WSNS-TV (channel 44) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, serving as the local outlet for the Spanish-language network Telemundo. It is owned and operated by NBCUniversal's Telemundo Station Group alongside NBC outlet WMAQ-TV (channel 5). The two stations share studios at the NBC Tower on North Columbus Drive in the city's Streeterville neighborhood and broadcast from the same transmitter atop the Willis Tower in the Chicago Loop.
WSNS-TV began broadcasting in 1970. Originally specializing in the automated display of news headlines, it evolved into Chicago's third full-fledged independent station, carrying movies, local sports, and other specialty programming. This continued until 1980, when WSNS became the Chicago-area station for ON TV, an over-the-air subscription television (STV) service owned by Oak Industries, which took a minority ownership stake in the station. While ON TV was successful in Chicago and the subscription system became the second-largest in the country by total subscribers, the rise of cable television precipitated the end of the business in 1985, with WSNS-TV as the last ON TV station standing.
On July 1, 1985, the station became Chicago's first full-time Spanish-language outlet, affiliated with the Spanish International Network (Univision after 1987) and airing local news and other programming. Indiscretions from the station's STV era led to a license challenge in which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled at one point that a challenger should be awarded the channel over Video 44, the station's ownership consortium. A groundswell of support helped the station to survive and led to an $18 million settlement that kept it in business. WSNS-TV switched to Telemundo in 1989 and was the network's largest affiliate until being purchased outright in 1996. As part of NBC's purchase of Telemundo in 2002, WSNS and WMAQ became a combined operation.
The independent years (1970–1980) Construction and instant news
On September 27, 1962, Essaness Theatres, a chain of Chicago motion picture houses, filed under the name Essaness Television Associates for a construction permit to build a new UHF television station on channel 44 in Chicago. The station would transmit from the Woods Theatre in the Loop and air programming aimed at minority groups, particularly Chicago's Black community. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the application on May 15, 1963, the second such request it had granted that month in the Chicago area after approving channel 32.
It would be the better part of a decade before channel 44 was in service. In 1965, Essaness proposed constructing instead at the Civic Opera Building on Wacker Drive. That year, it also signed for antenna space on the John Hancock Center, being the only unbuilt television station confirmed for the new skyscraper's antenna masts. In 1967, the Harriscope Broadcasting Corporation of Chicago took a stake in the licensee, which was renamed Video 44. The transmission facility was completed in late 1969, with channel 44 sharing with WBBM-TV on the east mast.
After the death of company founder Edwin Silverman that February, WSNS began broadcasting on April 5, 1970. Its format was a radical departure from that of any television station of the time: a continuous printed roundup of news headlines, sports scores, weather, and other items alongside advertising, which general manager Yale Roe called "instant news". Roe felt that it was better to offer something different than compete with existing programming as a startup. It was seven months before the station broadcast any programming featuring live personalities: an 11 p.m. hour featuring two women as newscasters (Mary Jane Odell and Linda Marshall), commentator Warner Saunders, and Chuck Collins with the Underground News, whose sponsors were described by Clarence Petersen of the Chicago Tribune as "head shops and paperback bookstores". This program ran for three years and was also syndicated to other cities; when tapes of it resurfaced in the late 1980s, viewers at a Chicago nightclub saw interviews with such figures as Jesse Jackson, Jim Croce, and Steve Goodman, as well as an interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in which the former explained he was moving to New York—where he was killed in 1980—"for his safety".
The format failed to inspire much loyalty, and a diverse assortment of programs appeared on WSNS-TV's air. Many were talk shows and religious programs, ranging from Rex Humbard to Paul Harvey. Several programs featured psychics. At midnight, the station aired Heart of the News, which featured anchor Linda Fuoco reading news headlines while reclining on a heart-shaped bed; a mattress company was the sponsor of the program, which Broadcasting magazine called "boudoir journalism". In November 1971, the "instant news" service ceased, with the station running enough non-automated programming to broadcast evenings and all day on Sundays.
Chicago's third independent In 1972, Ed Morris left PBS to become the general manager of WSNS-TV. He made several changes to revamp the station with a more traditional look for an independent and told Variety that he hoped channel 44 would "not only be talked about but also watched". Under his direction, WSNS-TV began airing more classic reruns and movies—having programmed just one movie a week prior to the changes—and extended its broadcast day while removing significant portions of the previous schedule. Even more significant than the new programming was the 1973 acquisition of the television rights to Chicago White Sox baseball; the team concluded an unprofitable five-year relationship with WFLD (channel 32), with Harry Caray adding television play-by-play announcing duties to his existing radio work. They joined a programming lineup that also included 15 hours of Spanish-language fare a week, second only to WCIU-TV (channel 26).
