WSNS-TV (channel 44) is a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth's s ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, Illinois, United States, serving as the local outlet for the Spanish-language network

Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast. It provides content ...

. It is

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 ...

NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and Trade name, doing business as NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media and Show business, entertainment conglomerate (comp ...

Telemundo Station Group Telemundo Station Group is the division of NBCUniversal Owned TV Stations (NBCUniversal), a subsidiary of Comcast that oversees their Telemundo owned-and-operated television stations and the TeleXitos network. The NBC owned-and-operated station ...

alongside

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

outlet

WMAQ-TV WMAQ-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, serving as the market's NBC outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Telemundo station WSNS-TV (chann ...

(channel 5). The two stations share studios at the

NBC Tower __NOTOC__ The NBC Tower is an office tower on the Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois located at 454 North Columbus Drive (455 North Cityfront Plaza is also used as a vanity address) in downtown Chicago's Magnificent Mile area. Completed in 19 ...

on North Columbus Drive in the city's

Streeterville Streeterville is a neighborhood in the Near North Side, Chicago, Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States, north of the Chicago River. It is bounded by the river on the south, the Magnificent Mile portion of Michigan ...

neighborhood and broadcast from the same transmitter atop the

Willis Tower The Willis Tower, formerly and still commonly referred to as the Sears Tower, is a 110-storey, story, skyscraper in the Chicago Loop, Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, United States. Designed by architect Bruce Graham and engineer F ...

in the

Chicago Loop The Loop is Chicago's central business district and one of the city's 77 municipally recognized Community areas in Chicago, community areas. Located at the center of downtown Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan, it is the second-largest busi ...

. WSNS-TV began broadcasting in 1970. Originally specializing in the automated display of news headlines, it evolved into Chicago's third full-fledged

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 ...

, carrying movies, local sports, and other specialty programming. This continued until 1980, when WSNS became the Chicago-area station for ON TV, an over-the-air

subscription television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, b ...

(STV) service owned by

Oak Industries Oak Industries, Inc. was an American electronics company that manufactured a variety of products throughout seven decades in the 20th century. In existence from 1932 to 2000, the company's business lines primarily centered around electronic com ...

, which took a minority ownership stake in the station. While ON TV was successful in Chicago and the subscription system became the second-largest in the country by total subscribers, the rise of cable television precipitated the end of the business in 1985, with WSNS-TV as the last ON TV station standing. On July 1, 1985, the station became Chicago's first full-time Spanish-language outlet, affiliated with the Spanish International Network (

Univision Univision () is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television, free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the L ...

after 1987) and airing local news and other programming. Indiscretions from the station's STV era led to a license challenge in which the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

(FCC) ruled at one point that a challenger should be awarded the channel over Video 44, the station's ownership consortium. A groundswell of support helped the station to survive and led to an $18 million settlement that kept it in business. WSNS-TV switched to Telemundo in 1989 and was the network's largest affiliate until being purchased outright in 1996. As part of NBC's purchase of Telemundo in 2002, WSNS and WMAQ became a combined operation.

The independent years (1970–1980)

Construction and instant news

On September 27, 1962, Essaness Theatres, a chain of Chicago motion picture houses, filed under the name Essaness Television Associates for a construction permit to build a new UHF television station on channel 44 in Chicago. The station would transmit from the Woods Theatre in the Loop and air programming aimed at minority groups, particularly Chicago's Black community. The

(FCC) approved the application on May 15, 1963, the second such request it had granted that month in the Chicago area after approving channel 32. It would be the better part of a decade before channel 44 was in service. In 1965, Essaness proposed constructing instead at the Civic Opera Building on Wacker Drive. That year, it also signed for antenna space on the

John Hancock Center 875 North Michigan Avenue (officially known until 2018 as the John Hancock Center and still commonly referred to under that name) is a 100- story, supertall skyscraper located in Chicago, Illinois. Located in the Magnificent Mile district, the ...

