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|---|---|
| City | Fort Myers, Florida |
| Channels | |
| Branding | WINK;WINK News |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner | Fort Myers Broadcasting Company |
| WXCW,WUVF-LD / WLZE-LD, WANA-LD | |
| History | |
First air date | March 18, 1954 (71 years ago) (1954-03-18)[1] |
Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | From former radio sisterWINK; calls pre-date introduction ofCBS Eyemark logo |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 22093 |
| ERP | 793 kW |
| HAAT | 416 m (1,365 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 26°48′2.8″N81°45′44.3″W / 26.800778°N 81.762306°W /26.800778; -81.762306 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WINK-TV (channel 11) is atelevision station licensed toFort Myers, Florida, United States, serving as theCBS affiliate forSouthwest Florida. It is owned by the McBride family and their Fort Myers Broadcasting Company, making it one of a handful of TV stations today to have locally-based ownership. Fort Myers Broadcasting also provides certain services to threeNaples-licensed stations under ashared services agreement (SSA) with Sun Broadcasting:CW affiliateWXCW (channel 46),low-powerUnivision affiliateWUVF-LD (channel 2), and low-power WANA-LD (channel 18). The stations share studios on Palm Beach Boulevard (SR 80) in northeast Fort Myers; WINK-TV's transmitter is located north ofFort Myers Shores, near theCharlotte–Lee county line.
The station began broadcasting on March 18, 1954, owned by the family of taxicab magnate andCleveland Browns founderMickey McBride along with WINK radio (1240 AM, later used on1200 AM; and96.9 FM).[1][3] WINK-TV was the first television station inSouthwest Florida and is the fifth-oldest surviving station in the state. Although the call letters appear to be an outgrowth of its CBS affiliation, in fact they were simply carried over from its radio sister, which adopted them in 1944—seven years before theCBS Eye made its first appearance.[3] It carried programming from the four major networks of its era: CBS,NBC,ABC andDuMont in the first two decades of its existence. However, it has always been a primary CBS affiliate.
Channel 11 lost DuMont when that network ended operations in 1956. In December 1968, WINK-TV finally gained a local competitor whenWBBH-TV signed on and took the NBC affiliation. The two stations continued to share ABC until WEVU-TV (nowWZVN-TV) signed on in 1974. However, viewers could watch the full ABC and NBC schedules via stations fromMiami–Fort Lauderdale,West Palm Beach andTampa–St. Petersburg, which were and continue to be available with outdoor antennas.
WINK-TV was a major beneficiary of a quirk in theFCC's plan for allocating stations. In the early days of broadcast television, there were twelveVHF channels available and 69 UHF channels (later reduced to 55 in 1983). The VHF bands were more desirable because they carried longer distances. Since there were only twelve VHF channels available, there were limitations as to how closely the stations could be spaced.
After the FCC'sSixth Report and Order ended the license freeze and opened the UHF band in 1952, it devised a plan for allocating VHF licenses. Under this plan, almost all of the country would be able to receive two commercial VHF channels plus one noncommercial channel. Most of the rest of the country ("1/2") would be able to receive a third VHF channel. Other areas would be designated as "UHF islands" since they were too close to larger cities for VHF service. The "2" networks became CBS and NBC, "+1" representednon-commercial educational stations, and "1/2" became ABC (which was the weakest network then usually winding up with the UHF allocation where no VHF was available).
However, Fort Myers is sandwiched between Miami–Fort Lauderdale (channels2,4,6,7 and10) and West Palm Beach (channels5 and12) to the east andTampa Bay (channels3,8,10, and13) to the north. This created a large doughnut in southwest Florida where there could be onlyone VHF license. WINK-TV was fortunate to gain that license, and as a result was the only local station that provided a clear picture to outlying portions of the market until cable television arrived in the mid-1970s. Although there was no station on channel 9 in the immediate area, it was occupied inOrlando, which was too close to Fort Myers to reallocate.
The station has identified almost exclusively with its call letters since the mid-1980s. This is due in large part to the extremely high penetration of cable andsatellite in Southwest Florida—one of the highest in the nation. Cable and satellite are all but essential for acceptable television reception in much of the market, even in the digital age.
