WFTS
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Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida United States |
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| City | Tampa, Florida |
| Branding | ABC Action News |
| Slogan | Taking Action For You |
| Channels |
Digital: 29 (UHF) Virtual: 28 () |
| Subchannels | |
| Affiliations | |
| Owner |
E. W. Scripps Company (Scripps Broadcasting Holdings, LLC) |
| First air date | December 14, 1981 |
| Call letters' meaning |
Family/Florida/Fox Television Station (referring to original owner, Family Group Broadcasting, or its former network) |
| Former channel number(s) |
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| Former affiliations |
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| Transmitter power | 1,000 kW |
| Height | 468 m |
| Facility ID | 64588 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 27°50′32″N 82°15′45″W / 27.84222°N 82.26250°WCoordinates: 27°50′32″N 82°15′45″W / 27.84222°N 82.26250°W |
| Licensing authority | FCC |
| Public license information: |
Profile CDBS |
| Website | abcactionnews |
WFTS-TV, virtual channel 28 (UHF digital channel 29), is an ABC-affiliated television station located in Tampa, Florida, United States and also serving the nearby city of St. Petersburg. The station is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company. The station's studios are located on North Himes Avenue on the city's northwest side (across the street from Raymond James Stadium), and its transmitter is located in Riverview, Florida.
The channel 28 allocation in Tampa Bay was to have been used by WTSS-TV, an affiliate of the DuMont Television Network in the 1950s. It is very unlikely that WTSS ever made it to air.
WFTS first signed on the air on December 14, 1981, operating as an independent station. As the flagship of the locally based Family Group Broadcasting, the station programmed a family-oriented general entertainment format with cartoons, off-network dramas, classic movies and religious programs. Its call letters originally stood for "Family Television Station". Family Group Broadcasting sold the station to Capital Cities Communications on April 22, 1984, becoming Capital Cities' first station in Florida, the group's first (and only) independent station, and the last station to be acquired by the group prior to its merger with ABC. Under Capital Cities, the station added more off-network sitcoms and reduced the number of religious programs and drama series on its schedule.
In 1986, Capital Cities stunned the broadcasting industry with its purchase of ABC – a network that was ten times bigger than Capital Cities was at the time. Capital Cities owned several ABC affiliates, and two CBS affiliates: KFSN-TV in Fresno and WTVD in Durham, North Carolina. The company's combined assets exceeded Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ownership limits of the time, so Capital Cities decided to keep its CBS affiliates and change their affiliations to ABC, along with longtime ABC affiliates WPVI-TV in Philadelphia and KTRK-TV in Houston, and sold WFTS and the ABC owned-and operated station in Detroit, WXYZ-TV, to the E. W. Scripps Company, while selling several other stations to minority-owned firms.
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