Early years
In 1981, four applications were received for a full-power television station on channel 69, from Whitco Broadcasters; Family Television 69, owned by Hialeah pastor Adib Eden Sr.; Golden East Broadcasters; and Christian Media of Florida.[3] In April, the FCC selected Whitco over the other applicants, saying that Christian Media of Florida's three pastor owners would not be able to balance ministry and station operations; Whitco offered $111,000 to its competitors to end the proceeding.[4]
Whitco, owned by Eddie Whitehead and Thomas Coates, proposed the first African-American-owned television station in South Florida, aimed at the same audience.[5] The construction permit took the call letters WDEM and secured space on the new tower being built by Guy Gannett Communications in Pembroke Park.[6]
An attempt to sell a majority stake in the construction permit to an investor group that sought to program channel 69 as a Spanish-language station fell through in early 1985.[7] On February 19, 1987, the Home Shopping Network (HSN) announced that it was acquiring a majority stake in WDEM,[8] with the option to buy the facility outright upon completion for $10 million.[9]
WAMI first signed on the air on August 10, 1988, as WYHS-TV. Before the station launched, WYHS-TV simulcast audio from WHYI-FM (Y-100) with live telecasting views of Miami before signing on. When it signed on, WYHS-TV carried programming from the Home Shopping Network. Two months later, HSN's broadcasting division, Silver King Communications, acquired the remainder of the station.[10] The primary purpose of these stations was to force carriage of HSN on cable providers in each market through the Federal Communications Commission's must-carry provisions as QVC was taking away a large slice of HSN's audience as several providers had held an ownership interest in QVC, but not HSN. Eventually, Silver King Communications acquired an ownership interest in the USA Network, and as a result, later became USA Broadcasting, the broadcast arm of media company USA Networks, Inc. In the fall of 1997, channel 69 began carrying Fox Kids programming, after it was dropped by the market's WB affiliate WDZL (channel 39, later WBZL and now WSFL-TV), which acquired the block in 1993 after Fox affiliate WSVN (channel 7) decided to stop carrying Fox's children's programming.
WAMI 69
On June 8, 1998, at 6 a.m., channel 69 became an independent station; the station also changed its call letters to WAMI-TV. The relaunch of channel 69 was known as the "Birth of a Station",[11] where a soon-to-be mother was giving birth to the "Miami" thought-bubble station logo (the entire day before, the channel stunted with the picture of a sonogram of the new logo as a lead into the introduction). Immediately after that sketch, real-time traffic and weather reports were shown. The revamped station adopted a general entertainment format with a strong focus on locally produced programs including a daily news program called The Times; the sports discussion show SportsTown; Generation ñ, a program targeted at bilingual, 2nd generation Latinos in the U.S.; the lifestyle programs Ocean Drive (which was based on the magazine of the same name) and Ten's (which was also broadcast on Dallas sister station KSTR-TV from 1999 to 2001); the dance program Barcode; an alternative lifestyle program called Kenneth's Frequency; and the talk show Out Loud, which was hosted by Bill Teck and produced by Miami producer and media personality Paul Bouche. The station's programming was mostly aimed at teenagers and young adults between the ages of 16 and 34. The format heavily took after the groundbreaking CITY-TV in Toronto, which carried a similar mix of syndicated shows and movies with locally produced programming.
WAMI repackaged the Fox Kids block, incorporating it into the live, locally produced interactive children's show WAMI on Miami. The hosts of that program would hold up a "WAMI" hand sign, holding up both hands, making "L" shapes, and crossing their hands together to form a "W", shouting; "Wami, baby!" to its on-air audience. Children would show up at WAMI-sponsored Fox Kids/Power Rangers
Due to financial problems that USA Networks began facing in 2000, the company began looking to divest some of its assets. USA Broadcasting, as one of these assets, was considered for divestiture as part of a deal to help USA Networks repair its financial footing. In 2001, the remaining entertainment units of USA Broadcasting were sold to Vivendi Universal, along with $10.3 billion worth of shares held by Barry Diller. The television stations were to be sold to The Walt Disney Company, but Univision Communications outbid its competition in a close race. The sale was finalized on January 3, 2002.[15]
On January 14, 2002, WAMI-TV became a charter owned-and-operated station of Univision's fledgling Spanish-language secondary network, Telefutura (which rebranded as UniMás eleven years later on February 7, 2013). WPXM-TV (channel 35) and West Palm Beach sister station WPXP-TV acquired the rights to the Marlins telecasts (which were now produced by Fox Sports), which aired through the Florida Marlins Television Network, eventually dropping them in 2005 after Pax TV relaunched as i: Independent Television (the rights to Marlins and Heat telecasts are held by Sun Sports, now Bally Sports Sun