On October 20, 2007, WINK-TV became the first television station in Southwest Florida to begin broadcasting inhigh definition. In January 2008, several programming changes were made on WINK-TV. It began airingThe Early Show (which was replaced byCBS This Morning in January 2012, which in turn was replaced byCBS Mornings in September 2021) in its entirety after CBS began requiring all of its affiliates to air the full two-hour broadcast of the program.[citation needed]
During the landfall ofHurricane Ian on September 28, 2022, the station's studio in downtown Fort Myers was inundated by storm surge flooding from nearby Billy Creek, knocking WINK-TV, WXCW and their sister radio stations off the air.[4] On September 30, WINK-TV returned to the air from a makeshift studio at its transmitter site, though using WXCW's main channel to broadcast the WINK-TV schedule.[5]
WINK-TV presently broadcasts 46 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with7+1⁄2 hours each weekday,3+1⁄2 hours on Saturdays and five hours on Sundays).[citation needed] The McBrides have always devoted significant resources to channel 11's news operation, resulting in a higher-quality product than conventional wisdom would suggest for Fort Myers, which has always been a small-to-medium-sized market. It was the undisputed market leader until upstart WBBH briefly passed it in the 1970s. WINK pulled back ahead in the 1980s, and has spent the last four decades in a spirited battle for first place with WBBH.
WINK-TV operates two news bureaus: theCharlotte County Bureau in theCharlotte Sun newsroom inCharlotte Harbor and theCollier County Bureau in Naples. TheBoston Red Sox have heldspring training in Fort Myers since 1993, and WINK-TV shares its coverage of the team with fellow CBS stationWBZ-TV inBoston.[citation needed]
On May 26, 2011, WINK-TV debuted an hour-long 4 p.m. newscast, one of many added on television stations around the United States on that date to replaceThe Oprah Winfrey Show, which ended its 25-year run the day before.[6] On June 11, 2011, WINK-TV debuted a 90-minute morning newscast on Saturday and Sunday mornings.[7] WINK-TV also added a half-hour late morning newscast at 10 a.m. on September 6, 2011 (which was later dropped).[8] On September 16, 2013, WINK-TV expanded its weekday morning newscast a half-hour early to 4:30 a.m. and expanded the extension of that program on WXCW by one hour to 7 to 10 a.m.[9] In January 2015, WINK-TV expanded the 6:30 p.m. newscast to weekends on WXCW.[10]
Notable former staff includeHoda Kotb (1989–1991),[11]Craig Sager,[12]Trey Radel,[13]Kerry Sanders,[14] andRandy Scott.[15]
The station's signal ismultiplexed, with most of the station's subchannels used to relay WINK's sister radio stations:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WINK HD | CBS |
| 11.2 | 480i | 4:3 | MY NET |
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| 11.3 | Audio only | WHEL | 93.7 FM | |
| 11.4 | WARO-FM | 94.5 FM | ||
| 11.5 | WFSX-FM | 92.5 FM | ||
| 11.6 | WINK-FM | 96.9 FM | ||
| 11.7 | WTLQ-FM | 97.7 FM | ||
| 11.8 | WFFY-FM | 98.5 FM | ||
WINK-TV operates the Naples–Fort Myers market'sAntenna TV affiliate on its DT2 subchannel[17] (as of March 1, 2019), replacing a standard definition simulcast of the primary/CBS feed that had been airing over that subchannel since 2016,[18] that simulcast having replaced an affiliation with a24/7 Weather service that aired over WINK-DT2 between 2012 and 2015.[19] As of March 4, 2019, WINK-DT2 also carries theMyNetworkTV programming service on weeknights, filling in programming for all time slots outside of the MyNetworkTV programming schedule with the Antenna TV schedule;[20] the March 2019 relaunch of WINK-DT2 as a dual Antenna TV/MyNetworkTV affiliate restored in-market access to the MyNetworkTV programming service to southwest Florida for the first time since Comcast's July 1, 2015, closure of former cable-exclusive dual MyNetworkTV/This TV affiliate,WNFM-TV.
WINK has been digital-only since February 17, 2009.[21] It moved its digital signal to UHF channel 50 in mid-2011.[22][citation needed]
WINK-TV is one of two Fort Myers stations carried by Xfinity inVenice andWauchula. It is the only Southwest Florida-based station carried on Xfinity'sSebring system.[23]
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