetworkTV (primary) 4Kids TV (secondary) CBS (alternate) |
| Owner | CBS Corporation |
| Founded | December 9, 1984 |
| Sister station(s) | WFOR-TV |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1984-1995) UPN (1995-2006) |
| Transmitter Power | 5,000 kW (analog) 1,000 kW (digital) |
| Height | 282 m (analog) 262.5 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 12497 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | |
| Website | cbs4.com/wbfs |
WBFS-TV is the MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for South Florida. Licensed to Miami, the station broadcasts an analog signal on UHF channel 33 and a digital signal on UHF channel 32. WBFS's transmitter is located in Miramar. Owned by the CBS Corporation, the station is sister to the area's CBS affiliate WFOR-TV. The two stations share studios that are located on NW 18th Terrace in Doral. WBFS is known on-air as "My 33".
The station's programming lineup consists of first-run syndicated talk shows, court shows, reality shows, local news, off-network sitcoms, movies, and MyNetworkTV prime time. It also runs children's programming from 4Kids TV on the weekends.
The station also airs CBS programming if sister station WFOR-TV needs to pre-empt for breaking news coverage and 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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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 and 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.
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 as well as the first on-air home of the Florida Marlins of Major League Baseball 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. (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 O&O station at the network's sign-on in January 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. It 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 O&O WFOR. As a result of the merge, WBFS moved into WFOR's studios. In an ironic twist, Viacom had been one of Grant's former creditors and was actually once the syndication arm of CBS. Soon after the merger, WBFS began to air newscasts produced by WFOR. When WAMI submitted to Telefutura, WBFS picked up a few shows including FOX Kids (which by then was only offered on Saturdays). Today WBFS still runs FOX's 4Kids TV which the area's FOX affiliate WSVN does not run. UPN ended its kids block in the Fall of 2003.
Today, WBFS is owned and operated by CBS Corporation, which was the result of the Viacom / CBS split.
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", was integrated into WFOR's. The previous web address, "upn33.com", is listed on the MyNetworkTV local station list. However, this points to the same web page.
On January 24, 2006, the WB and UPN networks announced that they would end broadcasting and merge. The newly combined network would be called The CW, the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. The area's WB affiliate WBZL (now WSFL) was announced as becoming South Florida's CW affiliate. This was after its owner, Tribune Broadcasting, announced a new 10 year affiliation deal with the new network on most of its WB stations.
On February 22, 2006, FOX announced that they would start up another new broadcast television network called MyNetworkTV. The new network, which is sister to FOX, is 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. The network began broadcasting on September 18, 2006.
On May 1, 2006, CBS initially announced that WBFS, along with its Boston sister station WSBK-TV, would not seek the affiliation for MyNetworkTV. 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, 2006 and at that point WBFS became known on-air as My 33.
WFOR produces three newscasts for WBFS. On weekday mornings, there is one that airs from 7 to 9 AM. On the weeknights, there is news for one hour at 10. During the weekend, a half-hour of news airs at the same time.
Before the weekday morning news began airing in 2004, the tiemslot was filled with children's programming.
Starting in June of 2007, Beatriz Canals (WBFS's former weeknight co-anchor) began co-anchoring on WFOR's weeknight 5 and 11 PM news. She took the place of Maggie Rodriguez who left for The Saturday Early Show. This arrangement was temporary until Shannon Hori of KTVT in Dallas was named the permanent replacement of Maggie.
Weekday Mornings
- Anchors:
- Jorge Estevez
- Cynthia Demos
- Weather:
- Lisette Gonzalez
Weeknights
- Anchors:
- Jawan Strader
- Erika Von Tiehl
- Weather:
- Craig Setzer
- Sports:
- Jim Berry
Weekends
- Anchor:
- Jawan Strader
- Marybel Rodriguez
- Weather:
- Jeff Berardelli
- Sports:
- Prim Siripipat
WBFS uses additional news personnel from WFOR. See that article for a complete listing.
- WBFS-TV "My 33" (separate section of WFOR's website)
- WFOR "CBS 4"
- MyNetworkTV
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WBFS
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Miami-Dade / Fort Lauderdale, Florida stations Local television stations In Key West Local digital television channels |
| See also: Broadcast television stations in West Palm Beach and Bahamas |
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WCTV-DT 6.2 (Tallahassee) - WJHG-DT 7.3 (Panama City) - "WNFM" 8 / WBSP-CA 9 (Naples / Ft. Myers) - WMYG-LP 11 / WGFL-DT 28.2 (High Springs / Gainesville) - WAWS-DT 30.2 (Jacksonville) - |
| See also: ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, NBC, PBS, Religious, Spanish and Other stations in Florida |
