WFLX

WFLX
West Palm Beach, Florida
Branding	FOX 29
Channels	Analog: 29 (UHF) Digital: 28 (UHF)
Affiliations	FOX
Owner	Raycom Media (WFLX License Subsidiary, LLC)
Founded	1982
Call letters meaning	FLorida FOX (the station's calls predate the creation of the Fox network)
Former affiliations	Independent (1982-1986)
Transmitter Power	5,000 kW (analog) 630 kW (digital)
Height	457 m (analog) 458 m (digital)
Facility ID	39736
Transmitter Coordinates	26°34′30.9″N, 80°14′31″W
Website	wflx.com

WFLX is the FOX-affiliated television station for the Gold and Treasure Coasts of Florida. Licensed to West Palm Beach, the station broadcasts an analog signal on UHF channel 29 and a digital signal on UHF channel 28. WFLX's transmitter is located south of Wellington. The station is owned by Raycom Media and has studios that are located on West Blue Heron Blvd. in West Palm Beach. WFLX is known on-air as "FOX 29".

History

WFLX began operation in 1982 as the West Palm Beach market's first independent station. It was owned by Malrite Communications and ran a lineup typical of independent stations at the time. This included early morning cartoons, late morning religious programming, movies in early afternoons and primetime, classic sitcoms in the late afternoon, and current sitcoms during early and late evenings. Unlike most independents, the amount of children's programming seen on WFLX during this time was low compared to similar stations in other markets, a trend owing to the older demographics of the West Palm Beach market. On October 9, 1986, WFLX became one of the launch affiliates of FOX and retained this affiliation through the network swap of January 1989. Ths involved WPEC, WTVX, and then-startup WPBF. As the 1990s approached, WFLX picked up FOX Kids programming in afternoons and phased out older sitcoms for talk and reality shows. After the 1993 / 1994 season, WFLX was recognized as the "FOX Affiliate of the Year". In September of 1998, Malrite merged with current owner Raycom Media. Shortly after the merge, ratings came out affirming that WFLX was one of FOX's highest affiliates in terms of network ratings and has even shown ratings numbers in the Miami / Fort Lauderdale market. Raycom itself would merge with The Liberty Corporation in mid-2006. Until its shutdown on October 1, 2007, WFLX had offered The Tube (a 24-hour digital music video channel) on its DT2 digital subchannel. It was also offered on Comcast digital cable channel 220.

Newscasts

After FOX requested most of its affiliates air local news in 1990, the then-newsless WFLX entered in a news share agreement with the area's CBS affiliate WPEC. On September 11, 1991, WPEC started producing a nightly 10 PM newscast for WFLX. Originally 30 minutes long, it soon expanded to a full hour. In 2000, an hour-long weekday morning newscast at 7 AM began to air, which later (on September 6, 2006) expanded to two hours. All newscasts originate from WPEC's studios which are located on Fairfield Drive in Mangonia Park. As with FOX programming, the newscasts have also rated in the Miami / Fort Lauderdale market (a trend some have attributed to backlash to that market's FOX affiliate WSVN). As a result, Adelphia (now Comcast) pulled WSVN off of its cable lineup in 2005.

News Team

WFLX's 10 PM news open.

The station's weeknight anchors.

FOX 29 Morning News
Weekday Mornings

• Anchors:
  • Ric Blackwell
  • Claudia Shea
• Weather:
  • Chris Farrell
• Traffic:
  • Paul Cavanaugh

FOX 29 Ten O'Clock News
Weeknights

• Anchors:
  • Eric Roby
  • Suzanne Boyd
• Weather:
  • John Matthews
• Sports:
  • Pat Murphy

Weekends

• Anchors:
  • Alan Gerstel
  • Stephanie Dukes
• Weather:
  • Michael Ehrenberg
• Sports:
  • Nick Foley

WFLX uses additional news personnel from WPEC. See that article for a complete listing.

• WFLX Web Journalist:
  • Rachel Leigh

External links

• WFLX "FOX 29"
• WPEC "News 12"
• FOX
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WFLX