Number-centric call letters Sunbeam filed paperwork with the FCC in mid-March 1983 to change WCKT's call sign to WSVN, derived from "seven", while retaining their existing "South Florida 7" slogan. Calling it "one of the biggest moves" made by the station in recent years, general manager Robert Leider explained that the Miami market was now more familiar identifying the station by channel number, saying, "if someone asks you if you saw
Hill Street Blues last night, you say, 'Yeah, I saw it last night on Ch. 7'... you don't say 'on WCKT.'" The station was also being placed on different channel positions over area
cable systems, in some cases on channels "O" and "D" instead of "7". Leider regarded the "WSVN" name as easier to viewers to remember, thus providing a competitive advantage. As part of the change, Sunbeam acquired the rights for the WSVN call letters from
PBS member
WBRA-TV in
Roanoke, Virginia, which had used them for their
Norton-licensed satellite. Sunbeam invested a total of $150,000 into this change, including $50,000 for the call letter purchase and FCC paperwork, and $100,000 for an extensive marketing campaign. The call sign change was effective at 7 a.m. on June 7, 1983, with
News radio critic Tom Jicha joking, "...the station should have gone all the way and done it at 7:07 on July 7". NBC engaged in
cross-promotion to help the station unveil their new "WSVN" name, mentioning it on-air both
Today and
The Tonight Show. Network executives Grant Tinker and
Steve Sohmer both sent congratulatory letters to Leider on the name change, and Sohmer began to advise NBC affiliates on how to stress their respective call letters for future promotions. Even with the name change, WSVN continued to struggle in the ratings at both 6 and 11 p.m., often finishing in third place after WTVJ and WPLG. News director David Choate said, "we're not the favorite station for news in Miami... we keep battling [WTVJ] for second place". Wayne Fariss left the station on January 31, 1984, initially retiring after a 36-year broadcasting career; a brief comeback attempt as vice president of news for
WEVU-TV in
Naples ended after Fariss suffered a heart attack. Lead anchor Steve Rondinaro left in August 1984 after declining an offer to return to field reporting, calling wages paid to anchors "
hazard pay" due to their jobs being dependent on ratings. Rondinaro's coverage of the
1984 Democratic National Convention, praised by local media, occurred after his departure was announced. His replacement was
CNN Headline News anchor
Peter Ford, an
Australian native. WSVN debuted
Live at Five, an hour-long lifestyle-centered newscast anchored by Denise White and Frank Robertson, on August 1, 1986. While in development for nearly a year with a $2 million (equivalent to $ in ) investment, production manager Frank Biancuzzo said, "we're going to be the
David Letterman of the 5 p.m. shows, in that we'll try anything." WSVN also began a series of remote broadcasts spotlighting the region's history titled
Celebrating South Florida and billed themselves as "Your Hometown Station".
Live at Five struggled in the ratings; the May 1987 sweeps book showed minimal improvement over
Quincy, M.E. reruns that it replaced, with
Sun-Sentinel critic Bill Kelley saying, "the way I look at it, if you're determined to keep that ailing family dog that everyone in town has been telling you to put to sleep, you do more for him than give him a bath." Rick Sanchez, who was in consideration to co-host
Live at Five, was suspended in March 1986 after revelations of ties to
influence peddler Alberto San Pedro came to light. While not directly implicated in any criminal activity, Sanchez left the Miami market to take a reporting job with Houston's
KHOU. Choate expressed frustration at continued perception of WSVN as a "perennial third-place station" while critics noted the newscasts had improved substantially since Fariss's 1980 removal from evenings. The station even made the news on October 17, 1985, when an
electrical fire broke out in the studio during the 11 p.m. newscast, temporarily forcing the station off the air. Veteran weatherman Wayne Chandler suffered a severe head injury in a
vehicular collision on December 7, 1984. By coincidence, Chandler's hospitalization occurred hours after Wayne Fariss was hospitalized for his heart attack. Chandler's
Sunday Funnies co-host Toby the Robot previously "retired" on April 1, 1984, when Charlie Folds accepted a full-time role as WSVN's public relations director. Folds later said of his last day playing the robot, "when I put on that costume, I
became Toby." Despite hopes of an on-air return, Chandler never fully recovered from his injuries and was forced to retire. Folds (as himself) took over as host of
Sunday Funnies, which continued production through 1986. Long-running public affairs shows
Impacto,
Perspectives and
Florida Forum, which operations manager Dave Bieber called "holdovers from a significant number of years ago", were all canceled at the end of 1986 in advance of NBC's planned spring 1987 launch of
Sunday Today. The presence of
Live at Five as a daily program that already covered similar topics to those shows was regarded as an upgrade.