, being the only unbuilt television station confirmed for the new skyscraper's antenna masts. In 1967, the Harriscope Broadcasting Corporation of Chicago took a stake in the licensee, which was renamed Video 44. The transmission facility was completed in late 1969, with channel 44 sharing with

WBBM-TV WBBM-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, serving as the market's CBS network outlet. Owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, the station maintains studios on West Washington St ...

on the east mast. After the death of company founder

Edwin Silverman Edwin Silverman (1898 – February 12, 1970) was an American businessman who co-founded the Essaness Theatres chain and founded WSNS-TV. Biography Silverman was born to a Jewish family in Chicago. WSNS began broadcasting on April 5, 1970. Its format was a radical departure from that of any television station of the time: a continuous printed roundup of news headlines, sports scores, weather, and other items alongside advertising, which general manager Yale Roe called "instant news". Roe felt that it was better to offer something different than compete with existing programming as a startup. It was seven months before the station broadcast any programming featuring live personalities: an 11 p.m. hour featuring two women as newscasters (

Mary Jane Odell Mary Jane Neville Odell (July 28, 1923 – December 16, 2010) was an American journalist, lecturer, and politician. She received multiple awards during her life, and was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1979. In 1980, Odell wa ...

and Linda Marshall), commentator Warner Saunders, and Chuck Collins with the ''Underground News'', whose sponsors were described by Clarence Petersen of the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

'' as "head shops and paperback bookstores". This program ran for three years and was also syndicated to other cities; when tapes of it resurfaced in the late 1980s, viewers at a Chicago nightclub saw interviews with such figures as

Jesse Jackson Jesse Louis Jackson (Birth name#Maiden and married names, né Burns; born October 8, 1941) is an American Civil rights movements, civil rights activist, Politics of the United States, politician, and ordained Baptist minister. Beginning as a ...

Jim Croce James Joseph Croce (; January 10, 1943 – September 20, 1973) was an American Folk music, folk and rock singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, he released five studio albums and numerous singles. During this period, Croce took a series of o ...

, and

Steve Goodman Steven Benjamin Goodman (July 25, 1948 – September 20, 1984) was an American folk and country singer-songwriter from Chicago. He wrote the song " City of New Orleans", which was recorded by artists including Arlo Guthrie, John Denver, The ...

, as well as an interview with

John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer-songwriter, musician and activist. He gained global fame as the founder, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon's ...

and

Yoko Ono Yoko Ono (, usually spelled in katakana as ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up in Tokyo and moved to New York ...

in which the former explained he was moving to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

—where he was killed in 1980—"for his safety". The format failed to inspire much loyalty, and a diverse assortment of programs appeared on WSNS-TV's air. Many were talk shows and religious programs, ranging from Rex Humbard to

Paul Harvey Paul Harvey Aurandt (September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009) was an American radio broadcaster for ABC News Radio. He broadcast ''News and Comment'' on mornings and mid-days on weekdays and at noon on Saturdays and also his famous ''The Rest o ...

. Several programs featured psychics. At midnight, the station aired ''Heart of the News'', which featured anchor Linda Fuoco reading news headlines while reclining on a heart-shaped bed; a mattress company was the sponsor of the program, which ''

Broadcasting Broadcasting is the data distribution, distribution of sound, audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), ...

'' magazine called "boudoir journalism". In November 1971, the "instant news" service ceased, with the station running enough non-automated programming to broadcast evenings and all day on Sundays.

Chicago's third independent

In 1972, Ed Morris left

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

to become the general manager of WSNS-TV. He made several changes to revamp the station with a more traditional look for an independent and told ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' that he hoped channel 44 would "not only be talked about but also watched". Under his direction, WSNS-TV began airing more classic reruns and movies—having programmed just one movie a week prior to the changes—and extended its broadcast day while removing significant portions of the previous schedule. Even more significant than the new programming was the 1973 acquisition of the television rights to

Chicago White Sox The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. The club plays its ...

baseball; the team concluded an unprofitable five-year relationship with

WFLD WFLD (channel 32) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is owned and operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox network through its Fox Television Stations division alongside Gary, Indiana–licensed WPWR-TV (channe ...

