| Fort Lauderdale/Miami/West Palm Beach, Florida | |
|---|---|
| Branding | Telemundo 51 (read as "Telemundo Cincuenta y Uno") |
| Slogan | Lo Mejor Está Aquí (The Best is Here) |
| Channels | Digital: 30 (UHF) |
| Subchannels | 51.1 Telemundo |
| Owner | NBCUniversal (NBC Telemundo License Company) |
| First air date | February 14, 1972 |
| Call letters' meaning | eSe (C)se Ve (That one is seen) |
| Sister station(s) | WKAQ-TV, WTVJ |
| Former callsigns | WSMS-TV (1968-1970) WKID-TV (1972-1984) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 51 (1972-2009) Digital: 52 (2003-2009) |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1972–1987) |
| Transmitter power | 1000 kW |
| Height | 304 m |
| Facility ID | 64971 |
| Website | www.telemundo51.com |
WSCV Telemundo 51 is the Telemundo O&O that serves the Miami - Fort Lauderdale area and licensed to Fort Lauderdale. The transmitter is located in Miramar. The station also serves as the de facto Telemundo affiliate for the West Palm Beach market. The station is owned by NBCUniversal along with NBC O&O WTVJ channel 6. Its call letters, when pronounced in Spanish read "Doble-U Ese Se Ve" which means "That one is seen" in English. On March 5, 2008, WSCV became the first Spanish station in the state of Florida to begin transmission of their newscasts in high definition.
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Channel 51 began operations on December 6, 1968 as WSMS-TV, under the ownership of Gold Coast Telecasting; it would go dark August 10, 1970.
Another company acquired the station in January 1972 and returned it to air February 14, 1972 as WKID-TV. The format was a part-English, part-Spanish format. It would later be acquired by an investment group headed by William F. Johns and Alvin Koenig in 1976, after WKID's previous owners went bankrupt.
During the late-1970s, WKID aired Spanish programming during the day and a slate of old English-language films and sitcoms during the overnight hours. With all other Miami-area stations off the air overnights, WKID's late-night programming was a cult hit among South Florida night owls. Dubbed The All Night Show, WKID's late-night block mixed films, TV series, music videos and old cartoons together, along with special guests. The "All Night Show" was hosted by Dave Dixon, an icon from that era of South Florida UHF television. It was said that WKID's All Night Show provided the inspiration for USA Network's similar late-night block, Night Flight. [1] During this era, cable systems that carried WCIX outside of the Miami market (especially Tampa Bay and Orlando) carried WKID late-nights, after WCIX signed off for the night.
In 1980, the group sold WKID to Oak Industries, a cable television equipment manufacturer and operator of ON-TV, a subscription television service, which was offered in the evenings for a monthly subscription fee, required set-top decoder box, and outside antenna. Programming during the day consisted of Financial News Network content, a horse racing show hosted by Bob Savage in the early evening, followed by a brief ON-TV promo and switch to scrambled mode, thus beginning that evening's encoded ON-TV broadcast. With the expansion of cable TV, ON-TV proved an ill fated venture.
Julio Rumbaut, a US Spanish-language media entrepeuneur, led the acquisition and operations of WSCV-TV, by Blair Broadcasting (under their BlairSpan subsidiary) which acquired WKID from Oak and changed the station's callsign to WSCV; new Spanish-language programming commenced in the Spring of 1985 and WSCV positioned its programming as a local, independent Miami-targeted alternative to Spanish International Network affiliate WLTV.
WSCV served as a catalyst and one of the flagship stations of Telemundo as in 1986, The Reliance Group acquired WSCV and Blair's other Spanish-language stations including WNJU in New York, KVEA in Los Angeles and WKAQ-TV in San Juan, Puerto Rico and used them to launch the new Telemundo network in 1987; at this point, WSCV became a ratings contender against long-time leader WLTV. In 2001, WSCV and Telemundo were purchased by NBC.
