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|---|---|
| City | Miami, Florida |
| Channels | |
| Branding | CBS Miami; CBS News Miami |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| WBFS-TV | |
| History | |
First air date | September 20, 1967 |
Former call signs |
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Former channel number(s) |
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Call sign meaning | "Channel 4"[1] |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 47902 |
| ERP | 1,000 kW |
| HAAT | 296.9 m (974 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 25°58′8″N 80°13′19″W / 25.96889°N 80.22194°W |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WFOR-TV (channel 4), branded CBS Miami, is a television station in Miami, Florida, United States, serving as the market's CBS outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside CW affiliate WBFS-TV (channel 33). The two stations share studios on Northwest 18th Terrace in Doral; WFOR-TV's transmitter is located in Andover, Florida.
The history of this station begins with the assignment of channel 6 as the fifth very high frequency (VHF) channel for Miami in 1957. However, unlike the previously available channels, channel 6 would need to broadcast from a site further south because it operated on the same frequency as a full-service station in Orlando. After a multiple-year proceeding, the Federal Communications Commission granted a construction permit to Coral Television for WCIX-TV in 1964. Coral's earlier attempts to build the transmitter on one of the upper Florida Keys failed to materialize, and the station began broadcasting in September 1967 from a tower in Homestead. Even though over-the-air reception proved difficult in much of Broward County, WCIX-TV largely thrived as an independent station, and later the market's first Fox affiliate, under General Cinema Corporation and Taft Broadcasting ownership and featured a nightly 10 p.m. newscast.
Taft's 1987 sale of WCIX and five other stations to the TVX Broadcast Group came at the same time NBC purchased long-standing CBS affiliate WTVJ; after CBS failed to finalize a contract with outgoing NBC affiliate WSVN, the network purchased WCIX from TVX in January 1989, with channel 6 becoming the new CBS station in Miami. Because of the weak signal in Broward, CBS induced an affiliation switch in the West Palm Beach market to a station that offered signal coverage in the northern part of the market. CBS also expanded the news department, though it continued to rate in last place among the English-language stations in the market. In the wake of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the station lost the use of its Homestead tower for nearly two years and set up a charitable organization, now known as Neighbors 4 Neighbors, to promote volunteer efforts in South Florida.
A complicated transaction between CBS and NBC saw WTVJ and WCIX swap transmitter sites and broadcast licenses in September 1995, with WCIX "moving" to channel 4 and becoming WFOR-TV. CBS's 2000 merger into the first iteration of Viacom added then-UPN affiliate WBFS-TV as a sister station. The local news offered by WFOR-TV generally continued to lag in the ratings after the move to channel 4 but has been more competitive since the late 1990s.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Miam941214was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Facility Technical Data for WFOR-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.