(channel 32), with

Harry Caray Harry Christopher Caray (; March 1, 1914 – February 18, 1998) was an American radio and television Sports commentator, sportscaster. During his career he called the play-by-play for five Major League Baseball teams, beginning with 25 years of ...

adding television play-by-play announcing duties to his existing radio work. They joined a programming lineup that also included 15 hours of Spanish-language fare a week, second only to

WCIU-TV WCIU-TV (channel 26) is an independent television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is the flagship television property of locally based Weigel Broadcasting, which has owned the station since its inception, and is sister to two ...

(channel 26).

Chicago Bulls The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago. The Bulls compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Central Division of the Eastern Conference. The team was founded on January 16 ...

basketball began airing on channel 44 in 1973; WSNS-TV broadcast the Bulls' full 41-game road schedule, making the Bulls the only NBA team at the time with every road game broadcast on television. That same year, channel 44 began airing

World Hockey Association The World Hockey Association () was a professional ice hockey major league that operated in North America from 1972–73 WHA season, 1972 to 1978–79 WHA season, 1979. It was the first major league to compete with the National Hockey League (N ...

hockey with the

Chicago Cougars The Chicago Cougars were a professional ice hockey team in Chicago. They competed in the World Hockey Association from 1972 to 1975. The Cougars played their home games in the International Amphitheatre. History During the 1974 Avco Cup Finals ...

, college basketball, and local professional wrestling. The Cougars and Bulls were called by

Lorn Brown Lorn Brown (September 18, 1938 – June 24, 2010) was a sports broadcaster who worked for baseball's AAA Iowa Oaks (1973–1974) and MLB St. Louis Cardinals (September 1974 fill-in), Chicago White Sox (1976–1979, 1983–1988), Milwaukee Brewer ...

, who later joined Caray in the White Sox booth from 1976 to 1979. The station filled its other hours with

City Colleges of Chicago The City Colleges of Chicago is the public community college system of the Chicago area. Its colleges offer associate degrees, certificates, free courses for the GED, and free English as a second language (ESL) courses. The City Colleges sys ...

telecourses, which moved in 1975 from educational station

WTTW WTTW (channel 11) is a PBS member television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by not-for-profit broadcaster Window to the World Communications, Inc., it is sister to commercial classical music radio station WFMT (98.7 FM). ...

after 19 years, and the new ''Super Slam'' drawing from the Illinois Lottery. That same year, it endured a nine-week strike by

NABET The National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, the Broadcasting and Cable Television Workers Sector of the Communications Workers of America (NABET-CWA) is a labor union representing employees in television, radio, film, and medi ...

technicians that saw management run the station and striking workers picket the station in

Popeye Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, Elzie Crisler Segar. In 1976, the Bulls moved their games to

WGN-TV WGN-TV (channel 9) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, serving as the local outlet for The CW. It is owned and operated by the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, and is sister station, sister to the company ...

(channel 9) after experiencing falling ratings and the collapse of their TV rights deal. Three reasons were cited for the latter. The team performed poorly, finishing 24–58 in the 1975–76 season. Sponsors, one apparently thinking the viewership was predominantly Black and had "limited sales potential", were reportedly hesitant to advertise. Lastly, Olympic Broadcasting Service, which had packaged the rights, opted to exit the business and focus on its activities in the savings and loan industry. The

Chicago Black Hawks Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

took up residency at WSNS-TV two years later, marking their return to local television after not having a regular-season broadcast partner in two seasons. After the deal ended in 1980, the hockey club did not have another free broadcast television partner until 2008.