The Miami network affiliation dispute WSVN became the central figure in a complicated dispute between Sunbeam, NBC and CBS that lasted nearly two years. WTVJ's founding owner,
Wometco, was acquired in 1983 by
merchant banker
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) in a $1 billion
leveraged buyout (equivalent to $ in ). KKR also took over Storer Communications in 1985. The FCC directed KKR to divest either Storer's cable systems in Miami and Wometco's cable systems in Atlanta—or WTVJ and Storer's
WAGA-TV—within 18 months to satisfy then-existing cross-ownership rules. KKR initially sold WTVJ and Storer's station group to
Lorimar-Telepictures for $1.85 billion (equivalent to $ in ) on April 25, 1986, with WTVJ alone selling for $405 million (equivalent to $ in ). However, the Lorimar deal collapsed after CBS inquired with
Taft Broadcasting about purchasing WCIX, an independent affiliated with
Fox, for approximately $125 million (equivalent to $ in ). Such a deal would have moved all CBS programming from WTVJ to WCIX, and in turn, reduced the value of WTVJ by hundreds of millions of dollars. CBS's subsequent $170 million offer to KKR for WTVJ was deemed unacceptable by the banker, which offered WTVJ to
Capital Cities/ABC and NBC parent
General Electric (GE) under the belief neither ABC or NBC would be intimidated by a threat from CBS to disaffiliate WTVJ. After months of rumors, KKR agreed to sell WTVJ to the General Electric Property Management Co., a
holding company within GE, for $270 million (equivalent to $ in ) on January 16, 1987. It was universally accepted in the media and the industry that NBC was the pending owner: for the first time in the history of North American television, a broadcast network purchased an affiliate of a competing network. NBC's purchase of WTVJ came 15 days after NBC signed a two-year contract renewal with WSVN and came as the network, now rated number-one, was initiating multiple affiliation switches across the country. Ansin later described his reaction to the WTVJ purchase as "bewilderment", telling NBC executives who visited the station it was "bizarre and certainly unprecedented". Ansin cursed at the executives, pointed at a
satellite dish used to receive NBC programming, and asked them, "why don't you take it home on the airplane?" No formal announcement was made to WSVN's staff that day beyond a terse internal memo, with some staffers admitting to checking job openings in
Broadcasting magazine amid a combination of anxiety and
gallows humor. One unidentified WSVN manager described it as a difficult day because they also had to report the story on the evening newscasts. During their coverage of the sale, Ansin revealed GE executives previously offered to purchase WSVN, which he rejected under the belief that they would not buy a competitor. Likewise, one NBC executive told the
News NBC had preferred to buy WSVN, but the station was not available. WSVN's NBC contract ran until January 1989 while WTVJ's CBS contract ran through April 1988. Industry speculation centered over what station in Miami would pick up CBS programming, or if NBC would be contractually obligated to operate WTVJ as a CBS affiliate until their WSVN contract expired. NBC pledged to honor WSVN's contract, while CBS showed renewed interest in WCIX, itself in the process of being sold to
TVX Broadcast Group. In an interview on WSVN's 6 p.m. newscast on March 10, 1987, Ansin announced Sunbeam would challenge the WTVJ sale before the FCC, citing "anti-competitive overtones ... adverse" to the public interest. With former channel 7 operations manager Allen Sternberg as legal counsel, Ansin retained former FCC commissioner
Charles D. Ferris as his lead representation. Ansin also reached out to
Florida's congressional delegation for additional lobbying, including Rep.
Dante Fascell and Sen.
Lawton Chiles. The petition to deny claimed WSVN's status among programmers and advertisers was damaged to WTVJ's benefit and that an NBC-owned CBS affiliate threatened to disenfranchise Miami television viewers. In a statement Ansin submitted to various Washington agencies, he likened the nature of the sale to the extortion-driven
1956 asset swap between NBC and Group W for stations in
Cleveland and Philadelphia the commission eventually overturned nine years later. In a subsequent interview, Ansin explained that his bitterness with NBC was the result of the network simply discarding decades of loyalty, especially when the network was mired in third place in the late 1970s. Ansin's visibility protesting the sale was also a marked departure from his reputation as a modest, conservative owner that rarely sought public attention and who barely knew his own station personnel. The day before WCIX's sale to TVX was completed, TVX president Tim McDonald told the
News that WCIX was not only not for sale, but TVX was committed to owning the station, forcing CBS to negotiate with Ansin by default. In multiple interviews, Ansin expressed a hope to keep WSVN as a network affiliate and eventually pass control of Sunbeam to his children; when asked about WSVN possibly becoming an independent station, Ansin replied, "that's not good... I don't think it'll happen." One Wall Street analyst suggested that Ansin's objections really centered around the risk of losing untold millions of dollars if WSVN failed to secure an affiliation. The FCC approved the sale of WTVJ to GE on September 17, 1987, despite Sen. Chiles introducing an amendment into an FCC
appropriations bill that requested a full hearing on the sale. Ferris also acknowledged he held doubts from the beginning about the FCC being receptive to Ansin's challenge; undeterred, Ansin pledged to appeal the FCC's approval. NBC and CBS both agreed to extend WTVJ's CBS affiliation contract on a two-week basis after it expired in April 1988, allowing CBS to move their programming off WTVJ at any given date. The temporary arrangement resulted in WTVJ—now run by NBC management—refusing to carry significant portions of CBS's prime time schedule, while CBS initially refused to invite WTVJ management to the network's 1988 affiliate convention.