The station's news identity began with Noticiero 51 a las 6 anchored by Cuban Lucy Pereda and Eduardo Arango. Pereda left a year later to anchor for Univision's first morning show, Mundo Latino, co-anchored by Frank Moro, a Cuban soap star who left to go back to soaps in Mexico. He was substituted by Jorge Ramos, now Univision's main news anchor. The station hired Maria Montoya, a former actress who had arrived in Miami as part of the Mariel boatlift of 1980 and Ambrosio Hernandez who had worked at several stations in Chicago complementing the team which included weathercaster Angel Martin and sportscaster Rene Giraldo.
Maria Montoya and Ambrosio Hernandez, who are still the main anchors at WSCV, are presently the anchor team with the most longevity of any US television anchor team in any language, while Rene Giraldo is a sportscaster on the Telemundo Network.
WSCV was positioned as the "Cuban" station in stark contrast to WLTV which aired Mexican programming and was therefore perceived, in some circles, as less anti-Castro. Their first on-air slogan was "El Canal de Miami' followed by "Somos la gente de Aqui", (We are (Miami's) people).
In 1988 recently hired General Manager Alfredo Duran announced that Univision's local reporting star Alina Mayo Azze, would join the WSCV news team. Her heralded arrival was dimmed when Duran, announced the hire of WLTV's main anchor Leticia Callava to co-anchor the 6 and 11 news programs with Azze. Callava, regarded as the most respected news anchor on Spanish-language television, was fired by WLTV management shortly after Duran defected to Telemundo. Callava and Duran were then a couple and this triggered a series of events that would change the Latin television landscape in Miami. Several news reporters and both Montoya and Hernandez bolted to WLTV as the station tried to reinvent itself.
Under Duran's administration Noticiero 51 was revamped as Noticentro 51 with both Azze and Callava, the first time that two women anchored a Spanish language news program together in Miami. Noticentro 51, became a source for news coverage and won 12 Emmy Awards in the late '80s.
Two years later it was announced that Mayo-Azze was to leave the station. Within months she was anchoring again, but now across town for WLTV. Azze's position was filled by Nicolas Kasanzew, a news anchor from Argentina who became famous covering the Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas/Guerra del Atlántico Sur) for the state-run network ATC (Argentina Televisora Color). Kasanzew was later removed from the anchor desk to make room for Ambrosio Hernandez who decided to make a comeback to Channel 51.
The backstage drama between Callava and Hernandez was more intriguing than what viewers saw on the newscast. Callava and Hernandez did not hit it off in spite of chemistry between the two of them. It was rumored that each would count the stories assigned to them to be on even ground.
In 2001, Noticiero 51 began to expand their news presence in the mornings and on weekends as part of Telemundo's strategic plans. In addition to Miami, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles also added newscasts to their programming. In Miami, Montoya was rehired again by Channel 51 to anchor the morning show.
Two years later Hernandez would be welcoming Montoya back to the 6 and 11 o'clock newscasts as they had done in the late 1980s. After 25 years as Miami's most beloved television personality - 10 years at WLTV and 15 at WSCV, Callava's contract was not renewed when allegedly she refused to take a paycut.
She is now the official on-camera spokesperson for Care Plus, a healthcare conglomerate in Miami owned by Humana. Duran is currently the General Manager for E! Entertainment Television in Latin America.
On March 5, 2008, WSCV began broadcasting their local newscasts in High Definition, the first Spanish-language television station in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale market to do so. WSCV's newscasts will continue to be broadcast in HD for the foreseeable future since a proposed 2008 sale of sister station WTVJ to Post-Newsweek Stations fell through. For over a year, only the newscasts were in 16:9 widescreen HD while all other programming remained in upconverted and pillarboxed 4:3 Standard Definition. That changed on April 23, 2009 when Telemundo became the first Spanish-language network serving the U.S. to begin airing its programming in HD.
For the first time in its history, WSCV Telemundo 51 ranked as the #1 news station at 11 o'clock Monday to Friday, beating the other newscasts and beating main Spanish language rival WLTV Univision 23; numbers as a result of the so called "book" (sweeps) on May 2006.
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