Chicago Bulls basketball began airing on channel 44 in 1973; WSNS-TV broadcast the Bulls' full 41-game road schedule, making the Bulls the only NBA team at the time with every road game broadcast on television. That same year, channel 44 began airing World Hockey Association hockey with the Chicago Cougars, college basketball, and local professional wrestling. The Cougars and Bulls were called by Lorn Brown, who later joined Caray in the White Sox booth from 1976 to 1979. The station filled its other hours with City Colleges of Chicago telecourses, which moved in 1975 from educational station WTTW after 19 years, and the new Super Slam drawing from the Illinois Lottery. That same year, it endured a nine-week strike by NABET technicians that saw management run the station and striking workers picket the station in Popeye costumes.
In 1976, the Bulls moved their games to WGN-TV (channel 9) after experiencing falling ratings and the collapse of their TV rights deal. Three reasons were cited for the latter. The team performed poorly, finishing 24–58 in the 1975–76 season. Sponsors, one apparently thinking the viewership was predominantly Black and had "limited sales potential", were reportedly hesitant to advertise. Lastly, Olympic Broadcasting Service, which had packaged the rights, opted to exit the business and focus on its activities in the savings and loan industry. The Chicago Black Hawks took up residency at WSNS-TV two years later, marking their return to local television after not having a regular-season broadcast partner in two seasons. After the deal ended in 1980, the hockey club did not have another free broadcast television partner until 2008.
ON TV subscription television (1980–1985)
Pre-launch In November 1975, Video 44 requested authority to operate an over-the-air subscription television (STV) service over WSNS-TV. As a result of a similar request from WCIU-TV, the application sat for several years, as the FCC did not change its policy to permit more than one subscription station in large markets until 1979. Channel 44's plans rapidly shifted twice on STV. In June 1979, an agreement was reached with Oak Industries, a maker of broadcast and cable equipment and other electronics then headquartered in Crystal Lake and the owner of the ON TV operation in Los Angeles, to use Oak's technology for a subscription service on WSNS-TV, though Oak would not own the station or the STV operation.
Less than two weeks after announcing its initial accord with Oak, Video 44 instead agreed to sell 50 percent of the company to American Television and Communications (ATC), the cable TV division of Time, Inc., for more than $5 million; among the issues that would need to be resolved was that ATC used equipment from Zenith Electronics instead of the Oak stack. ATC had initially applied for channel 66 in nearby Joliet as part of preparations to launch its own STV service, which ultimately was called Preview; Chicago was a prime market for STV, as the city had no cable television. The ATC transaction, however, attracted high-powered opposition that September. Five major movie studios, led by Paramount Pictures, urged the FCC to deny the transaction, noting that Time already held a monopoly in pay TV programming markets through its ownership of the HBO pay cable service and claiming that only WSNS-TV could break that monopoly in Chicago. The next month, citing the petition to deny, Video 44 and ATC dropped the proposed sale.
After finally winning FCC approval for STV the month before, in March 1980, Video 44 initially agreed to sell 49 percent of its joint venture to two groups: Capital Cities Communications, which owned major television stations in Philadelphia and Houston, and Oak. Capital Cities bowed out, leading Oak to purchase the full 49% by itself for $7.5 million. As WSNS prepared for a subscription television future, it dropped the White Sox after eight seasons following the 1980 campaign.
Operation
On September 22, 1980, WSNS began offering ON TV subscription programming beginning at 7 p.m. on weekdays and 5 p.m. on weekends, with Oak supplying first-run movies, sporting events, specials, and adult programming to subscribers who paid $21.95 a month plus a $52.95 installation fee for the necessary decoder set-top box that unscrambled the programs.
A year after ON TV began broadcasting, it got competition when Spectrum, originally owned by Buford Television, began airing over Focus Broadcasting-owned WFBN (channel 66) on September 29, 1981. At the same time, WSNS extended its transmission of ON TV programming by two hours on weekdays (now starting at 5 p.m.) and by three hours on weekends (to 12 p.m.). In January 1982, WSNS began carrying ON TV for 20 hours per day, and after the repeal of the limits on STV operating hours later that year, it moved to 23 hours a day of subscription programming—resulting in the dismissal of WSNS's own sales unit and other station staffers. In June 1982, ON TV counted 120,600 subscribers in Chicagoland, making it the second-largest STV service in the country, only surpassed by Oak's enormously successful Los Angeles operation with 379,000 subscribers. General manager Ed Morris hailed the conversion to subscription operation for increasing WSNS-TV's revenue and providing a steadier source of income than ad-supported commercial operation for a station that had been "rarely profitable" in the year before the switch.
The loss of most of WSNS's non-STV programming motivated action by a consortium of Chicago businessmen organized as Monroe Communications Corporation. Later in 1982, WSNS-TV's license came up for renewal. On November 1, 1982, Monroe filed its own application for a station on channel 44, which specified conversion to Spanish-language programming; in proposing its own station, Monroe challenged the license renewal of the existing WSNS-TV. In July 1983, the FCC designated the Monroe proposal and WSNS-TV's license renewal for comparative hearing.
SportsVision: Two-channel subscription TV