Changes in the news rejoined WSVN in May 1988 as a reporter and anchor.|alt=Rick Sanchez sitting in front of a microphone, slightly hunched over. The uncertainty at WSVN was not limited to their network affiliation. News director David Choate abruptly resigned in December 1987; his replacement,
Joel Cheatwood, came to Miami from
WEWS-TV in Cleveland, where he had been that station's assistant news director. Cheatwood took the job under assurances WSVN would remain a network affiliate under Sunbeam in what he called a "
blood oath" by Ansin. By that March, WSVN's newscasts started to take a more aggressive tone, ostensibly to make the station more palatable to a CBS affiliation, while multiple staffers were either dismissed or resigned. Some also left WSVN directly due to the affiliation uncertainty, including sports director Bret Lewis and weekend sports anchor Doug Vaughn. By happenstance, Lewis and anchor Jill Beach left to take jobs with NBC: Lewis went to
KNBC-TV in
Los Angeles, while Beach went to
WKYC-TV in Cleveland, which at the time was a higher-ranked
TV market than Miami. Lewis's replacement,
Jim Berry, joined WSVN under the assumption it would become a CBS affiliate, saying a network affiliation is "a sign of privilege, it's like a badge." Following the conclusion of the
May sweeps period, Cheatwood fired lead anchor Peter Ford despite the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts posting their best ratings in recent years. Reports of on- and off-air tension between Ford and co-anchor Sally Fitz was seen as the determining factor for the move, but Fitz was also in a personal relationship with Ed Ansin, which Ansin previously admitted to. Steve Sonsky of the
Herald suggested Fitz's relationship with Ansin factored into WSVN's personnel decisions, which station officials denied. After Alberto San Pedro's murder trial concluded, Rick Sanchez returned to the station as the new co-anchor for
Live at Five, which was initially developed with him in mind as the lead host. Sanchez replaced Frank Robertson, who was dismissed by Cheatwood in early May after market research showed him as the program's "weak link". In an outreach attempt to
Miami's Cuban community, Cheatwood announced Sanchez's return during an on-air interview at Spanish-language radio station
WQBA.
CBS purchases WCIX After NBC purchased WTVJ, the
Heralds Steve Sonsky wrote "the simplest thing that could happen" was for CBS to affiliate with WSVN in a two-station exchange. By June 1988, Sonsky said a WSVN-CBS affiliation was still possible, "... unless 7 wants to become an independent station and suffer an enormous drop in value". An impasse developed between Ansin and CBS: the network desired to move off of WTVJ as soon as possible, but Ansin insisted a CBS contract take effect on January 1, 1989, when WSVN's NBC contract was set to end. Sports broadcasts were the core reason. NBC was committed to carrying the
1988 Summer Olympics, the
1988 World Series, and a majority of
Miami Dolphins football games thanks to
the network's NFL-AFC broadcast rights. Tony Malara, president of CBS's affiliate relations division who handled the negotiations, insisted CBS was deeply distressed at having to remain on an NBC-owned station; WSVN general manager Bob Leider countered, saying that such distress was never mentioned by CBS during negotiations, and Ansin insisted CBS agreed to his timeframe early on in the talks, which Malara denied. Ansin made arrangements to fly to
New York City on April 26 to sign a CBS contract at
Black Rock when Malara called off the meeting, citing that they were reaching out to other parties regarding a purchase or affiliation. Malara said to Ansin the trip was pointless if he would not waver off of the January 1 date. One week after the negotiations broke down, Ansin filed an
antitrust lawsuit against NBC, CBS, and the GE subsidiary that held WTVJ's license alleging
collusion between the networks over WTVJ's sale with intent to cause WSVN "irreparable injury". Ansin sent an additional
letter of protest to NBC that claimed WTVJ supplied stories to
NBC News through the network's Miami
news bureau, which Ansin alleged violated NBC's existing WSVN contract. Initially bolstered by a verdict that awarded $3.5 million in damages to the owner of
a former ABC station in
Springfield, Missouri, after Capital Cities/ABC Inc. disaffiliated them (which was later thrown out on
appeal) Ansin insisted the lawsuit would not hurt WSVN's chances regarding a network contract, but talks between him and CBS never resumed. Meanwhile, TVX was under financial duress by principal creditor
Salomon Brothers, which helped finance TVX's purchase of WCIX and four other Taft stations and in turn held more than 60 percent ownership of TVX. After a missed payment of $200 million to Salomon earlier in 1988, the creditor induced TVX to sell off two stations and pressured them to divest further. By July 1988,
Electronic Media reported CBS quietly was in talks with Salomon to purchase WCIX.
