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Sunbeam Television
Sunbeam Television Corporation is a privately held broadcasting company based in Miami, Florida, that owns three television stations in the United States. Since the company's founding in 1953, it has been under the control of the Ansin family.
Sunbeam Television was founded on December 16, 1953, by Sidney Ansin, who inherited his family's shoemaking business in Massachusetts and later purchased South Florida real estate in the years after World War II, eventually settling in Miami Beach. Ansin's company was formed as one of five bidders for the channel 7 license in Miami, with sons Ronald and Edmund Ansin included as they had expressed interest in television themselves. While Biscayne Television Corporation, a three-way partnership between newspaper publishers James M. Cox and John S. Knight, along with former NBC president Niles Trammell, won the bidding process with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and signed on WCKT, their license was ultimately revoked after a combination of ethics violations within the FCC and improper conduct between the commissioners and Biscayne management. Sunbeam won a replacement license after it was determined that their bid was the only one amongst the original bidders conducted in an ethical manner, and purchased the assets of the former WCKT for their license, re-using the WCKT call sign.
Ed Ansin was installed as WCKT's executive vice president upon Sunbeam's takeover of the station. He became the company's president and chief operating officer after Sidney's death in October 1971. WCKT would change its call letters to WSVN in 1983 and would remain Sunbeam's lone property until 1993, when they acquired WHDH in Boston from New England Television.
As part of a wide-ranging series of asset sales by Tribune Broadcasting totaling $500 million, Sunbeam purchased Tribune's Boston CW affiliate WLVI for $117.3 million on September 14, 2006. When Sunbeam took control of the station on December 18, 2006, all local operations at WLVI ceased, with WLVI moving into WHDH's studios and WHDH-produced newscasts taking the place of WLVI's former 10 p.m. newscast.
Following Ed Ansin's death on July 26, 2020, ownership of Sunbeam Television was passed on to his sons Andrew and James, a wish Ed had publicly expressed as early as 1987. Andrew Ansin was appointed as Sunbeam's president/CEO on August 3, 2020.
WSVN became a central player in a protracted dispute between Sunbeam, CBS and NBC that lasted for nearly two years. Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), a merchant banker that purchased the parent company of CBS affiliate WTVJ (channel 4) in 1983, was required to sell the station in order to meet regulatory approval for a different leveraged buyout two years later. At the same time, CBS was exploring the purchase of a station in the Miami market and originally bid $350 million for WTVJ, but KKR opted to sell it in a package deal to Lorimar-Telepictures in April 1986. Lorimar withdrew their offer for WTVJ several months later after learning CBS inquired with the owners of Fox affiliate WCIX (channel 6) about a purchase of that station instead; this threat, along with a rejected $170 million offer by CBS, prompted KKR to offer WTVJ to Capital Cities/ABC and NBC parent General Electric (GE). GE then purchased WTVJ for $270 million on January 16, 1987, 15 days after signing an affiliation contract extension with WSVN: for the first time in the history of North American television, a television network purchased an affiliate of a competitor.
Sunbeam and Ed Ansin contested the sale of WTVJ before the FCC; while NBC committed to honor their contract with WSVN, Ansin raised concerns NBC could create a competitive disadvantage by owning WTVJ yet operate it as a CBS affiliate for two years. Despite retaining former FCC commissioner Charles D. Ferris and the support of multiple elected representatives, the FCC approved the sale in September 1987, with NBC contractually obligated to run WTVJ as a CBS affiliate until April 1988 at the earliest. At the same time, CBS was forced to negotiate with Ansin by default after WCIX was sold to the TVX Broadcast Group, but an impasse developed over the network's insistence to join WSVN as soon as possible, while Ansin wanted to honor the NBC contract in full. TVX, badly overleveraged from their purchase of WCIX and several other stations, was pressured to sell the station by creditor Salomon Brothers (which held 60 percent ownership in TVX), and whom CBS began talks with about a purchase.
On August 8, 1988, CBS agreed to purchase WCIX as their replacement affiliate, effectively rendering WSVN as an independent station on January 1, 1989. CBS also signed a deal with West Palm Beach's ABC affiliate WPEC, now resulting in a complex six-station affiliate shuffle in two markets. As soon as CBS's WCIX purchase was announced, Ansin announced WSVN would become a news-intensive station, a stance that was ridiculed in the local media. Despite losing their program director and having a thin off-network syndicated program inventory, the station committed to producing 7+1⁄2 hours of local newscasts on weekdays, unheard of for any independent in the United States prior. WSVN made the move under the presumption that their current audience would not defect to other channels despite the loss of network programming. By October 1988, WSVN signed up as the market's new Fox affiliate and linked with CNN for national news coverage, but marketed and prompted themselves as an independent.
