WSFL-TV
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| WSFL-TV | |
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| Miami / Fort Lauderdale, Florida | |
| Branding | CW South Florida |
| Channels | 39 (UHF) analog, 19 (UHF) digital |
| Affiliations | CW |
| Owner | Tribune Broadcasting |
| Founded | October 4, 1982 |
| Call letters meaning | South Florida |
| Former callsigns | WDZL (1982-1998) WBZL (1998-2006) |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1982-1995) The WB (1995-2006) |
| Website | cwsfl.trb.com |
WSFL-TV is the CW affiliate in the Miami / Fort Lauderdale, Florida area. It transmits its analog signal on UHF channel 39, and its digital signal on UHF channel 19. It is owned by Tribune Broadcasting. Along with programming from the CW network, the station also airs off-network sitcoms, cartoons from Kids' WB, first run syndicated talk, court, and reality shows. WSFL also airs a daily 10 p.m. newscast, CW News at 10, produced by WTVJ and the Sun-Sentinel. The website of the Sun-Sentinel features news video from WSFL newscasts.
The channel is carried nationwide by DirecTV and Dish Network, in addition to KSWB, in markets that lack local CW affiliates. This feed is not to be confused with a custom feed of the CW shown on DirecTV channel 385 since the start of 2007. It appears to contain some WSFL programs, such as Atlantic Coast Conference basketball, but channel 385 does not have any newscasts and more closely resembles The CW Plus.
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[edit] History
Channel 39 signed on as WDZL-TV on October 4, 1982. It was owned by Channel 39 Broadcasting Ltd. It programmed a general entertainment format of cartoons, off-network dramas, old movies, a few old off-network sitcoms and religious shows. Michael Finkelstein of "Odyssey Partners", who owned WTXX 20 in Hartford-Waterbury, Connecticut, owned an interest in WDZL-TV.
In 1984, Grant Broadcasting's WBFS channel 33 signed on with a stronger general entertainment lineup, and surpassed WDZL in the ratings immediately. Still, WDZL was profitable especially with the huge amount of barter cartoons available to the station.
WDZL was still running shows other stations passed up until the wave of affiliation switches in 1989. By then the ownership was known as Renaissance Broadcasting, also headed by Michael Finkelstein. When WCIX (now WFOR-TV) was sold to CBS and dropped most of its syndicated shows, Fox programming moved to WSVN. The rest of the programming dropped from WCIX moved to WDZL.
By the early 1990s, WDZL had become a far stronger independent station. It acquired Fox Kids programming from WSVN in 1993.
WDZL became a WB affiliate in 1995. In 1997, Renaissance sold WDZL to Tribune in a group deal. Kids' WB would expand to 3 hours on weekdays and WDZL would drop Fox Kids, which would move to Home Shopping Network station WYHS (now WAMI).
WDZL changed its call letters to WBZL in 1998. By then, WBZL began airing more first-run talk shows and reality shows during the day, along with the kids fare and off-network sitcoms in the evenings. By 2005 it was the only remaining station to run children's shows weekday afternoons with Kids WB, which ended on January 6, 2006.
On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN networks announced they would merge. The newly combined network is 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 merger took effect on-the-air in September 2006, and WBZL became the Miami/Fort Lauderdale affiliate. Former UPN station WBFS-TV, owned by CBS, switched to Fox's MyNetworkTV. WBZL started using their CW logo for local TV ads, and also began referring to itself as CW South Florida.
On September 17, 2006, WBZL changed its call letters to WSFL-TV to remove the reference to the no-longer-existent WB in its calls and genericize them to its geographic location.
[edit] Newscast
All newscasts are produced by the area's NBC affiliate WTVJ.
CW News at 10 (10 to 10:30 PM)
Weekdays
- Anchors: Michael Williams & Julia Yarbough
- Weather: Paul Deanno
- Sports: Joe Rose
Weekends
- Anchor: Joel Connable
- Weather: John Gerard
- Sports: Guy Rawlings
[edit] Logos
 WDZL Logo from 1984 - 1989 |
 WDZL Logo from 1989 - 1994 |
 WBZL Logo from 1995 - 2000 |
 WBZL Logo from 2001 - 2006 based on a design by Pixel Soup |
 Current WSFL logo. |
[edit] External links
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Miami-Dade / Fort Lauderdale, Florida stations |
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| Local television stations In Key West (These stations either serve Miami proper, or are repeaters of Miami stations.) WGEN 8 (Ind) - WSBS 22 (Ind) - W38AA 38 / W39AC 39 (CBS) - W44AC 44 / W52BB 52 / W58BU 58 (NBC) - W47AC 47 (ABC) - WKIZ-LP 49 (FOX) |
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| Local digital television channels | ||
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WJHG-DT 7.2 (Panama City) - WCWJ 17 (Jacksonville) - WKCF 18 (Clermont) - WCJB-DT 20.2 (Gainesville) - WTVX 34 (Fort Pierce) |
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| See also: ABC, CBS, Fox, MyNetworkTV, NBC, PBS, Religious, Spanish and Other stations in the state of Florida | |
