MIAMI — At 3am on Jan. 1, 1989, WSVN-7 in Miami became an “independent” television station, dropping its NBC affiliation and becoming South Florida’s News Station — and home for the fledgling FOX network.
It marked a new beginning for Sunbeam Television Corp., which purchased what was formerly WCKT at the end of 1962 from a partnership between the owners of Miami’s then-two English-language daily newspapers: Cox Enterprises and Knight-Ridder.
In 1993, Sunbeam — led since 1971 by Ed Ansin — added WHDH-7 in Boston as a second property, and in late 2006 created a duopoly with The CW Network’s WLVI-56.
Today, Ansin is age 83, and opened up to the Boston Globe about his passion for broadcast TV — and unwillingness to slow down and retire.
