15 Facts About WFLD

WFLD is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the Fox network.

WFLD was founded by a joint venture of the parties that each competed individually for the license and construction permit to operate on UHF channel 32.

WFLD was noteworthy for being the longtime home of the local B-movie program Svengoolie.

WFLD began to beat WGN-TV in ratings as a result of its stronger programming acquisitions, and the two stations continued to go head-to-head throughout the 1980s.

WFLD scored no big ticket program acquisitions in 1980 or 1981; however, in 1982, the station won the local syndication rights to popular series such as Three's Company, Taxi and Mork and Mindy.

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WFLD was the first of the stations that Field Communications sold when it began the liquidation process in September 1982 completing the deal for WFLD in March 1983.

WFLD remained the top-rated independent station in Chicago throughout Metromedia's ownership of the station.

When Fox ended the weekday editions of the Fox Kids block in January 2002, WFLD added more first-run reality and talk shows to its lineup.

In September 2006, WFLD relaunched its website, migrating it to the "MyFox" platform that was rolled out to the other Fox-owned stations.

WFLD acquired the rights to broadcast Major League Baseball games from the Chicago White Sox in 1968, assuming the contract from WGN-TV.

Under the initial deal, WFLD carried White Sox games until 1972, when the team returned to WGN through a joint arrangement with WSNS-TV that lasted through the 1980 season and exclusively during the 1981 season; WFLD reassumed Sox game rights in 1982, carrying most of the team's non-cable games.

Since 2018, WFLD has, through Fox, aired any Bears games that are part of the Thursday Night Football package.

In September 1990, WFLD announced plans to launch a 24-hour local cable news channel, to have been named "Chicago Cable News", in conjunction with former WLS-TV and WMAQ-TV weathercaster John Coleman and local cable provider Tele-Communications Inc, for a tentative launch in January 1991.

Largely due to Jacobson's influence, WFLD's newscasts have somewhat less of a tabloid feel than other Fox stations.

WFLD maintains a Mobile DTV feed over the mobile digital signal of sister station WPWR-TV, which carries the WFLD mobile simulcast in addition to that of its main channel on 50.