Miami Affiliate Shake Up (Again)

Back in 1989, there was a huge affiliate shakeup in South Florida that impacted both the Miami and West Palm Beach markets.

35 years later it is happening again.

Back in the late 80’s the loser was thought to be WSVN, who lost their NBC affiliation.

But, WSVN bulked up on news and became the strongest Fox station in the country. At the time, Fox programing only aired 3 days a week.

This time WPLG, which had been the ABC affialte for the past 69 years, is going independent and dropping ABC in August.

WSVN will pick up the ABC network, but it will air ABC programing on their sub channel and will continue with their news heavy programing on the Fox affiliate.

WPLG might be looking to the future as networks are taking programing direct to consumers, and are starting to rely less on affiliates to get their programing to viewers.

Don’t be surprised if you see more strong news stations follow in WPLG’s footsteps.

Stay tuned…