WINK-TV
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| WINK-TV | |
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| Fort Myers/Naples, Florida | |
| Branding | WINK-TV WINK News Now |
| Slogan | Southwest Florida's News Leader |
| Channels | Analog: 11 (VHF) |
| Affiliations | CBS |
| Owner | Fort Myers Broadcasting Company (McBride family) (Fort Myers Broadcasting Company) |
| First air date | March 1954[1] |
| Call letters’ meaning | "wink" (refers to the CBS eye for CBS affiliation) |
| Sister station(s) | WINK-AM / WNOG-AM WINK-FM WXCW |
| Former affiliations | All secondary: DuMont (1954-1955) NBC (1954-1968) ABC (1954-1974) |
| Transmitter Power | 316 kW (analog) 20 kW (digital) |
| Height | 412 m (analog) 445 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 22093 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | |
| Website | www.winknews.com |
WINK-TV, channel 11, is the CBS-affiliated television station for Southwest Florida, licensed to Fort Myers. Its transmitter is located north of Fort Myers Shores near the Lee and Charlotte County line. The station is owned by the Fort Myers Broadcasting Company (which is controlled by the McBride family). That family also controls WINK-FM 96.9 and operates WINK-AM 1240 / WNOG-AM 1270 (which are owned by Meridian Broadcasting). WINK-TV has studios on Palm Beach Boulevard (a.k.a. S.R. 80) in Fort Myers.
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[edit] Overview
WINK-TV operates CW affiliate WXCW (which is owned by Sun Broadcasting) through a shared services agreement (SSA). That station is based at WINK-TV's facilities. The station can be seen in the market on Comcast cable channel 5. Its coverage area included Lee, Collier, Sarasota, Hendry, Glades, Charlotte, DeSoto, Highlands and Hardee.
In the Tampa Bay market, WINK-TV is one of two Fort Myers stations carried by Comcast cable systems in Venice and Wauchula. It is the only Fort Myers station on Comcast systems in Sebring. This is due in part to the fact that CBS affiliate WTSP has a signal that cannot be seen well in Sarasota, Hardee, and Highlands Counties (all parts of the Tampa Bay DMA). WTSP's transmitter is located in Holiday, in the northern part of the Tampa Bay market. In general, WINK-TV's aerial coverage area extends as far north as southern Polk County.
WINK-TV clears just about the entire CBS schedule. Due to an hour-long news at Noon during the week, WINK-TV airs two of CBS's soap operas out of pattern: The Bold and the Beautiful airs at 10:30 A.M. (normally airs at 1:30 P.M.) and The Young and the Restless airs at 1 P.M. (which is half an hour later than most CBS affiliates).
[edit] History
WINK-TV was founded in March of 1954. It was the first television station in Southwest Florida and the fifth-oldest in the state. At the time of the station's beginning, Southwest Florida was underpopulated and people had to rely on television stations from Miami and Tampa Bay. These markets were and continued to be obtainable with large outdoor antennas.
WINK-TV was the only station in the area for 14 years and is still the only full-powered VHF station in the market. Due to Fort Myers being sandwiched between Miami and Tampa Bay, WINK-TV was fortunate to gain the only VHF license allocated to the area. As such, it originally carried programming from NBC, ABC and DuMont along with CBS (DuMont folded in 1956). It lost NBC when WBBH-TV signed on in 1968 but continued to share ABC with WBBH until WEVU-TV (now WZVN-TV) signed on in 1974.
On May 15, 2006, Acme Communications announced that it was selling WXCW (then WTVK) to Sun Broadcasting. The sale was finalized on February 16, 2007. After the approval, Sun Broadcasting established a shared services agreement (SSA) with WINK-TV. WXCW moved from its Bonita Springs studios to WINK-TV's facilities in Fort Myers.
[edit] News operation
WINK-TV has been the dominant news station in Fort Myers for nearly all of its history. This is largely because it is the market's only VHF station. Until cable television came to the area in the 1970s, WINK-TV was the only station that put a clear signal to much of the area. Due to the duopoly of WBBH & WZVN, WINK-TV primarily competes with WBBH.