Howard Stringer, recently appointed as president for
CBS's owned-stations division, told the
News on August 5 he expected a resolution of the Miami affiliation dilemma "... probably by next week". WCIX's general manager said CBS's negotiations with Salomon made it much more than a threat aimed at Ansin. On August 8, 1988, CBS announced their purchase of WCIX for $59 million (equivalent to $ in ), a price far below TVX's $90 million valuation of the station two years earlier. Several Wall Street analysts estimated WSVN's market value dropped by as much as $200 million (equivalent to $ in ) after CBS's announcement, with one analyst suggesting the station now had one-third of the
cash flow it had while an NBC affiliate. CBS simultaneously announced a new affiliation agreement was reached with West Palm Beach's ABC affiliate,
WPEC, that addressed WCIX's technical disadvantages for over-the-air television viewers in the northern portion of the Miami market. The WPEC-CBS deal pulled a second media market into the affiliation switches that now involved, in both Miami and West Palm Beach, six stations and three million television viewers.
Becoming an independent Immediately after the sale of WCIX, Ansin publicly announced that WSVN's news operations would not be contracted and would be expanded. Ansin and Leider offered Joel Cheatwood an opportunity to leave if he wanted, due to Ansin's "blood oath" of WSVN having an affiliation with CBS or NBC not being kept, but Cheatwood decided to stay. At a staff meeting called by Cheatwood the following Monday, the majority of the personnel present verbally committed to staying in a show of support. Dave Beiber resigned as operations manager shortly after WSVN's independent status was confirmed: management, assuming WSVN would still link up with CBS, failed to purchase enough
syndicated programming at the start of
the fall season to compensate for the loss of a network. Ansin later described WSVN as a station that had little to no effort put into it because of their prior NBC association, saying, "[w]e were very much the traditional network affiliate... we considered ourselves an appendage of the network". The station's plans were revealed as September 1988 began. Rebranded to
Channel 7 News with an aggressive press-room feel, both
Live at Five and the hour-long 6 p.m. news were relaunched as faster-paced, half-hour newscasts. Addressing the loss of NBC, WSVN announced its 11 p.m. news would move to an hour-long 10 p.m. slot on January 1, along with an expansion of its
early-morning local newscast Today in Florida in
Todays timeslot and locally produced
news magazine Inside Story replacing the
NBC Nightly News. Hosted by WSVN anchor
Penny Daniels,
Inside Story was a pet project of Cheatwood, similar in tone to
A Current Affair. WSVN signed up as a
CNN affiliate for national and international news coverage, simulcasting
Headline News in the overnight hours. Altogether, the station committed to producing hours of local newscasts on weekdays under the belief their current audience would not defect to other channels. Station promos began to reorient WSVN as "your news station" and extensively advertised their upcoming 10 p.m. newscast during NBC's own prime time schedule. WSVN quickly acquired the rights to 650 feature films for a nightly prime time movie showcase at 8 p.m., boasting a library of over 750 titles. Leider noted that over two dozen movie packages meant for over-the-air broadcasters had been previously unclaimed in the market, making the purchases a relatively easy process. The station also signed up with Fox, replacing WCIX in the role, but still billed itself as an independent as Fox only programmed in prime time on the weekends. In a marked contrast to its weekday schedule, WSVN was programmed like a conventional independent on the weekends with a mix of cartoons, syndicated professional wrestling, off-network reruns, and movies, in addition to Fox programming and half-hour newscasts at 6 and 10 p.m. The timing of WCIX's purchase by CBS resulted in the series of affiliation switches all taking place on January 1, 1989, the date Ansin had preferred from the beginning. While CBS was unable to assert control of WCIX until the following day, multiple CBS and NBC programs were
cleared by their future affiliates, including several NBC shows WSVN either dropped or declined to carry. The final night prior to the switches, on December 31, 1988, had both WSVN and WTVJ broadcast the
King Orange Jamboree Parade simultaneously; WTVJ's local parade coverage included multiple NBC network stars, while WSVN aired NBC's network coverage.
Ratings ramifications news tape, , at the Florida Moving Image Archive|alt=A videocassette on top of a clipboard next to its plastic case, a grease pencil and a paper clip. The label on the cassette contains the WSVN letterhead: "WSVN 7 Sunbeam Television Corporation, 1401 79th Street Causeway, Miami, Florida 33141-4181" then in print below, "LOUIS WOLFSON II MEDIA HISTORY CENTER FILM AND VIDEO AWARDS 1989 ENTRY: 'Caribbean Crackdown' Category 2C, Special Reports, Brian Andrews, Reporter, Arnaldo Irizarry, Photgrapher" WSVN's news expansion, at the time unheard of for any television station in the United States, was ridiculed and pilloried in the local media. Prior to this, television stations without a network affiliation generally operated with a focus on sitcom reruns and movies, which did not rate as highly; the
Heralds Steve Sonsky said, "... that's the way all indie stations operate... without the big original network programming as lead-ins and lead-outs, [they] just can't compete on the same level". Up to the switch, WCIX's news output only consisted of a single half-hour 10 p.m. newscast, raising doubts that four full-time English-language television news operations would be feasible in a market like Miami. Market consensus also assumed WCIX would be more than able to compensate for their signal coverage issues simply by becoming CBS-owned. Ansin later said, "everybody predicted, I say the world predicted, that this was not going to work... we had to be creative and innovative." WSVN's ratings, as predicted, declined significantly after losing NBC fare, but as an independent, the station was quickly seen by the
