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WOFL
WOFL (channel 35) is a television station in Orlando, Florida, United States, serving as the market's Fox network outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV station WRBW (channel 65). The two stations share studios on Skyline Drive in Lake Mary; WOFL's transmitter is located in Bithlo, Florida. WOFL's local news programming is also broadcast on co-owned WOGX, serving Ocala and Gainesville.
Channel 35 in Orlando went on the air as WSWB-TV on March 31, 1974. Built by Sun World Broadcasters, WSWB-TV was Orlando's first independent station. After facing 19 months of construction delays, it suffered from financial difficulties within months of launching. This culminated in the station's equipment being seized by federal marshals on September 30, 1976. Three years of legal wrangling over a buyer followed. Omega Communications, a company led by former Taft Broadcasting executive Bud Rogers, beat out Ted Turner and the Christian Broadcasting Network and put channel 35 back on the air October 15, 1979, as WOFL. Under Omega and Meredith Corporation, which became its full owner in 1983, the station prospered as the highest-rated and, for some years, the only full-market independent station in rapidly growing Central Florida.
WOFL began airing local newscasts in March 1998, first at 10 p.m. before expanding to mornings. After Meredith traded WOFL to Fox Television Stations in 2002, the news department grew aggressively over the course of the 2000s, with additional hours of morning, early evening, and late evening newscasts.
Interest in constructing a commercial ultra high frequency (UHF) television station in Orlando stretched as far back as 1965, when the Connecticut-based Omicron Television Corporation applied for channel 35. The construction permit was awarded in 1966, but it was vacant by 1970, when Sun World Broadcasters Inc. applied for channel 35. It was headed by Orlando resident Earl Boyles, who had run television stations in multiple states, and featured stockholders from the Orlando area as well as the state of North Carolina. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the construction permit to Sun World on March 21, 1971, and the call sign WSWB-TV two months later.
Sun World's plans to build the station were delayed 19 months. In April 1972, the company ran newspaper ads promising the station would debut that August. Construction activities were snarled by a national shortage of building supplies, which delayed work on the studios on Colonial Drive east of Orlando, and difficulties with the land conditions at the tower site in Bithlo, which a station official called "mucky" and requiring compacted sand to withstand the weight of a 1,500-foot (460 m) tower. Planned airdates of March, August, and November 1973 were all missed.
WSWB-TV began broadcasting on March 31, 1974. It represented an investment of $3.6 million and was a general-entertainment independent station with movies, sports, reruns, children's shows, and pre-empted network programming. It also featured a local 10:30 p.m. newscast. The 10:30 news used national and international footage from Television News Inc.; it lasted six months before being scrapped. At the outset, WSWB-TV invested heavily in locally produced programs, which included a midday talk show, Florida Lifestyle; two children's shows, Romper Room and Uncle Hubie's Children's Playhouse; a teen dance hour, Blue Christie's Rock and Roll Sundance; and the country music program The Gene Thomley Show.
Within months of signing on the air, WSWB-TV began showing signs of financial strain. In November 1974, RCA, a major equipment supplier to the startup station, sued for $2.28 million they alleged they were owed on video tape equipment, which they sought to repossess. Sun World countersued, alleging that RCA had breached its contract and claiming loss of advertising sales and reputation after the RCA suit. The station spent 1975 fighting for its viability. In June, Sun World agreed to sell WSWB-TV to the Martin International Corporation, though the transaction was not submitted for FCC approval until December 16. Meanwhile July 2, leasing company Continental Credit Corporation moved to seize $200,000 of mostly office furnishings from the studios, though the station continued to broadcast. Continental pushed for the appointment of a receiver for WSWB-TV, to which Martin objected because it believed such a move would jeopardize the station's broadcast license; as a compromise, the parent of Sun World, not Sun World itself, was put into receivership. Following the appointment, WSWB-TV canceled its local programs, let go of their hosts, and focused its early evening lineup and movies. In December 1975, Winter Park Federal Savings and Loan and Continental Credit—the two mortgageholders on WSWB-TV properties—moved to auction the station's facilities to satisfy creditors, with the savings and loan winning its own mortgages at auction.
On October 3, 1975, a federal judge ordered Sun World Broadcasters to turn over RCA's equipment to the company within 28 days. RCA later gave the station until September 28, 1976, to pay what it was owed. The action went unheralded until September 30, 1976, when U.S. Marshals arrived at the station's studios with a court order and a group of movers and engineers to remove the RCA equipment from the building. At 2:39 p.m., in the middle of The Mickey Mouse Club and with no advance warning to viewers, channel 35 left the air. Viewers flooded the station's switchboard with calls after the shutdown and as they tuned in for programs throughout the day, asking what had happened. Even the youngest viewers, who watched channel 35's cartoons and children's programs, tried to help, sending letters of encouragement and in one case money from their allowances.
