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| City | Tampa, Florida |
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| History | |
First air date | March 1, 1988 (37 years ago) (1988-03-01) |
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Call sign meaning | "Vea" isSpanish for "I see" (present subjunctive) |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 60559 |
| ERP | 1,000kW |
| HAAT | 421 m (1,381 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 27°50′51.5″N82°15′49.4″W / 27.847639°N 82.263722°W /27.847639; -82.263722 |
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Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WVEA-TV (channel 50) is atelevision station licensed toTampa, Florida, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-languageUnivision andUniMás networks to theTampa Bay area.Owned and operated byTelevisaUnivision, WVEA-TV maintains studios in the Westlake Corporate Center office park (nearSR 589) in Tampa, and its transmitter is located on anantenna farm inRiverview, Florida.
The station first signed on the air on March 1, 1988, as WBHS (a "-TV" suffix was added to the call sign in 1992), serving as theflagship station of the Home Shopping Network (HSN) and the 12th station owned by the company through its broadcasting arm Silver King Communications.[2] HSN programming was supplemented with locally producedpublic affairs and human interest briefs for4+1⁄2 minutes each hour, which exceeded the number of hoursindependent stations were required to provide local programming (over 12 broadcast hours a week, counting repeats). The Sunday schedule was devoted to children's programming, including 1970s shows such asNew Zoo Revue, to expose them to a younger audience.
In 1996,Barry Diller acquired the Home Shopping Network; two years later, HSN acquiredUSA Networks and renamed the broadcasting group asUSA Broadcasting. Plans emerged in the late 1990s to convert WBHS-TV into a general entertainment independent station by 2002, mirroring the local programming-infused format that was already adopted by its stations in cities such asAtlanta,Dallas–Fort Worth andMiami; however, USA Broadcasting decided to sell its television stations in 2000, before any plans to change the station's format were made.The Walt Disney Company made a bid to acquire the group (which could have made a partnership withScripps-ownedWFTS-TV, which recently just became the new ABC affiliate for Tampa Bay over 5 years ago at the time), but was outbid bySpanish-language broadcasterUnivision Communications. WBHS-TV remained with HSN until January 14, 2002, when it became a charterowned-and-operated station of Univision's secondary network TeleFutura (which was renamedUniMás in January 2013) and changed its call letters to WFTT.
On December 4, 2017, as part of a multi-market realignment, the programming and call signs of WFTT and sister station WVEA-TV were swapped:WFTT-TV and its UniMás programming moved to the Entravision-owned facility using digital channel 25 and virtual channel 62, while Univision's digital channel 47 and virtual channel 50 facility became the new home of WVEA-TV.[3]
On October 13, 2021, Univision announced it would take over operation of WVEA-TV, as well as Orlando Univision affiliateWVEN-TV, effective January 1, 2022, coinciding with the end of licensing agreements on December 31, 2021.[4]
In addition, even though WVEA-TV's public file shows them located at their former studios on Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa (in a former Barnett Bank building west of Armenia Avenue), WVEA-TV moved their facilities to the Westlake Corporate Center office park almost 4 miles (6.4 km) north of theTampa International Airport.[5] This was made possible due to the FCC's Main Studio Rule being repealed in 2019. As WVEA-TV's newscast operates from their Orlando sister station WVEN-TV, their new facility houses their advertising sales office and their news vehicles serving the Tampa Bay area.
WVEA-TV presently broadcasts five hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with one hour each weekday); the station does not broadcast any news programming on Saturdays or Sundays. The station's news department shares resources withOrlando sister stationWVEN-TV. WVEA simulcast WVEN's news programming until 2013, when WVEA began producing its own newscasts under the titleNoticias Tampa Bay. On November 2, 2015, production of WVEA's newscasts was transferred back to WVEN; under this arrangement, WVEA's early evening newscast is producedlive to tape an hour before WVEN's live newscast.[6] In 2011, it produced five-minute news blocks onFacebook which ended when the news department relaunched. WVEN continues to produce sports and weather segments inserted into WVEA's newscasts.
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
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| 50.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WVEA | Univision |
| 50.2 | 480i | MSGold | MovieSphere Gold | |
| 50.3 | 4:3 | Get-TV | Get | |
| 50.4 | 16:9 | Confess | Confess by Nosey | |
| 50.5 | ShopLC | Shop LC | ||
| 50.6 | 720p | Unimas | UniMás | |
| 50.7 | 480i | BT2 | Infomercials |
Until 2013, WVEA-TV carried the Spanish-languagemusic video network ZUUS Latino[8] on its thirddigital subchannel. Until 2025, the station carriedIon Mystery on the fourth subchannel.[9][10]
WVEA-TV (as WFTT-TV) shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 50, on June 12, 2009, as part of thefederally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[11] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 47, usingvirtual channel 50.
Includes Spanish-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Florida | ||
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