WPBF
 
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Tequesta/West Palm Beach, Florida United States |
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| Branding | WPBF 25 (general) WPBF 25 News (newscasts) |
| Slogan | Live. Local. Late Breaking. |
| Channels |
Digital: 16 (UHF) Virtual: 25 () |
| Subchannels | 25.1 ABC 25.2 Estrella TV 25.3 Justice Network |
| Affiliations | ABC |
| Owner |
Hearst Television (Hearst Properties Inc.) |
| Founded | June 15, 1988 |
| First air date | January 1, 1989 |
| Call letters' meaning | West Palm Beach, Florida |
| Former channel number(s) | 25 (UHF analog, 1989–2009) |
| Former affiliations | AccuWeather (DT2) |
| Transmitter power | 1,000 kW |
| Height | 454 m |
| Facility ID | 51988 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 27°7′17″N 80°23′42″W / 27.12139°N 80.39500°W |
| Licensing authority | FCC |
| Public license information: |
Profile CDBS |
| Website | wpbf.com |
WPBF is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Gold and Treasure Coasts of South Florida. Licensed to Tequesta, it broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 16 from a transmitter in Palm City southwest of I-95. Owned by Hearst Television, the station has studios on RCA Boulevard in the Monet section of Palm Beach Gardens.
WPBF first went on-the-air January 1, 1989, owned by Alan Potamkin and the John H. Phipps Company. This marked a return to West Palm Beach for Phipps, which had previously owned NBC affiliate WPTV-TV from 1956 to 1961.
The original plans called for the station to be an Independent. However, in mid-1988, CBS (which was due to lose its longtime Miami affiliate WTVJ to NBC) bought Fox affiliate WCIX (now WFOR-TV). That station only provided a Grade B ("rimshot") signal to Fort Lauderdale and Broward County because its transmitter was farther south than the other Miami stations.
CBS persuaded the longtime ABC affiliate in West Palm Beach, WPEC, to switch to CBS in order to get a city-grade signal in Fort Lauderdale. In Fall 1988, ABC made the decision to affiliate with WPBF rather than with former CBS affiliate WTVX, owing to the success of Phipps and Potamkin's other station, WCTV. These changes occurred on the day of WPBF's sign-on. The station had bought a large inventory of classic sitcoms and cartoons but now had no time to air them. It sold this programming to WTVX a couple of months after signing-on when that station shut down its news department.
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