Disney-owned ABC shifts its affiliation in Miami from WPLG to WSVN

WSVN to stay with Fox as ABC shifts to a 7.2; First major affiliation switch in the market since ’95

Affiliation switches are rare nowadays, but when they happen, it’s big news – even in the streaming era. 

WPLG Miami-Ft. Lauderdale announced on Thursday that it is ending its 64-year relationship with ABC to become an independent station. Sunbeam’s WSVN has agreed to an affiliation deal with the Disney-owned network to air ABC programming on its 7.2 digital subchannel (with Fox staying on 7.1), marking the first time a major network has taken such a position in a top-fifteen market. Sunbeam is not selling the station to ABC. 

“When the opportunity to affiliate with ABC became available, we knew that our combined resources would allow us to develop an extremely strong partnership. Sunbeam Television Corporation has a proven track record as a competitive broadcaster,” said Paul Manges, the co-president of Sunbeam Television. “Adding ABC programming to our stations’ portfolio will only strengthen our footprint. As a family-owned company, we have been embedded in this community for nearly 70 years, with a commitment to local news and supporting non-profit organizations across South Florida.”

WSVN is expected to strike deals with cable, satellite, and virtual providers for carriage. Don’t look for WSVN to adapt the “Circle 7” logo, a standard for ABC-owned stations and some affiliates since the station has its own version.  

The switches take place on August 4.

Generally the top-rated news station in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, WPLG has been with ABC since 1961 when it was originally known as WLBW-TV. The move draws parallels to WSVN losing its NBC affiliation on January 1, 1989 after the network bought CBS affiliate WTVJ-Ch. 4 two years earlier, ending a relationship dating back to 1956. WSVN unsuccessfully sued NBC to stop the switch and wound up with the then-fledging Fox network while CBS bought independent WCIX-Ch. 6, putting the network on a station with a weaker signal than its competitors since its transmitter was stationed twenty miles south of everyone else, resulting in a poor over-the-air signal for viewers in Broward County north of Miami. 

A year after the Fox-New World deal which saw eight CBS affiliates switch to Fox, Miami’s WTVJ and WCIX swapped channel numbers as NBC agreed to give up its dial position, KCNC Denver, and KUTV Salt Lake City and its Miami transmitter to CBS so they could acquire WCAU Philadelphia from them in a tax-free transaction after Group W NBC station KYW-TV affiliated with CBS in a wide-ranging five-station company deal. CBS returned to Channel 4 in September 1995 and renamed themselves WFOR-TV while WTVJ was sent to Channel 6 and its weaker transmitter. 

Recent switches in Miami only involved The CW, which switched back and forth with Scripps’ WSFL and Paramount’s WBFS, which is the current affiliate. In 2008, the owners of WPLG tried to buy sixth-rated WTVJ in a deal that was scrapped due to poor economic conditions and opposition from South Florida politicians. 

Now owned by Berkshire Hathaway, WPLG was once part of the Post-Newsweek group, which saw a situation in 2002 when CBS affiliate WJXT Jacksonville dropped the network due to squabbles over how much the station should pay the network in “reverse compensation”, as the network once paid stations to carry their programming. The last Big 3 affiliate switch in a major market took place in 2016 when Raleigh’s WRAL and CBS ended their 32-year relationship and switched affiliations with WNCN, a station at one time owned by NBC. Sunbeam’s WHDH in Boston also lost its NBC affiliation the same year. 

“We made a generous offer to ABC, but it became clear the two sides were not going to agree to a new deal.”, said WPLG CEO and President E.R. Bert Medina. “Broadcast television stations across the country have announced massive layoffs in recent years. WPLG is proud we’ve not had layoffs, but it became clear that if we accepted the deal ABC was proposing, we too would have been forced to lay off employees in order to pay the hefty price the network was demanding.”

WPLG is expected to become a news-intensive independent similar to WJXT and WSVN. WSVN’s newscasts became more tabloid-intensive with a heavy emphasis on crime, led by then-news director Joel Cheatwood, a name Chicago news viewers are familiar with, for better or worse. One of the biggest multicultural markets in the South, Miami’s news competition is competitive, especially with two strong Spanish-language news operations in NBC/Telmundo’s WSCV and Univision’s WLTV, which often tops the market overall regardless of language. 

The ABC-WPLG breakup (and the Raleigh one beforehand) illustrates the tensions between the major networks and their affiliates, especially at a time when major events such as the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards are now simultaneously streaming on platforms such as Paramount Plus, Disney Plus, Hulu, and Peacock, as “reverse compensation” fees are skyrocketing, even drawing the attention of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. At a time when the future of linear TV as a viable business is questionable, we may see more defections from network affiliates like WPLG who aren’t owned by a big chain, as they lack clout with the Big 4 networks. 

[Editor’s Note: An earlier draft stated WPLG was with ABC for 69 years when it should have been 64 as according to Wikipedia, the station didn’t sign on until November 20, 1961.]