TVX is the CW-affiliated television station for West Palm Beach, Florida that is licensed to Fort Pierce. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 34 from a transmitter southwest of Palm City and I-95 in Martin County. Owned by the Four Points Media Group and operated by the Nexstar Broadcasting Group through a local service agreement (LSA), the station is sister to Class A MyNetworkTV affiliate WTCN-CA and Class A Azteca America affiliate WWHB-CA. All three share studios in a high-rise office building at the corner of Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard and North Congress Avenue in West Palm Beach.
Despite WTVX's call sign, it was never owned by the TVX Broadcast Group which coincidentally was a predecessor to former owner Paramount Stations Group, now called CBS Television Stations. Syndicated programming on WTVX includes: Friends, That '70s Show, Two and a Half Men, and Judge Judy. It can be seen on Comcast channel 4 (in Palm Beach, Martin, southern St. Lucie, and Indian River Counties).
| |
| West Palm Beach, Florida | |
|---|---|
| Branding | The CW West Palm |
| Channels | Digital: 34 (UHF) |
| Subchannels | 34.1 The CW34.2 Azteca America34.3 MyNetworkTV
34.4 LATV |
| Owner | Four Points Media Group
(operated through LSA by Nexstar Broadcasting Group) (West Palm Beach Television Licensee Corporation) |
| First air date | April 5, 1962 |
| Call letters' meaning | disambiguation of WTVJ (which WTVX replaced at sign-on) |
| Sister station(s) | WTCN-CA
WWHB-CA |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog:
34 (UHF, 1966-2009) Digital: 50 (UHF) |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1962, 1989-1995)CBS (1962-1989)UPN (1995-2006) |
| Transmitter power | 1,000 kW |
| Height | 455.7 m |
| Facility ID | 35575 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 27°7′19″N 80°23′20″W |
Digital programming[]
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 34.1 | main WTVX programming/The CW HD |
| 34.2 | WWHB-CA Azteca America |
| 34.3 | WTCN-CA "My 15" |
| 34.4 | WTVX-DT4 LATV |
| [1]WTVX-DT2 | [2]WTVX-DT3 | [3]WTVX-DT4 |
History[]
WTVX logo during most of the 1980s.
WTVX began operations as an independent station on April 5, 1966 and soon after became a CBS affiliate. Airing an analog signal on UHF channel 34, it was the market's third television outlet to sign-on after NBC affiliate WPTV-TV and ABC affiliate WPEC. Despite its call sign, the station was never owned by the TVX Broadcast Group, which coincidentally was a predecessor to former owner Paramount Stations Group.
It was originally owned by Indian River Television and based in a small building along U.S. 1 just south of the St. Lucie/Indian River County line. Prior to the station becoming a CBS affiliate, Miami's WTVJ was the market's default CBS affiliate. Even after WTVX launched, its UHF signal was not nearly as powerful as WTVJ's VHF signal, and the latter continued to be recognized as the CBS affiliate for the Palm Beaches. It was not until the 1980s when cable penetration allowed WTVX to gain significant audience in Palm Beach. Even then, it remained stubbornly in the ratings basement. It not only had to contend with local rivals WPTV and WPEC, but also with WTVJ, one of the strongest CBS affiliates in the nation. Indian River Television sold the station to the Spain family of Tupelo, Mississippi in 1979. The station later relocated its operations to a new studio facility located on North 25th Street/SR 615 in Fort Pierce.
In 1987, NBC bought WTVJ. CBS then bought former Fox affiliate WCIX (now WFOR-TV), which had a Grade B signal in Fort Lauderdale and Broward County. In hopes of improving its signal in Broward County, CBS persuaded WPEC to switch its affiliation to CBS; WPEC has a fairly strong city-grade signal in Broward County. Logically, this should have allowed WTVX to take the ABC affiliation. However, ABC opted instead to align with new sign-on WPBF-TV. This left WTVX as an independent station once again. It bought a significant number of WPBF's classic sitcom and cartoon inventory, since WPBF no longer had time to air it.
During the day, the station showed movies, drama shows, and talk shows. By the summer of 1989, more sitcoms and cartoons were added to the schedule. In 1991, WTVX was sold to Krypton Broadcasting. Krypton filed for bankruptcy in 1993 and the station was acquired by Whitehead Media at an auction in 1994. Whitehead Media then entered into a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Paxson Communications, then owner of WPBF.
On January 16, 1995, Paramount/Viacom joined with Chris Craft/United Television to form the United Paramount Network (UPN). WTVX immediately became an affiliate of this new network. When WPBF was sold to the Hearst Corporation in early-1997, Viacom's Paramount Stations Group acquired WTVX. However at that time, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) did not permit one entity to directly own two television stations in adjacent markets whose city-grade signals overlapped. Miami's WBFS-TV provided a city-grade signal to West Palm Beach (indeed, for years, WBFS identified as "Miami/Fort Lauderdale/West Palm Beach"), so Paramount could not retain both stations.
To solve the problem, Paramount sold the license and other FCC assets of WTVX to Straightline Communications, with WBFS taking over as WTVX' LMA partner. A similar arrangement existed in New England where Straightline Communications acquired the FCC assets of WLWC in New Bedford, Massachusetts with Viacom's Boston station WSBK-TV operating that station through a similar LMA.
By the late-1990s, like other netlet stations, WTVX had started to move away from cartoons and sitcoms adding more talk-reality and court shows. In the early-2000s, WTVX started to carry The WB on a secondary basis. Programming from that network, such as 7th Heaven, aired after UPN prime time. However, the full WB schedule could be seen via Miami's WBZL-TV. The station soon re-branded from "UPN 34" to "TVX 34," which was based on its call letters.
