WFOR-TV

WFOR-TV

Miami–Fort Lauderdale, Florida United States
City	Miami, Florida
Channels	Digital: 22 (UHF) Virtual: 4
Branding	CBS Miami; CBS News Miami
Programming
Affiliations	4.1: CBS for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	CBS News and Stations (Paramount Global) (CBS Television Stations Inc.)
Sister stations	WBFS-TV
History
First air date	September 20, 1967 (56 years ago) (1967-09-20)
Former call signs	WCIX-TV (1967–1984) WCIX (1984–1995)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 6 (VHF, 1967–1995), 4 (VHF, 1995–2009)
Former affiliations	Independent (1967–1986) Fox (1986–1988)
Call sign meaning	"Channel 4"[1]
Technical information[2]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	47902
ERP	1,000 kW
HAAT	296.9 m (974 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	25°58′8″N 80°13′19″W / 25.96889°N 80.22194°W / 25.96889; -80.22194
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.cbsnews.com/miami/

WFOR-TV (channel 4), branded CBS Miami, is a television station in Miami, Florida, United States, serving as the market's CBS outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside WBFS-TV (channel 33), an independent station. The two stations share studios on Northwest 18th Terrace in Doral; WFOR-TV's transmitter is located in Andover, Florida.

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 to rate in last place among the English-language stations in the market. In the wake of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the station lost the use of its Homestead tower for nearly two years and set up a charitable organization, now known as Neighbors 4 Neighbors, to promote volunteer efforts in South Florida.

A complicated transaction between CBS and NBC saw WTVJ and WCIX swap transmitter sites and broadcast licenses in September 1995, with WCIX "moving" to channel 4 and becoming WFOR-TV. CBS's 2000 merger into the first iteration of Viacom added then-UPN affiliate WBFS-TV as a sister station. The local news offered by WFOR-TV generally continued to lag in the ratings after the move to channel 4 but has been more competitive since the late 1990s.