Sun-Sentinel Tom Jicha as a major success story. By April 1989, the station's early-evening news had begun to outdraw WTVJ's newscasts, with
Inside Story an unexpected hit. By November 1989, WSVN's 6:30 p.m. news was beating the
NBC Nightly News on WTVJ in both Nielsen and Arbitron ratings, with WSVN's
Today in Florida competitive against WTVJ's
Today. This contrasted heavily against WCIX, which, despite being network-owned and with higher ratings than the year prior, was badly hampered by its poor signal and saw itself in fourth place. At years' end, WSVN was in second place behind WPLG in most time slots and the 10 p.m. news was increasingly visible against the other networks, prompting Jicha to write, "[I]n this case, the conventional wisdom wasn't wise." WSVN's performance prompted WTVJ management to issue a memo in May 1990 directing their newscasts to find additional "intensity, involvement and innovation" in their presentation, implying a need to emulate WSVN. The station's success resulted in Sunbeam launching a
production company by May 1989, headed by Cheatwood, who relinquished his news director role; Sunbeam planned to sell
Inside Story to syndication as
Inside Report and develop two additional television programs. As 1990 began, Fox hired Cheatwood to help develop a possible newscast for the network; this also resulted in
Inside Report being withdrawn from syndication. Cheatwood was executive producer for the syndicated
newsmagazine Personalities, which was canceled due to low ratings. After Fox put their newscast development on hold, Cheatwood returned to WSVN as vice president of news. Under Cheatwood, WSVN launched a 7:30 p.m. newscast in the lead-up to the
1991 Persian Gulf conflict; after the war ended, the newscast was converted to
7:30, a newsmagazine hosted by Daniels and
Joan Lovett described by Cheatwood as "news with a real flair". The station also openly floated the possibility of bidding for broadcast rights to
Miami's expansion baseball team, with comparisons drawn to both
Superstation WGN and
TBS, two
superstations that featured local baseball play-by-play for a national audience. By 1992, WSVN ranked first in mornings and late evenings, and second in late afternoons, and was regarded as the highest-rated independent in the country.
Fast-paced tabloid journalism The style for WSVN's newscasts became as attention-grabbing as the output of news the station now produced. Terminology in reporting was shifted to a more casual approach, with authority figures like the
chief of police being called "Miami's top cop". Raw video footage would sometimes be altered to present a
film noir effect, or in slow-motion, particularly with vehicular accidents. One competing news director claimed to
The Christian Science Monitor that WSVN employed inexperienced reporters with little pay, placing them in cars with
police scanners to "... see how many crime scenes they could get to". A typical hour-long newscast now featured as many as fifty stories, all short in duration. Coverage of area and statewide government functions, including area city council and school board meetings, was eliminated, and WSVN's bureau in
Tallahassee was closed. Anchors, in particular Fitz and Sanchez, accentuated their on-air delivery with theatrics including raised eyebrows, head shaking, and dramatic pauses. By 1994, the station's newscasts and newsroom were incorporated into a set dubbed the "Newsplex". The phrase "if it bleeds, it leads" originated in a 1989
New York story about
WABC-TV in New York City, but
Boston magazine,
Newsweek, the
Miami New Times, the
New York Times, the
Associated Press, and
The American Prospect all used the phrase to describe WSVN. Cheatwood defended WSVN's emphasis on crime, saying it "has helped in preventing other people from becoming victims, and let people know what was happening on the street". Such reporting contrasted with FBI statistics that showed violent crime in Miami to be in decline (albeit still the highest in the nation), but a 1993 NBC poll of area residents showed 73 percent believed the murder rate in Miami had increased. A
University of Florida study revealed WSVN was issued 239
subpoenas for video footage or testimony in court proceedings between August 1988 and March 1992, well above the average of 17 subpoenas for competing media outlets in the market.
University of Miami journalism professor Joseph Angotti tabulated the amount of airtime WSVN devoted to violent crime, discovering it made up 48.9 percent of their news coverage in the month of November 1993. The
Prospect noted that WSVN's July 18, 1993, newscast devoted 22 out of the station's allotted 34 minutes of news airtime to stories about people being robbed, injured or killed, with a visit by President
Bill Clinton to Miami relegated to a quick soundbite 14 minutes into the broadcast. Cheatwood told the
Monitor that WSVN's tabloid style was designed to counter public perception of local news being boring, staid, and slow. Newscasts opened with flashy graphics and punchy headlines like "Tiny Victims", "Kids Who Kill" or "Mauled to Death". Scott Chapin, a rock radio
disc jockey for
WGTR-FM and WIOD's program director, became WSVN's announcer, chosen as his voice better stood out against the competition. Chris Crane, a
computer hacker with no formal music training and who by his own admission "couldn't read a score", was hired to compose WSVN's news themes. WSVN's on-air graphics took on a red and blue color scheme, as they were determined by Bob Leider to be "the boldest colors". WSVN's visual cues were frequently compared to
MTV,
Hard Copy,
Miami Vice,
NFL Films, and
The March of Time and were derisively labeled "
new wave news" and "all-crime-all-the-time". The
Times described WSVN as "stories... zooming across the screen at a dizzying speed, accompanied by graphics and sound bigger, brighter and bolder than anything Miami viewers can find elsewhere". Paul Steinle, University of Miami communications professor, criticized WSVN for not coherently presenting information beyond the flashy presentation, loud music and bold headlines, specifically with failures to clearly attribute sources, using footage with minimal information or context, and substandard writing.