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Sunbeam Television
Sunbeam Television Corporation is a privately held broadcasting company based in Miami, Florida, that owns three television stations in the United States. Since the company's founding in 1953, it has been under the control of the Ansin family.
Sunbeam Television was founded on December 16, 1953, by Sidney Ansin, who inherited his family's shoemaking business in Massachusetts and later purchased South Florida real estate in the years after World War II, eventually settling in Miami Beach. Ansin's company was formed as one of five bidders for the channel 7 license in Miami, with sons Ronald and Edmund Ansin included as they had expressed interest in television themselves. While Biscayne Television Corporation, a three-way partnership between newspaper publishers James M. Cox and John S. Knight, along with former NBC president Niles Trammell, won the bidding process with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and signed on WCKT, their license was ultimately revoked after a combination of ethics violations within the FCC and improper conduct between the commissioners and Biscayne management. Sunbeam won a replacement license after it was determined that their bid was the only one amongst the original bidders conducted in an ethical manner, and purchased the assets of the former WCKT for their license, re-using the WCKT call sign.
Ed Ansin was installed as WCKT's executive vice president upon Sunbeam's takeover of the station. He became the company's president and chief operating officer after Sidney's death in October 1971. WCKT would change its call letters to WSVN in 1983 and would remain Sunbeam's lone property until 1993, when they acquired WHDH in Boston from New England Television.
As part of a wide-ranging series of asset sales by Tribune Broadcasting totaling $500 million, Sunbeam purchased Tribune's Boston CW affiliate WLVI for $117.3 million on September 14, 2006. When Sunbeam took control of the station on December 18, 2006, all local operations at WLVI ceased, with WLVI moving into WHDH's studios and WHDH-produced newscasts taking the place of WLVI's former 10 p.m. newscast.
Following Ed Ansin's death on July 26, 2020, ownership of Sunbeam Television was passed on to his sons Andrew and James, a wish Ed had publicly expressed as early as 1987. Andrew Ansin was appointed as Sunbeam's president/CEO on August 3, 2020.
WSVN became a central player in a protracted dispute between Sunbeam, CBS and NBC that lasted for nearly two years. Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), a merchant banker that purchased the parent company of CBS affiliate WTVJ (channel 4) in 1983, was required to sell the station in order to meet regulatory approval for a different leveraged buyout two years later. At the same time, CBS was exploring the purchase of a station in the Miami market and originally bid $350 million for WTVJ, but KKR opted to sell it in a package deal to Lorimar-Telepictures in April 1986. Lorimar withdrew their offer for WTVJ several months later after learning CBS inquired with the owners of Fox affiliate WCIX (channel 6) about a purchase of that station instead; this threat, along with a rejected $170 million offer by CBS, prompted KKR to offer WTVJ to Capital Cities/ABC and NBC parent General Electric (GE). GE then purchased WTVJ for $270 million on January 16, 1987, 15 days after signing an affiliation contract extension with WSVN: for the first time in the history of North American television, a television network purchased an affiliate of a competitor.
Sunbeam and Ed Ansin contested the sale of WTVJ before the FCC; while NBC committed to honor their contract with WSVN, Ansin raised concerns NBC could create a competitive disadvantage by owning WTVJ yet operate it as a CBS affiliate for two years. Despite retaining former FCC commissioner Charles D. Ferris and the support of multiple elected representatives, the FCC approved the sale in September 1987, with NBC contractually obligated to run WTVJ as a CBS affiliate until April 1988 at the earliest. At the same time, CBS was forced to negotiate with Ansin by default after WCIX was sold to the TVX Broadcast Group, but an impasse developed over the network's insistence to join WSVN as soon as possible, while Ansin wanted to honor the NBC contract in full. TVX, badly overleveraged from their purchase of WCIX and several other stations, was pressured to sell the station by creditor Salomon Brothers (which held 60 percent ownership in TVX), and whom CBS began talks with about a purchase.
On August 8, 1988, CBS agreed to purchase WCIX as their replacement affiliate, effectively rendering WSVN as an independent station on January 1, 1989. CBS also signed a deal with West Palm Beach's ABC affiliate WPEC, now resulting in a complex six-station affiliate shuffle in two markets. As soon as CBS's WCIX purchase was announced, Ansin announced WSVN would become a news-intensive station, a stance that was ridiculed in the local media. Despite losing their program director and having a thin off-network syndicated program inventory, the station committed to producing 7+1⁄2 hours of local newscasts on weekdays, unheard of for any independent in the United States prior. WSVN made the move under the presumption that their current audience would not defect to other channels despite the loss of network programming. By October 1988, WSVN signed up as the market's new Fox affiliate and linked with CNN for national news coverage, but marketed and prompted themselves as an independent.