ON TV subscription television (1980–1985)

Pre-launch

In November 1975, Video 44 requested authority to operate an over-the-air

(STV) service over WSNS-TV. As a result of a similar request from WCIU-TV, the application sat for several years, as the FCC did not change its policy to permit more than one subscription station in large markets until 1979. Channel 44's plans rapidly shifted twice on STV. In June 1979, an agreement was reached with Oak Industries, a maker of broadcast and cable equipment and other electronics then headquartered in Crystal Lake and the owner of the ON TV operation in Los Angeles, to use Oak's technology for a subscription service on WSNS-TV, though Oak would not own the station or the STV operation. Less than two weeks after announcing its initial accord with Oak, Video 44 instead agreed to sell 50 percent of the company to American Television and Communications (ATC), the cable TV division of Time, Inc., for more than $5 million; among the issues that would need to be resolved was that ATC used equipment from

Zenith Electronics Zenith Electronics, LLC, is an American research and development company that develops ATSC and digital rights management technologies. It is owned by the South Korean company LG Electronics. Zenith was previously an American brand of consumer e ...

instead of the Oak stack. ATC had initially applied for channel 66 in nearby Joliet as part of preparations to launch its own STV service, which ultimately was called Preview; Chicago was a prime market for STV, as the city had no cable television. The ATC transaction, however, attracted high-powered opposition that September. Five major movie studios, led by

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...

, urged the FCC to deny the transaction, noting that Time already held a monopoly in pay TV programming markets through its ownership of the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

pay cable service and claiming that only WSNS-TV could break that monopoly in Chicago. The next month, citing the petition to deny, Video 44 and ATC dropped the proposed sale. After finally winning FCC approval for STV the month before, in March 1980, Video 44 initially agreed to sell 49 percent of its joint venture to two groups:

Capital Cities Communications Capital Cities/ABC Inc. was an American media company. It was founded in 1985 when Capital Cities Communications purchased the much larger American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. It was eventually acquired by The Walt Disney Company and re-branded i ...

, which owned major television stations in Philadelphia and Houston, and Oak. Capital Cities bowed out, leading Oak to purchase the full 49% by itself for $7.5 million. As WSNS prepared for a subscription television future, it dropped the White Sox after eight seasons following the 1980 campaign.

Operation

On September 22, 1980, WSNS began offering ON TV subscription programming beginning at 7 p.m. on weekdays and 5 p.m. on weekends, with Oak supplying first-run movies, sporting events, specials, and adult programming to subscribers who paid $21.95 a month plus a $52.95 installation fee for the necessary decoder

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also known as a cable converter box, cable box, receiver, or simply box, and historically television decoder or a converter, is an information appliance device that generally contains a Tuner (radio)#Television, TV tuner inpu ...

that unscrambled the programs. A year after ON TV began broadcasting, it got competition when

Spectrum A spectrum (: spectra or spectrums) is a set of related ideas, objects, or properties whose features overlap such that they blend to form a continuum. The word ''spectrum'' was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of co ...

, originally owned by Buford Television, began airing over Focus Broadcasting-owned WFBN (channel 66) on September 29, 1981. At the same time, WSNS extended its transmission of ON TV programming by two hours on weekdays (now starting at 5 p.m.) and by three hours on weekends (to 12 p.m.). In January 1982, WSNS began carrying ON TV for 20 hours per day, and after the repeal of the limits on STV operating hours later that year, it moved to 23 hours a day of subscription programming—resulting in the dismissal of WSNS's own sales unit and other station staffers. In June 1982, ON TV counted 120,600 subscribers in Chicagoland, making it the second-largest STV service in the country, only surpassed by Oak's enormously successful Los Angeles operation with 379,000 subscribers. General manager Ed Morris hailed the conversion to subscription operation for increasing WSNS-TV's revenue and providing a steadier source of income than ad-supported commercial operation for a station that had been "rarely profitable" in the year before the switch. The loss of most of WSNS's non-STV programming motivated action by a consortium of Chicago businessmen organized as Monroe Communications Corporation. Later in 1982, WSNS-TV's license came up for renewal. On November 1, 1982, Monroe filed its own application for a station on channel 44, which specified conversion to Spanish-language programming; in proposing its own station, Monroe challenged the license renewal of the existing WSNS-TV. In July 1983, the FCC designated the Monroe proposal and WSNS-TV's license renewal for

comparative hearing The comparative hearing process was used by the United States Federal Radio Commission from 1927 to 1934 and its successor, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), from 1934 to 1994 for the evaluation of mutually exclusive applications for b ...