7:30 was criticized for focusing on sensational and lurid subject matter and gossip with cynicism: when introducing a report about the
Genitorturers, reporter
Jessica Aguirre said, "hey, we do what it takes to get ratings, and you're watching". In June 1994, seven area hotels owned by the Continental Companies began a
blackout of WSVN's newscasts objecting to the heavy emphasis on crime, saying their frustration with WSVN "reached the breaking point"; this followed the Thunderbird and Chateau by the Sea hotels blacking out the station altogether. The month prior, WCIX retooled their newscasts to a "family sensitive" format intentionally eschewing violent footage, which led to lower ratings and was ultimately abandoned after a year. Criticism of the station's stylized approach was also internal. One of the station's remaining Black anchors, Denise White, left WSVN in 1990 for a job in Tampa, telling the
New Times, "if you watch
Crime Check regularly, you'll believe that black folks do nothing but commit crime," echoing the sentiments of a coalition of area Black leaders protesting the Rick Sanchez-led segment. While delivering a weather report in June 1989, Bob Soper disputed a
Teleprompter cue that a hurricane was "barreling out of control toward Miami" as his data showed otherwise. Three years later, Soper was replaced by
Jillian Warry—who, at age 25, wore short skirts on-air while delivering the weather—under claims his genial personality no longer aligned with the station, with Cheatwood saying, "the
Willard Scott era is gone." Soper left the station six weeks before
Hurricane Andrew hit Miami, damaging WSVN's credibility at the same time
Bryan Norcross and WTVJ won industry acclaim and a Peabody Award for their coverage; Cheatwood claimed a chief meteorologist was unnecessary, as all stations were fed the same information from the
National Hurricane Center. Carmel Cafiero disagreed with the "if it bleeds, it leads" descriptor for WSVN, later saying, "people use that phrase because it's catchy, but I just don't buy it. I think people were jealous, frankly."
Influence on the industry WSVN's tabloid format proved heavily influential to the industry and was widely imitated throughout the country. The station and its unlikely success was the subject of a
Harvard Business School case study. In one week in 1993, Cheatwood received requests for news tape in cities ranging from Los Angeles to
Louisville, Kentucky.
Frank Magid consultant Eric Braun likened WSVN to an updated form of the
Eyewitness News and
Action News formats 20 years earlier and compared it to radio commentator
Walter Winchell. Braun consulted other news departments nationwide on incorporating elements of the WSVN format but advised against the format being copied outright, telling the
Herald, "It's something you could only do in Miami. No other city in North America has the rhythm of Miami." One of Braun's clients was WTVJ, which began emphasizing crime coverage, larger graphics, and a pressroom feel in its newscasts amid frequent on-air turnover and criticisms of a lost identity. Another client was WKYC-TV, a former NBC-owned station that experienced significant off- and on-air turnover under
Multimedia, Inc., and adopted WSVN's emphasis on a higher volume of shorter stories, minimal crosstalk, and bold headlines like "TOP STORY" or "SPECIAL REPORT". While WKYC's ratings did not immediately improve, the station was regarded as having finally found a direction not seen under NBC ownership. Other stations across the country attempted to import WSVN's format outright. Bill Applegate, who oversaw WABC-TV's late 1980s tabloid format, joined WBBM-TV, the CBS-owned outlet in Chicago; WBBM incorporated much of WSVN's visual presentation and hired away some of the station's air talent, including Penny Daniels, Joan Lovett, Jim Berry, and
Rick Leventhal, along with hiring WSVN producer Mark Toney to be its news director. WBBM's changes eschewed their long-standing reputation of investigative, serious journalism and ultimately produced mixed results in the ratings. Scott Jones, a former WSVN producer, was hired as news director for
KRBK-TV in
Sacramento, California, and quickly promoted to co-owned
KPLR-TV in
St. Louis, but his tenure lasted less than nine months as ownership disagreed with his implementation of the WSVN format. By 2002, Applegate, now heading
WOIO/
WUAB in Cleveland, relaunched the station's low-rated news operation with a fast-paced tabloid style that drew comparisons to WSVN. The most notable imitation of WSVN came from within. In April 1993, Sunbeam purchased
WHDH-TV, then Boston's CBS affiliate, from
David Mugar for $215 million. Former Massachusetts governor
Michael Dukakis, a part-time Florida resident, publicly protested the sale, referring to WSVN's newscasts as "a collection of the bizarre, tragic and bloody". Ed Ansin's brother Ron, who previously served in Dukakis's cabinet, arranged a dinner between the two as a mediator. After the deal closed, Cheatwood was appointed as vice president of news for both stations; Cheatwood stressed WHDH would not become a direct copy of WSVN but hold a style unique to the market, saying a philosophy for newscasts is "not a franchise you can lift and open like a
Kentucky Fried Chicken down the street." Long the third-rated news service in Boston, WHDH became the market leader by the end of the decade, prompting the more traditional
