WHFT-TV (channel 45) is a religious television station in

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

, Florida, United States,

owned and operated In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...

by the

Trinity Broadcasting Network The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN; legally Trinity Broadcasting of Texas, Inc.) is an international Christian-based broadcast television network and the world's largest religious television network. TBN solicits donations on its Web site, a ...

(TBN). The station's studios and

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

are located at the Lakeside Park (formerly Lake Trinity Estates) complex on Pembroke Road in

Pembroke Park Pembroke Park is a town in Broward County, Florida, United States. The town took its name from its location along Pembroke Road. It is part of the South Florida metropolitan area. Almost one-half of its residents live in mobile homes. As of th ...

(with a

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mailing address).

History

The station first signed on the air on March 17, 1975, as WFCB-TV; it originally operated as a religious

independent station An independent station is a broadcast station, usually a television station, not affiliated with a larger broadcast television network, network. As such, it only broadcasts broadcast syndication, syndicated programs it has purchased; brokered pr ...

that was owned by Florida Christian Television. The sign-on took place more than five years after the original construction permit was issued on August 29, 1969. ( Guide to reading History Cards) The station aired programming for five hours a day, running a few local church services, Bible instruction programs, children's Christian programming, and programs from nationally known television evangelists. Florida Christian Television's owners were unable to keep the station solvent, so they put the station up for sale in early 1976, with a request to sell it to a Christian ministry. The Lester Sumrall Evangelistic Association (later known as

LeSEA Broadcasting Family Broadcasting Corporation, formerly known as LeSEA Broadcasting, is an American Christianity, Christian television network. Founded by Lester Sumrall in 1972, Family Broadcasting Corporation is headquartered in South Bend, Indiana, and br ...

) acquired the station in July 1976, after Florida Christian Television opted to sell for lack of capital. The station's call letters were changed to WHFT-TV (standing for "World Harvest Florida Television"), and the station switched from viewer- to advertiser-supported. Initially, the station's schedule expanded to nine hours a day with the addition of more Christian programming, much of it added by LeSEA, along with televangelist programs such as ''

The 700 Club ''The 700 Club'' is the flagship television program of the Christian Broadcasting Network, airing each weekday in syndication in the United States and available worldwide on CBN.com. The news magazine program features live guests, daily news, p ...

''; a further expansion soon after added additional secular family entertainment shows. In 1980, a month after Sumrall declared that the station was not for sale, it was announced that WHFT would be purchased by the

. While TBN promised to increase programming from local religious ministries, the station dropped all of its secular programs as part of the sale. Productions from the studios included the national Monday-night broadcast of '' Praise the Lord'' and a significant portion of TBN's Spanish-language output. The Pembroke Park mobile home park—mostly home to seasonal

French Canadian French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French people, French colonists first arriving in Canada (New France), France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of ...

residents—where WHFT's tower and former studios are located—was purchased by TBN in 1983 to reduce conflicts with neighbors and was known as Trinity Towers. The complex was renamed Lakeside Park Estates in 2017. The tower has been climbed on several occasions—including twice by the same man, ten years apart.

Subchannels

The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 46, using

virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered as digits on a receiver's ...

45.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Whft-Tv 1975 establishments in Florida Family Broadcasting Corporation Merit TV affiliates HFT-TV Television channels and stations established in 1975 HFT-TV Trinity Broadcasting Network stations