WSNS-TV

rdf:langString WSNS-TV

rdf:langString yes

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rdf:langString Ed Morris

rdf:langString Clifford Terry

rdf:langString Joseph Chachkin

rdf:langString Les Luchter for Broadcast Week magazine

rdf:langString Telemundo Chicago; Noticiero Telemundo Chicago

rdf:langString WSNS-TV

rdf:langString Essaness Theatres, founding owner

rdf:langString United States

rdf:langString NBC Telemundo License LLC

rdf:langString WSNS44.png

rdf:langString The Telemundo network logo, a T with two circular overlapping components. Beneath are the words Telemundo in black and Chicago in red in a sans serif.

rdf:langString We were rarely profitable in the year before we went into subscription television. We're not making a lot of money now, but we're making more than we were then.

rdf:langString Different people have different ways of enjoying themselves. Some break out the whips. Some stick bamboo splints under their fingernails. Some eat frozen pizza. And others watch good old [year-old] WSNS—channel 44, Chicago.

rdf:langString I would have liked to emulate the efforts of other independent stations like WFLD and WGN, but the money wasn't available to make the kind of [programming buys] they did. We had to do it with mirrors and smoke, with baling wire and Scotch tape, and with a lot of good thrift.

rdf:langString Summarized briefly, WSNS-TV broadcast no news [and] no regular local programs and effectively shut down its studios, telecast 4 to 5 percent non-entertainment programs and a drastically reduced PSA schedule at undesirable time periods—none in prime evening time. ... More important, the records reflect no support for its programming change and extensive criticism of that change by its viewers.

rdf:langString For all practical purposes, WSNS-TV has simply ceased to exist.

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rdf:langString WMAQ-TV

rdf:langString NBC Chicago News

rdf:langString general manager of WSNS, at the station's full-time conversion to subscription television in 1982

rdf:langString columnist for the Chicago Tribune, on WSNS-TV's programming in 1971

rdf:langString FCC administrative law judge, rendering an initial decision against WSNS-TV in its license challenge

rdf:langString WSNS-TV (channel 44) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the Spanish-language Telemundo network. It is owned and operated by NBCUniversal's Telemundo Station Group alongside NBC outlet WMAQ-TV (channel 5); it is also sister to regional sports network NBC Sports Chicago. WSNS-TV and WMAQ-TV share studios at the NBC Tower on North Columbus Drive in the city's Streeterville neighborhood and transmitter facilities 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 local sports, movies, and other specialty programming. This continued until 1980, when WSNS became the Chicago-area station for the subscription television (STV) service ON TV, whose owner, Oak Industries, 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.