WBZ-TV and
WCVB-TV to incorporate tabloid elements into their newscasts. WSVN's success also signaled an industry trend to increase local news production, particularly as a way to stand out against stiffer competition from cable. This included coverage of national and international stories, formerly material seen as network-exclusive, with WSVN dispatching crews to report on the
Waco siege, an
Amtrak derailment in Alabama, and the
assault of Nancy Kerrigan. In the wake of
Today in Floridas success, Fox-owned stations began launching their own local morning shows including
Good Day New York and
Good Day L.A., while
KCAL-TV in Los Angeles debuted a three-hour prime time newscast. Fox president
Lucie Salhany described WSVN as "the station of the future" and said it can be a model for newscasts on other Fox affiliates. Fox's
1994 groupwide affiliation agreement with
New World Communications saw multiple long-tenured, large-market "Big Three" affiliates switching to Fox between 1994 and 1996, furthering the news production boom;
Ball State University professor Bob Papper estimated between 1,500 to 2,000 jobs were created nationwide, with the possibility of thousands more jobs among older Fox affiliates yet to create or expand their news services. By 1994, WSVN was generating more revenue that it ever had with NBC thanks to increased control over programming and local advertising via Fox's limited prime time schedule, which was regarded as a factor in the Fox-New World pact. When Fox launched
Fox News in 1996, WSVN reporter
Shepard Smith was hired as its lead reporter; by 1999, Smith was anchoring
Fox Report, the channel's nightly flagship newscast, which focused on a high story count, tight writing, and a flashy presentation.
Adjustments, Deco Drive, and continuity In February 1997, Joel Cheatwood left his role at Sunbeam Television to become news director for Chicago's NBC-owned station, WMAQ-TV. Cheatwood's tenure at WMAQ lasted 16 months and was punctuated by a short-lived experiment with
Jerry Springer as a commentator; he later attempted to implement a tabloid format at WCBS-TV in New York City. Cheatwood was succeeded as vice president of news by existing news director Alice Jacobs, a position she still holds. By the end of the 1990s, all English-language stations in Miami–Fort Lauderdale adapted portions of the WSVN format. WHDH news director Bill Pohovey joined WPLG in 1998 as vice president of news; under Pohovey, WPLG remained number one among English-language stations in 1999, emphasizing investigative journalism and human interest stories, combining it with elements of WSVN's tabloid format. Pohovey remains at WPLG in that position into the present day. In 1998, three years after WCIX moved to channel 4 as
WFOR-TV, that station's newscasts were reformatted to feature bold colors and a news theme with a
salsa feel; by 2004, WFOR and WTVJ employed multiple WSVN alumni. In response, WSVN began emphasizing breaking news, investigative and consumer stories. Carmel Cafiero's reports were branded
Carmel on the Case and given priority; a 2010 story on a Broward County
pill mill as part of an ongoing series on the
opioid crisis earned Cafiero and the station an
Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award.
7:30 was relaunched on January 8, 1996, as
Deco Drive, a Miami-centric newsmagazine with Jessica Aguirre and Kelly Mitchell as hosts; WHDH also carried the program. Along with the relaunch came a significant influx of personnel: while
7:30 operated with a staff of five people,
Deco Drive debuted with a staff of 28. WHDH canceled
Deco after five months due to low ratings, but the program continues to air on WSVN into the present day.
Deco initially met with moderate ratings in Miami but started to decline after several months, resulting in a format change that featured fast-paced reports mostly aggregated from WSVN's satellite feeds. Mitchell left the show in April 1996, followed by Aguirre in February 1997; Belkys Nerey replaced Aguirre as co-host. Lynn Martinez, who has co-hosted
Deco Drive since the summer of 1996, continues in that role. Rick Sanchez left WSVN in April 2001 for a role at
MSNBC. His replacement was anchor-reporter Craig Stevens, who was paired with Nerey in August 2003 following the departure of Laurie Jennings. Stevens and Nerey continue to be the station's lead anchor team in the present day, praised for having a "dynamic" on-air chemistry between the two and strong knowledge of the region. Joining WSVN in 1994 as a reporter, Nerey became interested in TV news by watching
Molly Turner's consumer reports on WPLG. The continuity has extended beyond the anchor desk: Steve Shapiro joined WSVN in 1997 as sports director and host of
Sports Xtra on Sunday nights, duties he held until retiring at the end of 2020.
Josh Moser was named as Shapiro's successor, a role he continues to hold. Since 1998, Patrick Fraser has hosted
Help Me Howard, a consumer advocacy/legal advice segment with former Broward County public defender
Howard Finkelstein; Finkelstein also serves as WSVN's legal analyst. Carmel Cafiero retired in July 2016 after a 43-year run at channel 7; her retirement was regarded as the end of an era given her journalistic background and longevity.
