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| City | Miami, Florida |
| Channels | |
| Branding | WSFL-TV Channel 39 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
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| WPXM-TV | |
| History | |
First air date | October 16, 1982 (43 years ago) (1982-10-16) |
Former call signs |
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Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | South Florida |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 10203 |
| ERP | 1,000kW |
| HAAT | 297 m (974 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 25°58′8″N80°13′19″W / 25.96889°N 80.22194°W /25.96889; -80.22194 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | wsfltv |
WSFL-TV (channel 39) is anindependent television station inMiami, Florida, United States. It is owned by theE. W. Scripps Company alongsideIon Televisionowned-and-operated stationWPXM-TV (channel 35). WSFL-TV's studios are located on Southwest 78th Avenue inPlantation, Florida; its transmitter is located inAndover, Florida.
The station first signed on the air on October 16, 1982, as WDZL. It was originally owned by Channel 39 Broadcasting Ltd. Operating as anindependent station, it maintained a general entertainment format consisting ofcartoons, off-networkdramas, classicmovies, a few older off-networksitcoms, andreligious programs. Odyssey Partners, which would later evolve intoRenaissance Communications (and which had owned WTXX, nowWCCT-TV, inWaterbury, Connecticut), owned an interest in WDZL.
In December 1984,Grant Broadcasting System signed on competing independentWBFS-TV (channel 33) with a stronger general entertainment lineup, and surpassed WDZL in the ratings immediately. Still, WDZL was profitable, especially with the large amount of barter cartoons that was available to the station. It was still running programs that other area stations passed on until thewave of affiliation switches in January 1989. When WCIX (channel 6, nowWFOR-TV on channel 4) was sold toCBS and dropped most of its syndicated programs,Fox programming moved toWSVN (channel 7), which lost itsNBC affiliation toWTVJ (channel 4, now on channel 6), which became an NBC-owned station at that time. Most of the syndicated programs dropped by WCIX, primarily cartoons and sitcoms, were acquired by WDZL, helping it to become a far stronger independent station by the early 1990s (WSVN acquired some of WCIX's cartoons to air on weekend mornings, along most of WCIX's movie packages, while WCIX retained some of its syndicated programs). In 1991, WDZL began branding its children's programming as theFun Zone; theprogramming block was hosted by Lauren D. The station acquired the rights toFox Kids after WSVN dropped the programming block in 1993.
In mid-January 1994, the station began airing theAction Pack programming block with aTekWarTV movie. The rating for the movie were 9.1/13, which was 225% more than November and more than any 2 hour movie from last year.[2]
WDZL became a charterWB affiliate when the network debuted on January 11, 1995. In 1997, theTribune Company acquired Renaissance Communications' six television stations.[3] AsKids' WB programming expanded to three hours on weekdays, the station dropped Fox Kids (which moved toHome Shopping Network station WYHS (channel 69, nowWAMI-TV). Channel 39 altered its call letters to WBZL (simply replacing the "D" with a "B") in 1998 to emphasize its affiliation with The WB.[4] Throughout its affiliation with the network, the station was branded on-air as "WB 39". By that point, WBZL began airing more first-run talk and reality shows during the daytime hours, along with children's programming, and off-network sitcoms in the evenings. By 2005, it was the only remaining station inSouth Florida that still ran children's programs on weekday afternoons due to the presence of Kids' WB (which would discontinue its weekday afternoon block nationwide on December 30, 2005, leaving only a five-hour lineup on Saturday mornings).
On January 24, 2006, theWarner Bros. unit ofTime Warner andCBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB andUPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network calledThe CW.[5][6] On the day of the announcement, Tribune Broadcasting signed a ten-year agreement to affiliate 16 of its WB affiliates, including WBZL, with The CW. However, it would not have been an upset had WBFS (which is owned byCBS News and Stations) been chosen as Miami's CW station. Representatives for the network were on record as preferring the "strongest" WB and UPN stations to become The CW's charter affiliates, and Miami–Fort Lauderdale was one of the few markets where the WB and UPN stations both had relatively strong viewership. Throughout the summer, WBZL started using the CW logo in stationpromotions and also began referring to itself as "CW South Florida". On September 17, the station changed its call letters to WSFL-TV, to reference to its geographic location. WSFL became a charter CW affiliate when the network debuted the next day on September 18.
On September 1, 2008, in a corporate move by Tribune to de-emphasize references to The CW in the branding of its CW-affiliated stations, channel 39 was rebranded as "SFL" and it debuted a logo featuring the stylistic capital "S" in theSun-Sentinelnameplate logo. Around the same time, WSFL moved its operations into the Fort Lauderdale offices of theSun-Sentinel newspaper.[7] By February 2012, the station rebranded as "SFL-TV" to de-emphasize its connection to theSun-Sentinel, as WSFL no longer offers full-scale local newscasts.[8]
On July 10, 2013, Tribune announced plans to spin off its publishing division into a separate company. The split was finalized in 2014, and WSFL-TV remained with the Tribune Company (which retained all non-publishing assets, including the broadcasting, digital media andMedia Services units), while its newspapers (including theSun-Sentinel) became part of the similarly namedTribune Publishing Company.[9] On February 1, 2017, the station reverted to the "CW South Florida" branding.
