WTVX

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WTVX-TV
Fort Pierce/West Palm Beach, Florida
Branding	CW West Palm
Slogan	Free to be CW
Channels	34 (UHF) analog, 50 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	The CW
Owner	CBS Corporation Pending sale to Cerberus Capital Management
Founded	1966
Former affiliations	Independent (1966, 1989-95) CBS (1966-89) WB (secondary, early 2000s-2005) UPN (1995-2006)
Website	34cwtv.com

WTVX is The CW affiliate for West Palm Beach, Florida, licensed to Fort Pierce. The station is owned by the CBS Corporation, and airs its programming on channel 34. WTVX is sister station to WFOR, CBS in Miami, WBFS MyNetworkTV in Miami, and WTCN-CA, MyNetworkTV and WWHB-CA, Azteca America, in West Palm Beach.

[edit] History

WTVX began operations as an independent station on April 5th, 1966, and soon after became a CBS affiliate. The station was originally owned by Indian River Television. Prior to becoming a CBS affiliate, the network was seen in the Palm Beaches via their former Miami affiliate, WTVJ. The station also had a small news department.

In 1988, NBC bought WTVJ. CBS thus needed a new Miami station, and purchased WCIX channel 6, which had a grade B signal in Fort Lauderdale, while West Palm Beach stations (WPTV and WPEC) had grade A signals there. This forced them to switch their West Palm Beach affiliation to WPEC, leaving WTVX without an affiliation. On January 1, 1989 the switch occurred. As ABC decided to go from WPEC to a new sign-on (WPBF), WTVX was forced to become an independent station once again.

Initially WTVX retained its newscasts, but moved the 11 pm newscast to 10 pm, and soon after that, the newscast died. (The only news show now airing on WTVX is The Daily Buzz on weekday mornings.) The rest of the day they went with movies, drama shows, and talk shows. The station's newscasts were cancelled by the summer of 1989, and the station became more of a traditional independent station, with sitcoms and cartoons added to the schedule. Most of its shows were to have originally aired on WPBF before that station made the decision to affiliate with ABC. In 1990 WTVX was sold to Krypton Broadcasting and the general entertainment format remained as a result.

In 1995, Paramount/Viacom (who would eventually buy WTVX in 1997, along with CBS in 2001) joined with Chris-Craft/United Television to form the United Paramount Network, or UPN. WTVX immediately became an affiliate of this network. By the late 1990's WTVX had started to move away from cartoons and sitcoms, adding more talk/reality and court shows. In the early 2000s, they also started to carry WB programming when possible, and soon rebranded from UPN34 to TVX34, which was based off of their call letters.

In the fall of 2005, WTCN-CA, then a little-known community access channel, became the new WB affiliate for West Palm Beach, so WTVX returned to the UPN34 branding. However, that branding will be short-lived as the WB and UPN announced a merger between the two struggling networks on January 24, 2006. The new network, called The CW, will be affiliated with WTVX effective in September 2006. The station has branded itself as CW West Palm. Accordingly, channel 34 has redesigned their website, similar to many of its sister stations, this features its new logo. They have also recently shown their CW logo on-screen during programs with the tagline "Coming September 18th" below it, in place of their standard UPN34 bug. Past WB affiliate WTCN-CA has affiliated with MyNetworkTV.

Despite the call sign, it was never owned by the TVX Broadcast Group, which, coincidentally, was a predecessor to the Paramount Stations Group, now called the CBS Television Stations Group.

WTVX is one of three former CBS affiliates that have since became CW stations owned by CBS, along with KSTW in Seattle/Tacoma, Washington and WPCW in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (when it was in Johnstown).

On February 7, 2007, CBS Corporation announced plans to sell all three of the West Palm stations, along with KEYE in Austin, WLWC in Providence, and KUTV in Salt Lake City, to Cerberus Capital Management for $185 million. All affiliations are expected to remain the same.

[edit] Logos

WTVX logo from a 1984 issue of TV Guide	WTVX's first UPN34 logo as seen in a 1998 issue of TV Guide, likely used from 1995 until Viacom purchased the station in 2000	WTVX's second UPN34 logo, used from 2000 to 2002	WTVX's third UPN34 logo, used for several months in 2002
WTVX's first TVX34 logo, used from 2002 until 2005	Old WTVX UPN logo, used from 2005 until August 2006.	Current WTVX logo.

[edit] External links

• Official website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WTVX