Marilyn Mitzel was the station's health reporter from 1988 until 2005, when the station dismissed her. Mitzel subsequently filed an
age discrimination lawsuit against WSVN, initially prevailing in court; the ruling was overturned on appeal. in 2024|alt=Josh Moser, wearing a Miami Heat press credential and reporting from a basketball arena and holding a microphone with the WSVN mic flag News production has steadily increased, including the debut of a daily 4 p.m. newscast in 2006, additional news on the weekends, and a 2011 expansion of
Today in Florida to five hours. In March 2015, the "Newsplex" newsroom/newscast set was given a $500,000 upgrade to allow for more graphical elements to be displayed on-air. The newscast expansions and investment came against increased competition from the Internet and other technologies. Since 2010, viewership for all television stations in the Miami–Fort Lauderdale market, including WSVN, have declined per data from Nielsen Media, attributed to the growth of
video on demand services and
free ad-supported streaming television. In local news ratings for the first half of 2022, WSVN placed second in nearly every timeslot among Miami's English-language stations. As of 2022, WSVN produced 68 hours of local news every week.
Digital and leadership transitions WSVN activated its
digital signal on September 1, 1999, and ended programming on its
analog signal over VHF channel 7, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States
transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition VHF channel 8 to channel 7. The station was one of four that operated digital signals on the VHF band to be granted a power increase later that month after stations experienced signal problems on VHF that did not occur with the
UHF band following the transition. On September 27, 2017, three workers were killed after a
gin pole supporting the scaffolding they were on collapsed off the side of WSVN's television tower. The tower, shared with WPLG, was having to install a new transmitter for WSVN as part of the mandated
FCC spectrum repack. On December 4, 2023, WSVN began hosting
ATSC 1.0 broadcasts for WPLG, which transitioned to
ATSC 3.0 transmissions; WSVN's primary channel also broadcast over WPLG's ATSC 3.0 "lighthouse". As part of
Sinclair Broadcast Group's attempted
2017 purchase of
WSFL-TV owner
Tribune Broadcasting, Sinclair offered to resell WSFL to
Fox Television Stations. Ansin affirmed WSVN would remain a Fox affiliate through June 2019 and "continue to be the news leader in South Florida" with or without Fox programming; Ansin also stated network executives had yet to meet with him over their plans for WSFL. Fox's purchase of WSFL was nullified after the FCC voted to have an
administrative law judge review the Tribune-Sinclair deal, prompting Tribune to terminate it. On September 26, 2019, WSVN announced that it had renewed its Fox affiliation. Edmund Ansin died on July 26, 2020, at the age of 84; his death was announced on WSVN that evening. Adam Jacobson of
Radio & Television Business Report credited Ansin for having overseen what became a "legendary, revolutionary news-driven station". Ansin frequently dismissed the idea of retirement or selling off his stations: in a January 2020 interview with the
Boston Globe, Ansin boasted, "I want to die with my boots on." As was Ansin's wish in 1987, Sunbeam Television was taken over by sons James and Andy Ansin. Ansin's death came one year after Bob Leider's death in June 2019 at age 75; Leider retired in 2014 (briefly returning from 2016 to 2017) and was remembered for his 43-year tenure with the station, his leadership during the 1989 affiliation switch, and extensive volunteer work in the community.
Future studios, reuniting the "Isle of Dreams" and linking with ABC Sunbeam announced in 2023 that it would build a new facility for WSVN in
Miramar, near
Florida's Turnpike on the southeast corner of
Red Road and Miramar Parkway. The site is in a business park owned by the company's real estate interests; completion was scheduled for 2026. The facility would contain two studios, allowing for commercial and other production to take place in parallel with live newscasts, and be centrally located in the region. It also would sit on elevated land and be designed to operate during a
Category 5 hurricane, with backup air conditioning, two generators, and a fuel tank for station vehicles. The construction of the new WSVN facility is contingent on Miramar approving other development in the area to provide sufficient services for the station and other business park tenants. The primary reason for the move is to clear the North Bay Village land on which the station is located for high-density development. As part of the redevelopment, Sunbeam purchased the other side of the island long used by WIOD radio in 2021 for $29 million. In 2002, Ed Ansin and WSVN staff raised concerns about the physical condition of the WIOD towers when rust from the tower directly facing the WSVN studio entrance fell, damaging a car. By 2003, WIOD's then-owner
Clear Channel Communications sold their half of the island to "Isle of Dreams
LLC", a developer that initially planned to build a 21-story
high rise over the parcel then changed the plans in favor of a five-story
strip club, both of which Ansin publicly campaigned against. After the strip club plans fell through in 2012, Sunbeam sued the developer to foreclose on a mortgage; the developer counter-sued in response. The WIOD towers were decommissioned and dismantled on February 8, 2024. Sunbeam and ABC announced a multiyear affiliation deal on March 20, 2025, moving ABC to a WSVN subchannel and displacing WPLG in the role; the new service, branded "ABC Miami", launched on August 4, 2025. As a direct result, Sunbeam terminated the ATSC 3.0 arrangement with WPLG on July 28 so it could broadcast both Fox and ABC programming in high definition under the 1.0 format. == Notable alumni ==