| Station | Market | Channel | Affiliation (pre-1989) |
Affiliation (post-1989) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WTVJ | Miami–Fort Lauderdale | 4 | CBS | NBC |
| WCIX | Miami–Fort Lauderdale | 6 | Fox | CBS |
| WSVN | Miami–Fort Lauderdale | 7 | NBC | Fox |
| WPEC | West Palm Beach | 12 | ABC | CBS |
| WPBF | West Palm Beach | 25 | Not signed on | ABC |
| WTVX | West Palm Beach | 34 | CBS | Independent |
On January 1, 1989, six television stations in the Miami–Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, Florida, markets, exchanged network affiliations. The event, referred to in contemporary media coverage as "The Big Switch",[1] was described as "Miami's own soap opera"[2] and at times compared to Dallas and Dynasty because of the lengthy public disputes between multiple parties that preceded it.[3] Approximately three million television viewers in both markets were affected.[4]
The changes were initiated after NBC's January 1987 purchase of WTVJ (channel 4), the market's CBS affiliate. This was the first time that a television network in the United States had purchased an affiliate of one of its competitors; due to existing contractual obligations, WTVJ was taken over by NBC in September 1987 but operated as a CBS affiliate for nearly 16 months. Miami's existing NBC affiliate, WSVN (channel 7), and owner Sunbeam Television protested this transaction, but after Sunbeam president Edmund Ansin failed to come to an affiliation agreement with CBS, CBS purchased the market's Fox affiliate—WCIX (channel 6)—in August 1988, prompting WSVN to join Fox. Due to WCIX's multiple signal and technical deficiencies that prevented them from servicing much of Broward County with a reliable over-the-air signal, West Palm Beach's ABC affiliate WPEC (channel 12) switched to CBS, with existing CBS affiliate WTVX (channel 34) becoming an independent station and WPBF (channel 25) signing on as the new ABC affiliate. WPBF's agreement to join ABC was the first reverse compensation deal in which a station paid a network to affiliate.
The new NBC station, WTVJ, had a mixed ratings performance. On WCIX, CBS struggled in the Miami market for the next six years, with fourth-rated local newscasts despite a major investment in personnel and in additional transmitters to mitigate the coverage issue. Quickly proving to be an influential Fox affiliate, WSVN adopted a tabloid, news-intensive approach that was a ratings success and was duplicated in other markets. In West Palm Beach, WPEC picked up many new Broward County viewers for its CBS network programming but failed to lure them to its newscasts or surpass longtime market leader WPTV. WPBF, the new ABC affiliate, found itself a distant third in the news race and ultimately had to renegotiate the payments it had promised to the network. Without a network affiliation, WTVX's value diminished greatly, and its news department folded in August 1989 after months of cutbacks.
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