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WOTF-TV
WOTF-TV (channel 26) is a television station licensed to Daytona Beach, Florida, United States, serving the Orlando area as an affiliate of the digital multicast network Grit. The station is owned by Entravision Communications and has a transmitter near Orange City, Florida.
Channel 26 began broadcasting as WAYQ on September 12, 1988. After a years-long comparative hearing process that featured seven applicants, original owner Life Style Broadcasting entered into an agreement to share ownership and programming with WAYK (channel 56) in Melbourne. The intention of the combination of the two stations was to put a signal into the full Orlando media market, but WAYQ's signal did not fully reach Orlando, and it was never added to Orlando's cable system. This caused financial difficulty for the joint owner of WAYQ and WAYK, Beach Television Partners, which filed for bankruptcy protection in August 1990. On June 26, 1991, a United States Navy jet on a training mission clipped the station's tower at Pierson, taking WAYQ off the air. A lengthy claims process with the Navy and the loss of advertising revenue led to the appointment of a trustee for the two stations and their sale to separate companies.
WAYQ was bought out of bankruptcy by James McCotter and returned in 1996 as WNTO, whose primary programming source was the National Empowerment Television conservative talk channel. The station also aired Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball in the Orlando market, but attempts at higher-profile programming failed to materialize. The station was sold to Entravision in 2000 and switched to Univision in 2001, essentially upgrading the former WVEN-LP to full-power status. In 2017, Univision moved the network programming and WVEN-TV call letters to its own transmitter on channel 43, but Entravision continued to operate both stations until the end of 2021, when channel 26 lost its programming from UniMás.
Channel 26 in Daytona Beach began to attract interest from potential operators as early as 1978, when Springfield Television announced its intentions to file for the channel as an independent station. Springfield never filed, and the channel had no applications for it until Comark Television of Southwick, Massachusetts, applied for channel 26 in December 1979. Comark, a transmitter and antenna manufacturer, was making a foray into station ownership.
Comark's filing triggered a stampede of competing applications, seven in all by the time the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated a comparative hearing in July 1981. Two consisted primarily of local ownership: Daytona Beach Television, headed by state senator Edgar Dunn, and Life Style Broadcasting, led by former Daytona Beach city commissioner Lee Cook. Two others had ownership interests in other Florida stations: Daytona Broadcasting Company—owned by the Kupris family, which owned a TV station in Panama City—and WTWV, Inc., owned by Frank Spain alongside WTVA in Tupelo, Mississippi, and CBS affiliate WTVX in Fort Pierce. This application, unlike the others, specified a CBS affiliate based in nearby New Smyrna Beach. The other three applicants were from out of state: Comark; Daytona Beach Family Television, primarily consisting of ownership interests from Nashville, Tennessee; and Metrovision, Inc., a Black-owned broadcasting firm from Stamford, Connecticut.
Issues in the hearing primarily centered around comparative criteria such as integration of ownership and management as well as the technical question of finding a transmitter site that met a 205-mile (330 km) distance requirement to WEVU in Naples, also on channel 26. After the hearing, Metrovision dropped out because it felt pursuing the application would be too expensive, while WTWV and Comark cited disadvantages their firms held in the comparative field.
In April 1983, FCC administrative law judge John M. Frysiak issued an initial decision favoring a merger of Daytona Beach Television and Daytona Beach Family Television for the license. The losing contenders, Life Style Broadcasting and Daytona Broadcasting Company, challenged the ruling before the FCC review board. The board overturned the initial decision and awarded the channel to Life Style because of its superior coverage proposal and more diverse ownership. The proceeding languished until June 1986, when the parties reached a joint settlement agreement granting the construction permit to Life Style.
Life Style intended to construct the station by mid-1987, but no action was taken until December 1987, when Life Style signed an affiliation agreement to simulcast WAYK (channel 56) in Melbourne and sold it to a partnership of Life Style and WAYK ownership known as Beach Television Partners. The combination of channels 26 and 56 was expected by management to create a large signal covering the full Orlando media market. Tower construction began in April 1988; Volusia County granted a special exemption in spite of protests by pilots that visual flight rules aircraft traffic near the site had grown considerably since the original 1981 authorization.
