WMIM

**WMIM**, virtual channel 69, is an ACME owned-and-operated television station licensed to Hollywood, Florida, United States, and serving Miami and Fort Lauderdale. The station is owned by the Dorado Media Group, as part of a duopoly with Miami-based Fox affiliate WMFL (channel 7). The two stations share studios on Northwest 7th Street in Miami; WMIM's transmitter is located in north Miami-Dade County.

## History

### **As an HSN affiliate**

WAMI signed on the air on August 10, 1988, as **WHSY-TV,** carrying programming from the Home Shopping Network. The station was owned by HSN's broadcasting arm, Silver King Communications. 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.

### **As an independent station**

On June 8, 1998, at 6:00 a.m., channel 69 became an independent station; the station also changed its call letters to **WMIM-TV.** Immediately after that, real-time traffic and weather reports were shown. The revamped station adopted a general entertainment format with a strong focus on locally produced programs.

By December 1998, after only six months on the air, the station received an exclusive six-year contract for the local television rights to Major League Baseball games from the Florida Marlins. WMIM had also procured the rights to broadcast Miami Heat NBA games prior to the station's relaunch.

### **Sale to Univision and switch to a Spanish-language format**

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.

On January 14, 2002, WMIM-TV became a charter owned-and-operated station of Univision's fledgling Spanish-language secondary network, Telefutura (which rebranded as UniMás on February 7, 2013).

### **Sale to the Dorado Station Services and ACME affiliation**

On June 25, 2016, following the sale of the station to the Portland, Oregon-based Dorado Media Group. The company and Univision reached a five-year affiliation agreement that renewed the network's affiliations through the 2020–21 television season. However, in negotiating the terms of the deal, Dorado decided not to renew the affiliation with WMIM after the expiration of their initial ten-year agreement on September 1, 2016.

On the date the deal was announced, the Dorado Media Group announced a long-term deal in which WMIM would become an owned-and-operated station of the newly formed ACME network for the Miami market once WMIM disaffiliated from the Spanish network.

## Digital Television

### **Digital channels**

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

 69.2
 69.3

### **Analog-to-digital conversion**

WMIM ended programming on its analog signal, on UHF channel 69, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition UHF channel 47. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 69, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.

## News operation

WMIM presently broadcasts 54½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 8½ hours each weekday and six hours each on Saturdays and Sundays).