WFOR-TV

WFOR-TV (channel 4), branded CBS Miami, is a television station in Miami, Florida, United States. It is owned and operated by the CBS television network through its CBS News and Stations division alongside CW affiliate WBFS-TV (channel 33). The two stations share studios on Northwest 18th Terrace in Doral; WFOR-TV's transmitter is located in the Andover neighborhood of Miami Gardens. The history of this station begins with the assignment of channel 6 as the fifth very high frequency (VHF) channel for Miami in 1957. However, unlike the previously available channels, channel 6 would need to broadcast from a site further south because it operated on the same frequency as a full-service station in Orlando. After a multiple-year proceeding, the Federal Communications Commission granted a construction permit to Coral Television for WCIX-TV in 1964. Coral's earlier attempts to build the transmitter on one of the upper Florida Keys failed to materialize, and the station began broadcasting in September 1967 from a tower in Homestead. Even though over-the-air reception proved difficult in much of Broward County, WCIX-TV largely thrived as an independent station, and later the market's first Fox affiliate, under General Cinema Corporation and Taft Broadcasting ownership and featured a nightly 10 p.m. newscast. Taft's 1987 sale of WCIX and five other stations to the TVX Broadcast Group came at the same time NBC purchased long-standing CBS affiliate WTVJ; after CBS failed to finalize a contract with outgoing NBC affiliate WSVN, the network purchased WCIX from TVX in January 1989, with channel 6 becoming the new CBS station in Miami. Because of the weak signal in Broward, CBS induced an affiliation switch in the West Palm Beach market to a station that offered signal coverage in the northern part of the market. CBS also expanded the news department, though it continued...