Starting on March 26, 2007, WINK-TV began to produce a nightly 10 o'clock news on WXCW. This was the third 10 P.M. news established in the market (after FOX affiliate WFTX and MyNetworkTV affiliate "WNFM") and became ranked a strong #2 within days of its debut. On May 25, the WZVN-produced news on WNFM stopped airing. This was due to Comcast's frequent technical difficulties, which hindered the show's ratings, as well as the popularity of the WXCW production.
On October 20, WINK-TV became the first station in Southwest Florida to broadcast local news in high definition. The station purchased new high definition studio cameras, field cameras, weather computers, and graphics to complete the launch. It is the only station broadcasting local news in full HD. Back on July 12, WZVN began to broadcast its local news in 16x9 standard definition. However, it is not true high definition. WBBH followed soon after with its own launch of 16x9 standard definition news.
On January 7, 2008, several news programming changes were made. WINK-TV started showing The Early Show in its entirety because CBS now requires all of its affiliates to do that. The Early Show received a makeover and hopes to compete against its rivals, Today and Good Morning America. WINK-TV expanded its morning news on WXCW from 7 to 9 A.M. It also began to repeat its Noon news at 1 o'clock on that station. In addition, WINK-TV launched the market's first weeknight 7 o'clock news.
In addition to their main studios, WINK-TV operates two news bureaus. The Charlotte County Bureau is located in the Charlotte Sun Herald newsroom in Port Charlotte. The Naples / Collier Bureau is located on 8th Street South in downtown Naples. The station's weather radar is called "SKY Tracker Doppler HD" and is located next to the WINK-TV studios (it is also used on WXCW).
[edit] News team
Anchors
- Rob Spicker - weekday mornings
- Sarah Augusthy - weekday mornings
- Lindsay Liepman - weekdays at Noon
- reporter
- Chris Cifatte - weeknights at 5, 6, and 11
- Lois Thome - weeknights at 5, 6, and 7
- "Eye on Education" segment producer
- Trey Radel - weeknights at 7 and 10
- Stacey Adams - weeknights at 10
- reporter
- Lisa Mishler - weeknights at 11
- reporter
- Kyle Jordan - weekend mornings
- reporter
- Holly Wagner - weekend mornings
- reporter
- Jennifer Stacy - weekend evenings at 6 (SAT), 6:30 (SUN), 10, and 11
- weekday "Eye on your Health" reporter
- Jeremiah Jacobsen - weekends evenings at 10
- reporter
WINK-TV SKY Tracker Weather Team
- Jim Farrell (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist) - Chief seen on weeknights at 5, 6, 7, and 11
- Scott Zedeker - weeknights at 5 (second half hour) and 10
- Brian Monahan (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist) - weekday mornings and Noon
- Amanda McDonald - weekends
- Janine Albert (AMS and NWA Seals of Approval) - fill-in
- provides live coverage during hurricane landfalls for WINK-TV and The Weather Channel
Sports
- Clayton Ferraro - Director seen on weeknights at 6, 7, and 11
- Randy Scott - weekend evenings
- sports reporter
Reporters
- Melissa Cabral - Eye on Education
- Josh Carroll - fill-in reporter
- WINK radio weekday afternoon anchor
- Judd Cribbs - weeknight feature
- seen three nights a week
- Cribbs Notes segment producer
- Nicole Papageorge - Charlotte County Bureau
- Miriam Zamorano - weekday traffic
- Cristin Severance - Cape Coral
- Maggie Crane
- Mike Essian, Collier County Bureau
- Tami Osborn, Collier County Bureau
- Laura Kadechka, Crime beat reporter
- Althea Paul
- Nick Spinetto
- Mike Walcher
- Melissa Yeager, Call For Action reporter
[edit] External links
- WINK-TV/DT
- WXCW "CW 6"
- CBS
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WINK-TV
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WINK-TV
[edit] References
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