SportsVision: Two-channel subscription TV

At the same time that ON TV was gaining subscribers,

SportsVision Sportsvision (SV) was a subscription sports television service founded by Chicago White Sox owners Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn and media mogul Fred Eychaner. The service broadcast live sporting events, and for much of its time of opera ...

International, a consortium of four Chicago sports franchises—the White Sox, Bulls, Blackhawks, and Sting—had reached a deal to set up a new subscription television station on channel 60 (the shared time WPWR/ WBBS), which would carry their games. Both Oak and Buford competed for the right to manage the service, and Oak won out; ON TV subscribers could receive SportsVision for an extra $14.95 a month, and a special run of two-channel decoders was made. SportsVision finally launched May 25, 1982, having been delayed due to issues with the new decoders and then again due to low uptake, airing as a free preview for two extra weeks. The second STV operation, however, did not reach the subscriber base needed to maintain its viability. The overlap between subscribers of SportsVision and ON TV, which was marketed mainly to women, was low; only 10 percent of SportsVision's 21,000 residential accounts were also ON TV subscribers. By March 1983, it had 25,000 subscribers, half of the amount needed to break even, not helped by the poor performance of the White Sox in the 1982 season. In November, still at just 35,000 subscribers and losing $300,000 a month, it was announced that SportsVision would be folded into ON TV on January 1, 1984, with channel 44's STV service televising a significant number of games and SportsVision continuing as a premium cable channel in suburban areas and outside of Chicagoland; the remaining service was then sold to

SportsChannel SportsChannel is the collective name for a former group of regional sports networks in the United States that was owned by Cablevision, which from 1988 until the group's demise, operated it as a joint venture with NBC. Operating from March 1, ...

Later STV years

While subscription television had seen meteoric growth nationally, its fortunes began to reverse significantly in 1982, as a national recession limited disposable income and increasing cable television penetration meant significant subscriber erosion at many systems. By August 1983, ON TV in Chicago had dropped from its 1982 high of 120,600 subscribers to just 89,500. The system entered 1984 battered by piracy problems, which had also been cited by White Sox owner Eddie Einhorn as a reason for the end of SportsVision as a separate STV service. In January, the service's operations director estimated that, for every paying subscriber, another was pirating its programming. ON TV received something of a reprieve in March 1984 when it was able to buy the business of Spectrum, which had been sold to United Cable, leaving Chicago with one STV service. However, subscriber losses, as they were in other cities, were continuing to accelerate. By August 1984, ON TV had 80,000 subscribers, of which 18,000 were previous clients of Spectrum. The service was also instituting program cutbacks. In November 1984, non-professional sports, children's programs and some other low-rated programming were axed to emphasize movies and a reduced schedule of events from SportsVision. By year's end, Oak had put its remaining STV services up for sale, and the total subscriber count in Chicago had fallen to 75,000. In February 1985, as Oak's financial condition continued to worsen, it emerged that the company was taking writedowns related to the termination of its STV businesses; Burt Harris, owner of WSNS owner Harriscope, stated that he did not see the service making it to the end of the year. In March, with subscribers down to just 35,000, Oak officially announced it would discontinue its STV service on June 30, bringing to a close Oak's eight-year venture into subscription television. February 1985 also brought an initial decision in the license challenge case from FCC administrative law judge Joseph Chachkin. He ruled in favor of Monroe, finding that Video 44 had rendered a minimal service with a lack of public affairs and local programming and studios all but shut down; however, the matter could be appealed before the full FCC. The license challenge prevented Oak from unloading its WSNS-TV ownership stake, even though Oak Industries intended to do so, as it had with its other television stations.

