WPBF: История телеканала в Текесте, Флорида

ABC affiliate in Tequesta, Florida, U. S.

WPBF (channel 25) is a television station licensed to Tequesta, Florida, United States, serving the West Palm Beach area as an affiliate of ABC. Owned by Hearst Television, the station maintains studios on RCA Boulevard in the Monet section of Palm Beach Gardens and a transmitter in Palm City southwest of I 95. Thirteen applicants sought channel 25 in Tequesta, which was awarded to a group that proposed closed captioned news programming. Nearly all of the company was then sold to a partnership of John C. Phipps and Alan Potamkin. While channel 25 intended to be an independent station, the ABC affiliation unexpectedly became available as a result of an affiliation switch that started in the Miami market and spread to West Palm Beach. Even though it was not on the air, WPBF obtained the ABC affiliation—surprising industry observers—and set television precedent as the first station to pay a network to affiliate. After hastily building its facilities and news department, WPBF launched on January 1, 1989, with ABC programming from its first day on air. However, it debuted at third in the local news ratings and struggled economically for several years. Channel 25 was owned in the mid 1990s by Florida based Paxson Communications Corporation, though Paxson soon focused on developing its own national network and decided to sell WPBF, its only major network affiliate. Hearst acquired channel 25 in 1997 and lifted the station from third to second place in local news audience.

While Phipps and Potamkin never placed WPBF up for sale, they received an unexpected offer in late 1993 and accepted it at the start of 1994. The buyer was Clearwater based Paxson Communications Corporation, which at the time owned radio stations in several major cities across the state but no television properties. Founder Lowell Paxson vowed that WPBF would not be its last Florida TV station. He also deepened his involvement in the West Palm Beach area, buying the former Woolworth Donahue estate in Palm Beach for $12 million (equivalent to $12.0 in 1995 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years million in ) to live there and a West Palm Beach office building to serve as his corporate headquarters. Paxson also supported the purchase of WTVX out of bankruptcy court by Whitehead Media in 1995, providing financing and assuming control over operations via a local marketing agreement. Paxson's increasing business interests focusing on infomercial programming—the seeds for what became Ion Television—and radio in Florida led the company to sell the West Palm Beach station. In 1996, Paxson hired an investment firm to consult it on a sale of WPBF and its LMA with WTVX or a trade with another station. Several buyers were rumored, including the ABC network itself, but Paxson took the stations off the market for the short term, even though he still desired to sell WPBF, his only network affiliate. WTVX was ultimately sold to the Paramount Stations Group, the owner of the UPN network it broadcast; the LMA structure made it easier to separate the two stations at sale. In March 1997, Paxson reached a deal to sell WPBF to the Hearst Corporation for $85 million (equivalent to $85.0 in 1997 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years million in ), more than double what he had paid for it and for a cash flow multiple higher than the industry average.

The same haste with which WPBF was built extended to the news department. Founding news director Lee Polowczuk started on November 14; within 50 days, after receiving hundreds of unsolicited audition tapes from around the country, the news department was up and running. Newscasts started on the station's second day of broadcasting, originating came from a room intended for use as a prop closet until the actual newsroom could be finished. Most of the original news talent had worked in other Florida markets, including ex WTVJ anchors Jim Brosemer and Marc Goldberg, as well as Sheila O'Connor, who had worked in Orlando. The local newscasts from WPBF debuted in third place in the ratings behind the two other West Palm Beach stations; the newly independent WTVX shuttered its news department in August 1989. Phipps and Potamkin made another expansion of the news staff in 1990, bringing it to 67 people, in an effort to lift the station out of third. Closed captioning on the local newscasts—the promise that had once earned Heisler a favorable opinion at the FCC—was instituted in 1990; with all three local newsrooms doing so within a span of several months, West Palm Beach became one of just two markets nationally in which all local newscasts were captioned. However, the station's cuts meant that, by 1991, there were fewer full time reporters than at WPTV or WPEC; even weekend newscasts were briefly suspended. Under Paxson ownership, WPBF received a new news set. It also briefly produced a 10 p. m. newscast for WTVX. However, ratings did not improve. Third place continued to be WPBF's finish in the early years under Hearst, but ratings began to improve in 2000, attributed to improvements made by the new ownership. This included the 1999 launch of a morning newscast, years after WPTV and WPEC. However, ratings continued to be an issue. In 2003, the station dropped separate sports segments in its newscasts. In one shake up, the 11 p. m. newscast was retooled with a three anchor format. In the mid 2000s, the station finally found a formula that improved its ratings, one centered around weather: forecasts were moved to the lead story in each WPBF newscast. After seeing ratings increases, channel 25 added 4 p. m. and 5:30 a. m. newscasts in 2006. Weekend morning and weekday 5 a. m. newscasts were added in 2008. The steady climb made WPBF a solid contender for second alongside WPEC by 2014, though both stations still trailed longtime market leader WPTV. After The Ellen DeGeneres Show ended its run in 2022, WPBF reintroduced a 4 p. m. news hour. The next year, the station debuted a 10 p. m. newscast on its Me TV subchannel, lengthened its noon news to an hour, and launched a weekly public affairs show, On the Record. By January 2024, WPBF led in local news ratings at 5, 6, and 11 p. m., with WPTV coming in second in all three time slots.

WPBF discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 25, at 11:59 p. m. on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre transition UHF channel 16, using virtual channel 25. As part of the SAFER Act, WPBF kept its analog signal on the air until July 12 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.