WFLD

WFLD (FOX)
Slogan: Unknown
Chicago
Channel 32 Digital Channel 31
Owner	Fox Broadcasting Company
On-Air Date	January 4, 1966
Signal Radius	Chicagoland area
Branding	Fox Chicago
Callsign Meaning	W FLD (Field Communications, the original owner of the station)
Former Affiliations	Independent
Former Callsigns	None
www.foxchicago.com

WFLD-TV is an owned & operated station of the Fox Television network, based in Chicago, Illinois. The station operates on Channel 32, though it is identified on the air as simply "Fox Chicago." WFLD's transmitter sits on top of the John Hancock Tower.

The station began life on January 4, 1966, from its downtown Chicago studios. Its founding owners, Field Communications (a division of the Marshall Field's department stores) merged with Kaiser Broadcasting in 1972, and the new combined company now owned UHF stations in San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, and Detroit. In 1982, Field sold off its stations and WFLD was sold to Metromedia. Metromedia's television stations were sold to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in 1986, which included WFLD.

WFLD for much of the 1970s and 1980s broadcasted Chicago White Sox games, and later those of the Chicago Bulls. That was until arch-rival WGN-TV acquired broadcast rights to both teams in 1990 (Chicago-area attorney and real estate investor Jerry Reinsdorf owns both franchises). To counter-program against its more established VHF rivals, Channel 32 offered documentaries, adult dramas, Westerns, and live sports. WFLD was also noteworthy as the longtime home of the local B-movie program Svengoolie , which currently airs on rival station WCIU. The station was christenized the "Station of Tomorrow" by the Chicago Sun-Times in an April 1966 article because of its innovative technical developments in broadcasting its signal.

In the mid-1990s, after many years of being known on the air as "Fox 32" (or even "Fox Thirty-Two"), the station rebranded itself as "Fox Chicago" due to the fact that many Chicagoans watch WFLD via cable (Channel 12 on most area cable systems). The station is co-owned with WPWR-TV Channel 50, Chicago's UPN affilliate. Fox purchased WPWR in 2002, and WPWR's operations were intergrated into WFLD's facilities in downtown Chicago.

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