Spanish-language broadcasting (1985–present)

SIN/Univision (1985–1989)

On July 1, 1985, nearly five years of subscription television programming on WSNS-TV was replaced by a full-time Spanish-language television station, affiliated with the

Spanish International Network Univision () is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the Latino public and include ...

(renamed Univision in 1987). The two existing Spanish-language stations in Chicago either also aired other programming, as in the case of WCIU-TV, or shared their channel with another station, as did WBBS-TV. In addition, prior to 1985, the city had only one Spanish-language radio station; this was the case even though, by that time, Hispanics were estimated to comprise 19 percent of the population of the city of Chicago. The new programming was an immediate financial success. Revenue for the first year was $9 million, 20 percent above projections; a hard-hit WBBS cut back to weekend programs before disappearing later that year. Whereas previously an estimated 45 percent of Chicago Hispanics had watched channels 26 and 60, 70 percent tuned in to local Spanish-language TV with WSNS's arrival. Meanwhile, the Monroe license challenge continued after Chachkin's initial decision. The FCC review board initially remanded the decision back to him to consider an issue raised by the challengers that some of the films telecast by WSNS as a subscription station were "obscene", including adult films with titles such as ''Pandora's Mirror'', ''Kinky Ladies of Bourbon Street'', and '' The Erotic Adventures of Zorro''. The commission itself intervened to take up the

First Amendment First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

question, declaring in April 1986 that Chachkin could not consider the obscenity issue and that consideration of obscenity should be deferred to local authorities. The case, minus the obscenity matter, then returned to the review board, which overturned Chachkin's findings in 1988 and recommended renewal of the WSNS license. It contended that the administrative law judge had focused unduly on the last 26 weeks of the three-year license term, after STV programming had increased considerably. It also found that the "renewal expectancy" factor in a comparative hearing—an incumbency advantage for Video 44—outweighed Monroe's weaker edges in media diversification and participation of ownership in station management.

Switch to Telemundo and license challenge settlement

On October 13, 1988, WSNS-TV announced that it would switch its affiliation to Telemundo after that station's affiliation agreement with Univision concluded on

December 31 It is known by a collection of names including: Saint Sylvester's Day, New Year's Eve or Old Year's Day/Night, as the following day is New Year's Day. It is the last day of the year; the following day is January 1, the first day of the followi ...

. Two months later, on December 16, WCIU—whose contract with Telemundo was set to expire the following month—signed an affiliation agreement with Univision, returning the station to that network after four years. The two stations switched affiliations on January 10, 1989. Univision stated that WSNS and Univision had been at a financial impasse regarding new affiliation terms; WSNS general manager José Lamas noted that "Telemundo made us an offer we couldn't refuse". The license challenge continued to be heard by the FCC and federal courts. In April 1990, a federal appeals court in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, overturned the full FCC's 1989 decision to renew Video 44's license to operate WSNS-TV, stating that the agency acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" in granting it—partly due to it having "improperly refused to consider" the obscenity issue—and requiring the commission to conduct further proceedings in the dispute. On September 19, 1990, the FCC denied Video 44's application to renew its license; the ruling was upheld on appeal weeks later in a 5-0 decision, and the FCC awarded a new

construction permit Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. House building permits, for example, are subject to bu ...

to Monroe Communications. Video 44, Inc. subsequently appealed the decision, which Howard Shapiro, head of WCIU-TV owner Weigel Broadcasting, called "a remarkable series of circumstances that may never be duplicated again" for its relationship to changes in the composition of the FCC with the turnover of several of its members and resultant new regulatory attitudes. Although Monroe pledged to provide an expanded array of Hispanic programming aimed at Chicagoans of Mexican and