Sinclair Broadcast Group entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media on May 8, 2017, for $3.9 billion, plus assumption of $2.7 billion in Tribune debt.[10][11] In order to meet regulatory approval, Sinclair agreed to divest WSFL toFox Television Stations[12] in what was part of a $910 million deal;[13] Fox executives declined to make any public statement regarding the status of current affiliate WSVN[14] which had a contract with the network through June 30, 2019.[15] Both transactions were nullified when Tribune Media terminated the merger and filed abreach of contract lawsuit against Sinclair;[16][17] this followed FCC chairmanAjit Pai rejecting the deal[18] and the commission voting to put it through a hearing.[19]
Nexstar Media Group subsequently announced their acquisition of Tribune Media on December 3, 2018, for $6.4 billion in cash and debt.[20] As part of the deal, WSFL was divested to theE. W. Scripps Company in a series of transactions with multiple companies that totaled $1.32 billion.[21][22] The sale was completed on September 19, 2019.[23][24]
On April 19, 2024, Nexstar announced that The CW would not renew its affiliations with Scripps-owned stations, including WSFL-TV; WBFS became the network's new affiliate as of September 1.[25][26]
On July 2, 2024,Scripps Sports, the sports division of the E. W. Scripps Company, announced a deal with theFlorida Panthers, which would put games over the air on WSFL-TV beginning in the2024–25 season.[27]
In 1997, NBC owned-and-operated station WTVJ and theSun-Sentinel entered into a partnership to co-produce a nightly 10 p.m. newscast on WDZL, titledWB 39 News at 10.[28] When the station became a CW affiliate, the newscast's title was changed accordingly toCW News at 10. On March 5, 2008, WTVJ began broadcasting its local newscasts inhigh definition; the 10 p.m. broadcast on WSFL was included in the upgrade. For the duration of the2008 Summer Olympics, WSFL's newscast utilized a two-anchor format and closely mirrored the format of the newscasts airing on WTVJ. The 10 p.m. newscast during this time was broadcast from WTVJ's primary news set at Peacock Plaza inMiramar, with the only alterations being differences in the set's duratrans for the WSFL newscast. The WTVJ-produced newscast on WSFL was one of a handful of newscasts that were produced through news share agreements with Tribune-owned stations, including newscasts airing sister stationsWPHL-TV inPhiladelphia (whose 10 p.m. newscast was originally produced by NBC-ownedWCAU, and has since transferred production toABC-ownedWPVI-TV) andKRCW-TV inPortland, Oregon (whose prime time newscast was originally produced by NBC affiliateKGW, and has since transferred production to Nexstar-owned CBS affiliateKOIN).
On August 26, 2008, WTVJ and WSFL agreed to terminate their news share agreement, most likely due to WTVJ's planned acquisition byPost-Newsweek Stations (then-owner of ABC affiliateWPLG, channel 10), which was later aborted due to financial issues and lack ofFCC approval; the final broadcast of the 10 p.m. newscast aired on August 31. WSFL later began to produce a weekday morning news program, which aired for four hours from 5 to 9 a.m., on April 13, 2009; the program was broadcast out of theSun-Sentinel's former auditorium on the first floor of the Sun-Sentinel Building on Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale.The Morning Show was canceled on August 4, 2010, due to low ratings.[29] The station continues to produce thepublic affairs programSouth Florida Voices, on Sunday mornings at 6 a.m., which is hosted by Deborah Ally; this program was relaunched with a new host and under a new title in September 2010.[29] WSFL also began producing nightly news updates in mid-August 2010, which air five times a day.[29] WSFL also produces local news inserts that appear during its broadcast ofEyeOpener (which is produced byDallas sister stationKDAF) on weekday mornings.[8]
On September 28, 2015, WSFL-TV became the third station to launch the Tribune-developed news format,NewsFix, launching a half-hour prime time newscast,NewsFix SFL at 10:00. The format de-emphasizes the traditional use ofanchors and reporters, in favor of using footage featuring those involved and continuity provided by a narrator to help illustrate the story.[30][31] As of September 2018[update],NewsFix SFL no longer airs on the station.
On November 14, 2019, Scripps announced that they would bring local news back to WSFL, originally starting in spring 2020.[32] However, due in part to theCOVID-19 pandemic, the newscast debut did not occur. On March 10, 2021, it was announced that WPLG (now owned byBH Media) would produce 7–9 a.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts for WSFL, which began on June 1.[33]
On May 6, 2024, the station replaced the WPLG-produced morning newscast withMorning Rush fromScripps News from 8 to 9:30 a.m. The news share agreement ended on August 1, 2025, after WPLG became an independent station.
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 39.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WSFL-DT | Main WSFL-TV programming |
| 39.2 | 480i | CourtTV | Court TV | |
| 39.3 | AntTV | Antenna TV | ||
| 39.4 | IONPLUS | Ion Plus | ||
| 39.5 | QVC | QVC |
WSFL-TV ended regular programming on its analog signal, overUHF channel 39, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 19,[35] usingvirtual channel 39.
Includes English-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Florida | ||
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| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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