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WSVN (channel 7) is a television station in Miami, Florida, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. Serving as the flagship station of locally based Sunbeam Television, it has studios on the 79th Street Causeway in North Bay Village and a transmitter in Miami Gardens, Florida. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regards WSVN as having signed on with the WCKT calls in December 19, 1962 (1962-12-19), under Sunbeam ownership. However, the station was the result of a long and contentious legal battle between Sunbeam and three other applicants for the channel 7 allocation in Miami, with a three-way partnership including the publishers of the Miami News and Miami Herald signing on a previous WCKT on July 29, 1956. Stripped of its license after ethics violations within the FCC, along with improper behavior taken by this partnership during the application process, Sunbeam purchased the assets of WCKT and re-launched the station under a new license with uninterrupted service. The market's NBC affiliate since its inception, WCKT was renamed WSVN in 1983 and became an independent on January 1, 1989, after NBC's purchase of CBS affiliate WTVJ and CBS's purchase of WCIX-TV initiated a major affiliation switch. With minimal advance preparation, WSVN relaunched their news department with an emphasis on tabloid journalism under Joel Cheatwood's direction, an unconventional decision initially pilloried by the local media but since been emulated and copied throughout the industry. WSVN's newscasts have attracted national and international attention for aggressive and controversial content and have been credited as an inspiration for the launch of Fox News. One of the largest Fox affiliates not owned by the network, onetime Fox executive Lucie Salhany famously called WSVN "the future of television". Involved with Sunbeam from the company's beginnings until his July 26, 2020, death, chairman Edmund Ansin repeatedly refused offers to sell either WSVN or his Boston stations. The first WCKT (1956–1962) Competing license applicants Due to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposing a freeze on additional television licenses on September 30, 1948, the Miami market had only one television station in operation during that period: WTVJ, which signed on the air on March 21, 1949. In preparation for the freeze being lifted, WIOD radio and the Miami Daily News—jointly controlled by publisher James M. Cox—filed an application with the FCC for a new station on very high frequency (VHF) channel 7 on May 26, 1952. As part of the application, WIOD and the News proposed a new studio facility built at WIOD's transmission towers on the 79th Street Causeway, totaling a $1.25 million investment (equivalent to $14,342,105 in 2023). The WIOD-News application was met with a competing application filed several weeks later by WQAM owner Miami Broadcasting Company, controlled by Miami Herald publisher John S. Knight. Faced with the possibility of protracted competitive hearings before the FCC lasting last two to three years, Cox and Knight withdrew their bids and filed a joint application as Biscayne Television Corporation, operating autonomously from either newspaper and with former NBC president Niles Trammell as its president. Trammell, who joined NBC in 1929 and parent RCA in 1923, was credited for developing much of the network's talent and organized Biscayne after convincing Cox and Knight to collaborate rather than compete. In addition, Biscayne would purchase WIOD from Cox, Knight would divest WQAM, and Cox and Knight would each hold 42.5 percent of company stock, with Trammell holding the remaining 15 percent. Despite this new joint venture, the application found itself as one of 12 competing applications for four channel allotments in the market: VHF channels 7 and 10 and ultra high frequency (UHF) channels 27 and 33. In particular, Biscayne Television faced three competing applications for channel 7, including one from two Davenport, Iowa, residents; Florida Sen. George Smathers warned of a possibility that Miami might not have another television station sign on before 1958 due to the number of competing applications. The number of applicants for a channel 7 license increased to five on December 16, 1953, after real estate developer Sidney Ansin filed one under the Sunbeam Television Corp. name. Ansin included a proposal for studios located in Miami's Allapattah neighborhood and encompassing his existing six-block Park-and-Shop City development dubbed "Television City", with sons Ronald and Edmund Ansin assisting. Originally a shoe maker from Massachusetts, Sidney relocated to Miami Beach, Florida, in 1941 and sold land to Mitchell Wolfson for WTVJ's transmission tower after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rezoned it for broadcasting, which became the source for his interest in the medium. Sidney filed an application after consulting a friend in Washington, D.C., and included Ronald and Edmund—both Harvard University students—when they expressed interest. After the Davenport-based group withdrew their bid, hearings were scheduled to begin on February 19, 1954, for the four remaining applicants—Biscayne, Sunbeam, East Coast Television Corporation, and South Florida Television Corporation—supervised by FCC examiner James D. Cunningham. All four applicants agreed to a timetable of informal conferences with Cunningham so as to reduce the amount of needed testimony to one-tenth of what normal applications called for. Biscayne was the first to complete their case in mid-May, with Cox and Knight extolling the accomplishments of both the News and Herald; Cox cited the News's crusade against Al Capone's 1929 move to Miami, while Knight referenced multiple awards given to the Herald for public service, with both newspapers Pulitzer Prize recipients. East Coast was primarily represented by Lee Phillips, a former WTVJ employee, while Jack C. Stein testified for South Florida Television, boasting his corporation consisted of Miami-based shareholders and was best able to represent the interests of Miamians. The last to present, Sidney Ansin stated on Sunbeam's behalf that he believed television "presented a wonderful future" and was described as the organization's "moving spirit". All four applicants completed their case summaries by mid-August. Cunningham delivered his recommendation for Biscayne Television on January 18, 1955; in response, Trammell announced the new station's planned affiliation with NBC while also saying, "while it would be improper to anticipate when the commission will confirm Mr. Cunningham's report, Biscayne hopes to be in operation as shortly thereafter as possible." Awarding the license The FCC's broadcast bureau challenged Cunningham's recommendation of Biscayne due to Cox and Knight's ownership of the city's two daily newspapers, stating it undermined the commission's policy of encouraging diversity in mass media ownership and risked creating a c.... Discover the Molly Bishop Shadel popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Molly Bishop Shadel books.