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

n heritage should its license application be approved, several Hispanic aldermen on the Chicago City Council and other community leaders objected to the FCC's decision, expressing concern that the revocation would deprive Chicago's Hispanic community of a major voice. The FCC denied Video 44's appeal of the license revocation for a second time on July 25, 1991. In the wake of this decision, the

National Association of Broadcasters The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is a Industry trade group, trade association and lobbying, lobby group representing the interests of commercial and non-commercial over-the-air radio and television broadcasting, broadcasters in th ...

expelled WSNS-TV as a member, apparently thinking the revocation action took immediate effect. The license challenge finally ended after eleven years in June 1993, when Monroe Communications reached an agreement with Harriscope to drop its case against Video 44, Inc., in an $18 million settlement awarded to Monroe by Harriscope. On November 9, 1995, Harriscope and Oak sold their combined 74.5% controlling interest in the station to Telemundo for $44.7 million, with Essaness initially retaining a 25.5% stake; the deal was approved by the FCC in February 1996. The move allowed Oak to finally exit the television industry and allowed Telemundo to buy the largest station in the network that it did not already own. Despite the sale, the 1995 arrival of a full-time Univision station in

WGBO-TV WGBO-DT (channel 66) is a television station licensed to Joliet, Illinois, United States, serving as the Chicago-area outlet for the Spanish-language network Univision. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside Aurora-licensed Uni ...

(channel 66) hurt WSNS in news and total-day ratings. Within two years of starting up, WGBO had triple the audience share of WSNS among Hispanic viewers. In 1999, the station moved from the John Hancock Center to the Sears (now Willis) Tower as part of the construction of its digital facility.

NBC ownership

When NBC purchased Telemundo in 2002, WSNS became part of the newly enlarged conglomerate, creating Chicago's first commercial television duopoly between two full-power television stations. The consolidation of NBC owned-and-operated station

and WSNS-TV led to pressure on NBC to extend the same union benefits to the previously non-union Telemundo staffers that the NBC employees already enjoyed. WSNS-TV's nine anchors and reporters voted unanimously to join the

American Federation of Television and Radio Artists The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) was a performers' union that represented a wide variety of talent, including actors in radio and television, radio and television announcers and newspersons, singers and recording ...

(AFTRA, now part of

SAG-AFTRA The Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists

). In June 2003, WSNS migrated from its longtime studio facility on West Grant Place and merged its operations with WMAQ-TV at the

on North Columbus Drive in the

Magnificent Mile The Magnificent Mile (sometimes locally abbreviated to the Mag Mile) is the approximately one-mile-long stretch of Michigan Avenue (Chicago), Michigan Avenue from the Chicago River to Oak Street (Chicago), Oak Street on the Near North Side ...

. On November 11, 2016, WMAQ-TV's president and general manager, David Doebler, was appointed as president and general manager of WSNS-TV. In 2021, NBC tapped Kevin Cross—who had the senior vice president and general manager of

NBC Sports Chicago NBC Sports Chicago (formerly Comcast SportsNet Chicago) was an American regional sports network that broadcast regional coverage of professional sports teams in the Chicago Chicago metropolitan area, metropolitan area, as well as college sports ...

, the co-owned

regional sports network A regional sports network (RSN) in the United States and Canada is a television channel that presents sports programming to a local media market or geographical region. Such channels often focus on one or a few teams who currently play in Major L ...

—to also serve as president and general manager of WMAQ and WSNS-TV, replacing the retiring Doebler.