Viacom would later buy WTVX and WLWC outright in 2001. After Viacom merged with the previous CBS Corporation, master control and some other internal operations of WTVX were integrated into WBFS and WFOR's studios on Northwest 18th Terrace in Doral (WFOR served as the flagship of the network-owned cluster, dubbed the "CBS South Florida Television Station Group"). Throughout CBS ownership of WTVX and WTCN (as well as WWHB), the stations maintained local offices in West Palm Beach at Beacon Circle.
In the fall of 2005, WTCN-CA (then a little-known community access channel) became the area's new WB affiliate after Viacom's acquisition of that station. As a result, WTVX reverted to solely being a UPN station and returned to the "UPN 34" branding. On January 24, 2006, Time Warner and CBS announced the WB and UPN networks would end broadcasting and merge to form The CW, effective in September 2006. On February 22, News Corporation announced it would start up another new network called MyNetworkTV. This new service, which would be a sister network to Fox, would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created in order to give UPN and WB stations, not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates, another option besides becoming independent.
On the same day The CW's formation was announced, it signed a ten-year affiliation agreement with eleven CBS-owned UPN stations, including WTVX. Even without the affiliation deal, its full-powered status made it the obvious choice as the new network's affiliate for the Gold and Treasure Coasts. This left WTCN to either revert to an Independent station or join MyNetworkTV. It chose the latter option and became part of the other new programming service on September 5 while WTVX officially launched The CW on September 18.
On February 7, 2007, CBS agreed to sell seven of its smaller-market stations to Cerberus Capital Management (including WTVX, WTCN, WWHB, and WLWC) for $185 million. Cerberus formed a new holding company for the stations, Four Points Media Group, which took over the operation of the stations through local marketing agreements in late-June 2007 until the group deal closed on January 10, 2008. At this point in time, local operations of WTVX, WTCN, and WWHB moved to offices on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard.[2] However, master control was eventually moved to Four Points' hub facility at KUTV in Salt Lake City, Utah on February 25, 2008. On March 20, 2009, the Nexstar Broadcasting Group took over the management of Four Points under a three-year outsourcing agreement.
Until the sale to Four Points, WTVX was one of three former CBS affiliates that later became CW stations that were owned by CBS. The other two are KSTW in Seattle and WPCW in Pittsburgh both of which are still owned by the network. On September 8, 2011, the Sinclair Broadcast Group announced its intent to purchase Four Points from Cerberus Capital Management for $200 million. The former company then began managing the stations (including WTVX, WTCN, WWHB, and WLWC) under local marketing agreements following antitrust approval by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Sinclair subsequently announced the acquisition of the television station division of Freedom Communications (owner of WPEC) which resulted in WTVX becoming a sister station to the CBS affiliate.[6] The deal with Sinclair acquiring Four Points was completed on January 3, 2012. Although WTVX, WTCN, and WWHB initially retained separate operations from WPEC, they would eventually be merged into WPEC's studios.
News operation[]
Its logo for the 6:30 news
As a CBS affiliate, WTVX operated a news department from its studios in Fort Pierce and maintained newsrooms in Stuart and West Palm Beach. Soon after the loss of the affiliation, it began to phase out its newscasts eventually ceasing completely by Summer 1989. At one point as a CW affiliate, the station aired news updates under the title CW News Now on its website. In Summer 2008, WTVX created a new news department (and on August 4) debuted CW West Palm News At 10. This production initially aired seven nights a week for 35 minutes and in high definition starting on September 15. As its first news broadcast to air in nearly twenty years, it competed with the well-established 10 o'clock news on Fox affiliate WFLX. As was the case with that station, WTVX's broadcast also rated in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale market where it competed with similar newscasts on WSVN and WBFS-TV.
At some point in time, the Saturday night broadcast was dropped. On March 2, 2009, WTVX moved the show to weeknights at 6:30 when the national news programs air on the big three stations. On June 8, 2009, the station discontinued its newscast altogether. Throughout its life, the CW newscast was produced by owner Four Points Media Group in conjunction with sister station KUTV. The news originated from a secondary set at that station's studios on Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City. WTVX's studios functioned as a news bureau with two reporters local to West Palm Beach. It continues to air the nationally syndicated morning show The Daily Buzz on weekday mornings from 6 to 8 that is produced from studios on the campus of Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida. There is also a public affairs show called Around Our Town that is aired Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 8 and on Sunday mornings at 7 hosted by Aneta Sewell.
Newscast titles[]
- X-34 News (1960s-1980s)
- News Source 34 (1980s)
- WTVX News (1980s–1989)
- CW West Palm News at 10 (2008-2009)
- CW West Palm News at 6:30 (2009)
- CBS 12 News at 10 on CW 34 (2014-present)
Station slogans[]
- "I got to know 'em!" (1970s-1980s)
- "The Spirit of the Treasure Coast" (1986-1992)
- "Good Time TV!" (2002-2006)
- "Free to be CW" (2006-2007, used to promote switch to The CW)
- "All Your News in Half the Time" (2008-2009)
Former staff[]
- Fields Moseley - weeknight news anchor
- Cristina Flores - weeknight news anchor
- Claudia Shea - weekend news anchor and reporter (during CBS affiliation)
- now at WPEC/WFLX
- Sterling Poulson - weeknight meteorologist
- Dave Fox - weeknight sports anchor
- Lane Wright - news reporter
- Michelle Visage - entertainment reporter and heard on WEAT-FM 104.3
- Fadia Patterson - Multimedia Journalist of Around Our Town
- AnEta Sewell - host of Around Our Town
Logos[]
References[]
- ^ "Nexstar/Four Points fired up to add 4th network in West Palm". Television Business Report. June 24, 2010. http://www.rbr.com/tv-cable/25350.html. Retrieved June 25, 2010.