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WFLD is an owned and operated station of the Fox Broadcasting Company network, based in Chicago, Illinois. The station operates on Channel 32, though it is identified on the air as simply "Fox Chicago." WFLD's transmitter sits on top of the John Hancock Center.
WFLD is a typical Fox station with about 35 to 40 hours a week of news along with syndicated first run talk/court/reality shows, off network sitcoms, Fox Prime Time programmimg, and sports.
History
The station began life on January 4, 1966, from its downtown Chicago studios. Its founding owners, Field Communications (a division of the Marshall Field's department stores) merged with Kaiser Broadcasting in 1972, and the new combined company now owned UHF stations in San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, and Detroit. In 1982, Field sold off its stations and WFLD was sold to Metromedia. Metromedia's television stations were sold to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in 1986, which included WFLD.
WFLD for much of the 1970s and 1980s broadcasted Chicago White Sox games, and later those of the Chicago Bulls. That was until arch-rival WGN-TV acquired broadcast rights to both teams in 1990 (Chicago-area attorney and real estate investor Jerry Reinsdorf owns both franchises). To counter-program against its more established VHF rivals, Channel 32 offered documentaries, adult dramas, Westerns, and live sports. WFLD was also noteworthy as the longtime home of the local B-movie program Svengoolie, which currently airs on rival station WCIU. The station was christened the "Station of Tomorrow" by the Chicago Sun-Times in an April 1966 article because of its innovative technical developments in broadcasting its signal.
From the late 1960s to the '80s, WFLD carried a wide variety of cartoons, off-network sitcoms, old movies, a few drama shows, and local public affairs programming. It trailed WGN-TV in the ratings until the late 1970s, when it won bids to shows such as M*A*S*H, All In The Family, and Happy Days. The station finally beat WGN-TV in the ratings, and the two stations went head to head throughout the 1980s.
Field Communications put its TV stations on the block in 1982 and sold WFLD to Metromedia for a record high price paid for a UHF station at that time. Metromedia immediately changed the graphics and imaging. It also added more first-run syndicated talk shows on WFLD.
The station continued to compete agressively in the market. Fox bought Metromedia stations in 1986. Channel 32 was then known as FOX32. FOX32 kept a similar format, adding prime time Fox programming in 1987. The station expanded its news presence as well. In addition to its 9pm newscast, which it has had since the early 1980s, the station started airing a morning newscast called "FOX Thing in the Morning" in place of the morning kids block.
The afternoon kids block, which became Fox Kids by 1993, continued on the station, as well as the top-rated off-network sitcoms in the evening. It also added more first-run talk shows and court shows. When Fox ended the weekday kids block in January of 2002, WFLD added more first-run reality and talk shows to the lineup.
In the mid-1990s, after many years of being known on the air as "FOX32" (or even "FOX Thirty-Two"), the station rebranded itself as "FOX Chicago" due to the fact that many Chicagoans watch WFLD via cable (Channel 12 on most area cable systems). The station is co-owned with WPWR-TV channel 50, Chicago's UPN affiliate. Fox purchased WPWR in 2002, and WPWR's operations were integrated into WFLD's facilities in downtown Chicago.
In the Fall of 2005 WFLD FOX32 dropped the Saturday Morning Cartoon Block "4 Kids TV" which now airs on UPN 50 WPWR in the same timeslot. WFLD will be adding a Saturday Morning newscast in its place from 6-9 AM (which for now sitcoms air). From 9-12 Noon they run educational children's shows pertaining to news, wildlife, and sports. WFLD is the first of the original Fox O & O stations (owned prior to the New World stations purchase) to drop Saturday Morning Fox Children's programming.
WFLD's news operation, "FOX News Chicago", has less of a tabloid feel than the news on other Fox stations. However, it is much flashier than the other news operations in town.
- WFLD's logo from the late 1990's WFLD's logo from the late 1990's
Newscasts
- FOX News in the Morning - 5-9AM
- FOX News at Noon - 12-1PM
- FOX News at 9PM - 9-10PM
- FOX News at 5PM - 5-6PM (Saturdays)
References
External links
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