WWSB

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WWSB (channel 40, cable channel 7) is a television station licensed to Sarasota, Florida, United States, serving the Suncoast (including Sarasota, Bradenton, and Venice) as an affiliate of ABC. The station is owned by Gray Media and maintains studios on 10th Street north of downtown Sarasota and a transmitter southeast of Parrish. Channel 40 began broadcasting on October 23, 1971, as WXLT-TV. Built and owned by the Sarasota–Bradenton Florida Television Company, it filled a gap in ABC network coverage, as the network's Tampa Bay area affiliate of the time, WLCY-TV/WTSP (channel 10), had a transmitter north of the metropolitan area and a weak signal in Sarasota. In 1974, the station gained notoriety when Christine Chubbuck, host of the morning talk show Suncoast Digest, committed suicide live on air. The station was mostly known for its low-budget local news offering and as an alternative for Tampa Bay–area viewers for those times when channel 10 opted not to air a given ABC program. Its coverage of Hurricane Elena in 1985, which prompted evacuation warnings for waterfront areas, was derided as inadequate and exposed weaknesses in the news department. In 1986, channel 40 was sold to Southern Broadcast Associates, a consortium headed by a former station manager of WTVJ in Miami and owned in part by Calkins Newspapers. The station and news department were overhauled to bring them up to date, including an increase in the news staff and a call sign change to WWSB that November. The station increased its ratings in the Sarasota area and became its highest-rated TV news station. When ABC moved its Tampa Bay affiliation to WFTS-TV in 1994, eliminating the original reason for affiliating with channel 40, the network announced its intent to disaffiliate from WWSB. The station mounted a defense of its affiliation, stating that its...