WVEN-TV

WVEN-TV

Melbourne–Orlando, Florida United States
City	Melbourne, Florida
Channels	Digital: 22 (UHF) Virtual: 43
Branding	Univision Orlando (general) Noticias Univision Orlando (newscasts)
Programming
Affiliations	43.1: Univision 43.7: UniMás for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	TelevisaUnivision (UniMas Orlando, Inc.)
Sister stations	WRCF-CD
History
First air date	July 5, 1982 (42 years ago) (1982-07-05)
Former call signs	WMOD (1982–1988) WBSF (1988–2001) WFUO (2001–2002) WOTF (2002–2003) WOTF-TV (2004–2009) WOTF-DT (2009–2017)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 43 (UHF, 1982–2009) Digital: 20 (UHF, until 2009), 43 (UHF, 2009–2020)
Former affiliations	Independent (1982–1988) HSN (1988–2002) UniMás (2002–2017)
Call sign meaning	"Ven" (Spanish for "come" or "they see")
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	5802
ERP	1,000 kW
HAAT	492 m (1,614 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	28°35′12.6″N 81°4′57.5″W / 28.586833°N 81.082639°W / 28.586833; -81.082639
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.univision.com/local/orlando-wven

WVEN-TV (channel 43) is a television station licensed to Melbourne, Florida, United States, serving as the Orlando area outlet for the Spanish-language network Univision. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside low-power, Class A UniMás station WRCF-CD (channel 29). The two stations share studios on Douglas Avenue in Altamonte Springs; WVEN-TV's transmitter is located in Bithlo, Florida.

Channel 43 went on the air as WMOD, an English-language independent station, on July 5, 1982. Built by an investor group led by former U.S. representative Louis Frey Jr., the station was the first broadcast TV station in Brevard County. Its early history was pocked with technical and financial trouble; the station's launch was delayed a day due to technical troubles, and signal issues caused many advertisers to flee. A larger signal issue was created when federal aviation authorities refused to allow the station to raise the height of its tower, which would have improved reception in the populous Orlando area.

In 1985, New Jersey–based Press Broadcasting bought WMOD, intending to make it a more highly viewed independent in the Orlando market. It soon struggled with the same signal limitations and began a search for a remedy. In the meantime, it ceded most of the station's airtime, as well as a purchase option, to the Home Shopping Network (HSN). This gave Press time to purchase a construction permit for channel 68 and to set up a future swap to channel 18. HSN assigned its purchase option to Black-owned Blackstar Communications, which took over WMOD in April 1988 and began running it as an all-home shopping station under the new call sign WBSF. Press retained the station's syndicated programming inventory and used it to launch WKCF later that year.

Blackstar sold WBSF to USA Broadcasting in 1998, but a planned change in program format never materialized, and USA Broadcasting sold the station to Univision in 2001. It was one of the USA Broadcasting stations used to start the Telefutura network—precursor to UniMás—on January 14, 2002. The station changed call signs, first to WFUO and then to WOTF-TV. Univision already had a local affiliate in Orlando, WVEN-TV (channel 26), and let its owner, Entravision Communications, handle local sales and promotion for WOTF-TV and Univision-owned Telefutura stations in five other markets. In 2017, in most of these markets, Univision and UniMás switched signals, moving Univision programming to the Univision-owned license even though Entravision continued to handle operations; as a result, WVEN-TV and WOTF-TV exchanged call signs. In Orlando and Tampa, this agreement was wound down at the end of 2021, making WVEN-TV a Univision owned-and-operated station.