WOTF-TV
WOTF-TV (channel 26) is a television station licensed to Daytona Beach, Florida, United States, serving the Orlando area as an affiliate of the digital multicast network Grit. The station is owned by Entravision Communications and has a transmitter near Orange City, Florida.
Channel 26 began broadcasting as WAYQ on September 12, 1988. After a years-long comparative hearing process that featured seven applicants, original owner Life Style Broadcasting entered into an agreement to share ownership and programming with WAYK (channel 56) in Melbourne. The intention of the combination of the two stations was to put a signal into the full Orlando media market, but WAYQ's signal did not fully reach Orlando, and it was never added to Orlando's cable system. This caused financial difficulty for the joint owner of WAYQ and WAYK, Beach Television Partners, which filed for bankruptcy protection in August 1990. On June 26, 1991, a United States Navy jet on a training mission clipped the station's tower at Pierson, taking WAYQ off the air. A lengthy claims process with the Navy and the loss of advertising revenue led to the appointment of a trustee for the two stations and their sale to separate companies.
WAYQ was bought out of bankruptcy by James McCotter and returned in 1996 as WNTO, whose primary programming source was the National Empowerment Television conservative talk channel. The station also aired Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball in the Orlando market, but attempts at higher-profile programming failed to materialize. The station was sold to Entravision in 2000 and switched to Univision in 2001, essentially upgrading the former WVEN-LP to full-power status. In 2017, Univision moved the network programming and WVEN-TV call letters to its own transmitter on channel 43, but Entravision continued to operate both stations until the end of 2021, when channel 26 lost its programming from UniMás.
Channel 26 in Daytona Beach began to attract interest from potential operators as early as 1978, when Springfield Television announced its intentions to file for the channel as an independent station. Springfield never filed, and the channel had no applications for it until Comark Television of Southwick, Massachusetts, applied for channel 26 in December 1979. Comark, a transmitter and antenna manufacturer, was making a foray into station ownership.
Comark's filing triggered a stampede of competing applications, seven in all by the time the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated a comparative hearing in July 1981. Two consisted primarily of local ownership: Daytona Beach Television, headed by state senator Edgar Dunn, and Life Style Broadcasting, led by former Daytona Beach city commissioner Lee Cook. Two others had ownership interests in other Florida stations: Daytona Broadcasting Company—owned by the Kupris family, which owned a TV station in Panama City—and WTWV, Inc., owned by Frank Spain alongside WTVA in Tupelo, Mississippi, and CBS affiliate WTVX in Fort Pierce. This application, unlike the others, specified a CBS affiliate based in nearby New Smyrna Beach. The other three applicants were from out of state: Comark; Daytona Beach Family Television, primarily consisting of ownership interests from Nashville, Tennessee; and Metrovision, Inc., a Black-owned broadcasting firm from Stamford, Connecticut.
Issues in the hearing primarily centered around comparative criteria such as integration of ownership and management as well as the technical question of finding a transmitter site that met a 205-mile (330 km) distance requirement to WEVU in Naples, also on channel 26. After the hearing, Metrovision dropped out because it felt pursuing the application would be too expensive, while WTWV and Comark cited disadvantages their firms held in the comparative field.
In April 1983, FCC administrative law judge John M. Frysiak issued an initial decision favoring a merger of Daytona Beach Television and Daytona Beach Family Television for the license. The losing contenders, Life Style Broadcasting and Daytona Broadcasting Company, challenged the ruling before the FCC review board. The board overturned the initial decision and awarded the channel to Life Style because of its superior coverage proposal and more diverse ownership. The proceeding languished until June 1986, when the parties reached a joint settlement agreement granting the construction permit to Life Style.
Life Style intended to construct the station by mid-1987, but no action was taken until December 1987, when Life Style signed an affiliation agreement to simulcast WAYK (channel 56) in Melbourne and sold it to a partnership of Life Style and WAYK ownership known as Beach Television Partners. The combination of channels 26 and 56 was expected by management to create a large signal covering the full Orlando media market. Tower construction began in April 1988; Volusia County granted a special exemption in spite of protests by pilots that visual flight rules aircraft traffic near the site had grown considerably since the original 1981 authorization.