Programming

News operation

After the switch to Spanish-language broadcasting, WSNS began producing local newscasts, originally under the title (Newscenter 44), on October 7, 1985. Originally airing in the early evening only, WSNS began producing late newscasts on October 17, 1994, in response to the cancellation of WCIU-TV's Spanish-language local news service. To respond to the challenge posed by WGBO, channel 44 hired personalities from Spanish-language radio, with Luisa Torres of

WIND Wind is the natural movement of atmosphere of Earth, air or other gases relative to a planetary surface, planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heatin ...

and Alberto Augusto of WOJO as anchors for the new 10 p.m. broadcast. However, Telemundo fired them in April 1996 as part of budget cuts; at the same time, the station purchased a new vehicle for electronic news gathering. While news ratings also suffered from the entrance of WGBO, channel 44 began to show signs of ratings growth in the 2000s. In January 2001, WSNS launched its first morning newscast, (Good Morning Chicago); a second attempt to air a morning newscast under the title was dropped in 2009 because of budget cuts. It also experimented in 2008 with a 10:30 a.m. mid-morning newscast hosted by Tsi-Tsi-Ki Félix; this evolved into an entertainment and lifestyle program known as . Félix, who anchored news and weather for WSNS for 11 years, left the station in November 2012. In August 2013, Edna Schmidt (who previously reported for WGBO before becoming a Chicago-based correspondent for Univision Noticias) was named co-anchor of the 5 and 10 p.m. newscasts, only to be fired by the station that October after anchoring a newscast while intoxicated. Schmidt then filed a lawsuit against the station that November, charging WSNS and NBCUniversal with failing to provide "reasonable accommodation" for her alcoholism under the

Americans with Disabilities Act The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA () is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ...

, leading to her suspension and later dismissal. On September 18, 2014, Telemundo announced that it would expand its early-evening newscast to one hour, with the addition of a half-hour program at 4:30 p.m., as part of a groupwide news expansion across Telemundo's owned-and-operated stations. A 4 p.m. half-hour was added in 2016, again as part of a national expansion in the group. Weekend newscasts were added in 2017, and a midday newscast was introduced in January 2018 in Chicago and nine other cities. On June 29, 2015, as part of a national rollout, WSNS launched a consumer investigative unit under the (Telemundo Responds) banner; the unit was originally headed by chief investigative reporter Alba Mendiola, who joined the station as a general assignment reporter in 2001 and formerly hosted ''Enfoque Chicago'', the station's public affairs program.

Sports programming

Though sporting events are less prevalent on its schedule than when it was an English-language station, WSNS-TV has occasionally broadcast local sports. Chicago Sting soccer was telecast on WSNS-TV in 1986. More recently, the station has been part of media rights deals with WMAQ-TV. As part of a five-year broadcast partnership between WMAQ-TV and the

Chicago Bears The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. They are one of two remaining ...

, WSNS aired Spanish-language broadcasts of the Bears' preseason football games from

2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

. It was the first time that Bears preseason games had been televised in Spanish. After five years, the Bears moved their preseason games in English from WMAQ to WFLD. As part of another rights deal, WSNS-TV began broadcasting the

Chicago Marathon The Chicago Marathon is a road marathon held in October in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the seven World Marathon Majors. Thus, it is also a World Athletics Label Road Race. The Chicago Marathon is one of the largest races by number of fini ...

in 2017; WMAQ had been airing the marathon continuously since 2008. The marathon had previously aired on channel 44 in 2002.

Technical information

Subchannels

Analog-to-digital conversion

WSNS-TV shut down its analog signal, over

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...

channel 44, 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 continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 45, 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 ...

44.

Spectrum reallocation

In 2017, NBC sold WSNS-TV's spectrum in the FCC's

spectrum reallocation The 2016 United States wireless spectrum auction, officially known as Auction 1001, allocated approximately 100 MHz of the United States Ultra High Frequency (UHF) spectrum formerly allocated to UHF television in the 600 MHz band. The sp ...

auction, fetching $141.7 million. WSNS-TV ceased broadcasting on UHF

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

channel 45 on April 23, 2018, and began sharing spectrum with WMAQ-TV on channel 29.

Notes

References

External links

* {{Major U.S. TV O-O Stations 1970 establishments in Illinois Oak Industries ON TV (TV network) SNS-TV Telemundo Station Group Television channels and stations established in 1970 SNS TeleXitos affiliates