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WOFL
WOFL (channel 35) is a television station in Orlando, Florida, United States, serving as the market's Fox network outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV station WRBW (channel 65). The two stations share studios on Skyline Drive in Lake Mary; WOFL's transmitter is located in Bithlo, Florida. WOFL's local news programming is also broadcast on co-owned WOGX, serving Ocala and Gainesville.
Channel 35 in Orlando went on the air as WSWB-TV on March 31, 1974. Built by Sun World Broadcasters, WSWB-TV was Orlando's first independent station. After facing 19 months of construction delays, it suffered from financial difficulties within months of launching. This culminated in the station's equipment being seized by federal marshals on September 30, 1976. Three years of legal wrangling over a buyer followed. Omega Communications, a company led by former Taft Broadcasting executive Bud Rogers, beat out Ted Turner and the Christian Broadcasting Network and put channel 35 back on the air October 15, 1979, as WOFL. Under Omega and Meredith Corporation, which became its full owner in 1983, the station prospered as the highest-rated and, for some years, the only full-market independent station in rapidly growing Central Florida.
WOFL began airing local newscasts in March 1998, first at 10 p.m. before expanding to mornings. After Meredith traded WOFL to Fox Television Stations in 2002, the news department grew aggressively over the course of the 2000s, with additional hours of morning, early evening, and late evening newscasts.
Interest in constructing a commercial ultra high frequency (UHF) television station in Orlando stretched as far back as 1965, when the Connecticut-based Omicron Television Corporation applied for channel 35. The construction permit was awarded in 1966, but it was vacant by 1970, when Sun World Broadcasters Inc. applied for channel 35. It was headed by Orlando resident Earl Boyles, who had run television stations in multiple states, and featured stockholders from the Orlando area as well as the state of North Carolina. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the construction permit to Sun World on March 21, 1971, and the call sign WSWB-TV two months later.
Sun World's plans to build the station were delayed 19 months. In April 1972, the company ran newspaper ads promising the station would debut that August. Construction activities were snarled by a national shortage of building supplies, which delayed work on the studios on Colonial Drive east of Orlando, and difficulties with the land conditions at the tower site in Bithlo, which a station official called "mucky" and requiring compacted sand to withstand the weight of a 1,500-foot (460 m) tower. Planned airdates of March, August, and November 1973 were all missed.
WSWB-TV began broadcasting on March 31, 1974. It represented an investment of $3.6 million and was a general-entertainment independent station with movies, sports, reruns, children's shows, and pre-empted network programming. It also featured a local 10:30 p.m. newscast. The 10:30 news used national and international footage from Television News Inc.; it lasted six months before being scrapped. At the outset, WSWB-TV invested heavily in locally produced programs, which included a midday talk show, Florida Lifestyle; two children's shows, Romper Room and Uncle Hubie's Children's Playhouse; a teen dance hour, Blue Christie's Rock and Roll Sundance; and the country music program The Gene Thomley Show.
Within months of signing on the air, WSWB-TV began showing signs of financial strain. In November 1974, RCA, a major equipment supplier to the startup station, sued for $2.28 million they alleged they were owed on video tape equipment, which they sought to repossess. Sun World countersued, alleging that RCA had breached its contract and claiming loss of advertising sales and reputation after the RCA suit. The station spent 1975 fighting for its viability. In June, Sun World agreed to sell WSWB-TV to the Martin International Corporation, though the transaction was not submitted for FCC approval until December 16. Meanwhile July 2, leasing company Continental Credit Corporation moved to seize $200,000 of mostly office furnishings from the studios, though the station continued to broadcast. Continental pushed for the appointment of a receiver for WSWB-TV, to which Martin objected because it believed such a move would jeopardize the station's broadcast license; as a compromise, the parent of Sun World, not Sun World itself, was put into receivership. Following the appointment, WSWB-TV canceled its local programs, let go of their hosts, and focused its early evening lineup and movies. In December 1975, Winter Park Federal Savings and Loan and Continental Credit—the two mortgageholders on WSWB-TV properties—moved to auction the station's facilities to satisfy creditors, with the savings and loan winning its own mortgages at auction.
On October 3, 1975, a federal judge ordered Sun World Broadcasters to turn over RCA's equipment to the company within 28 days. RCA later gave the station until September 28, 1976, to pay what it was owed. The action went unheralded until September 30, 1976, when U.S. Marshals arrived at the station's studios with a court order and a group of movers and engineers to remove the RCA equipment from the building. At 2:39 p.m., in the middle of The Mickey Mouse Club and with no advance warning to viewers, channel 35 left the air. Viewers flooded the station's switchboard with calls after the shutdown and as they tuned in for programs throughout the day, asking what had happened. Even the youngest viewers, who watched channel 35's cartoons and children's programs, tried to help, sending letters of encouragement and in one case money from their allowances.
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