Deco Drive is a daily live celebrity gossip and entertainment news magazine style program featuring reports on trends and celebrities in South Florida.
It has aired continuously since January 8, 1996 on WSVN-TV in Miami, Florida, and has also been carried on WSVN's sister stations in Boston via their common ownership with Sunbeam Television.
On the date of WSVN's network affiliation change from NBC to Fox in 1989, the station debuted the locally produced news magazine program Inside Story. The program gradually shifted from news into an entertainment-based format, and was renamed 7:30 in 1994. After its time slot was moved to follow WSVN's evening newscast, 7:30 changed its title to Deco Drive (a reference to the Miami Beach Art Deco District and South Beach's Ocean Drive) in 1996.
Deco Drive officially premiered on WSVN in Miami and WHDH in Boston on January 8, 1996. However, the show was cancelled in Boston after six months. [1] During its first month in Miami, Deco Drive scored a Nielsen rating of 5.8, or nine percent of all local televisions turned on at that time.
Deco Drive was initially positioned as a competitor to the nationally syndicated Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood , but was quickly changed to feature a heavier focus on Miami after its initial poor reception in the Boston market. [2]
In April 2015, Deco Drive returned anew to Boston, now carried by WLVI, a sister CW affiliate to WHDH bought by Sunbeam in 2007. [3]
WHDH is an independent television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is owned by Sunbeam Television alongside Cambridge-licensed CW affiliate WLVI. WHDH and WLVI share studios at Bulfinch Place in downtown Boston; through a channel sharing agreement, the two stations transmit using WHDH's spectrum from the WHDH-TV tower in Newton, Massachusetts.
WFXT is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, affiliated with the Fox network and owned by Cox Media Group. Its studios are located on Fox Drive in Dedham, and its transmitter is located on Cabot Street in Needham. WFXT is the largest Fox affiliate by market size that is not owned and operated by the network, although it was previously owned by Fox on two occasions.
WSVN is a television station in Miami, Florida, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is the flagship station of locally based Sunbeam Television. WSVN's studios are located on 79th Street Causeway in North Bay Village, and its transmitter is located in Miami Gardens, Florida.
WCVB-TV is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Hearst Television. The station's studios are located on TV Place in Needham, Massachusetts, and its transmitter is located on Cedar Street, also in Needham, on a tower shared with several other television and radio stations.
WSBK-TV is an independent television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside CBS outlet WBZ-TV. The two stations share studios on Soldiers Field Road in the Allston–Brighton section of Boston. WSBK-TV's transmitter is located on Cedar Street in Needham, Massachusetts, on a tower site that was formerly owned by CBS and is now owned by American Tower Corporation.
WLVI is a television station licensed to Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, serving the Boston area as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Sunbeam Television alongside WHDH, an independent station. WLVI and WHDH share studios at Bulfinch Place in downtown Boston; through a channel sharing agreement, the two stations transmit using WHDH's spectrum from the WHDH-TV tower in Newton, Massachusetts.
WAMI-DT is a television station licensed to Hollywood, Florida, United States, serving as the Miami-area outlet for the Spanish-language network UniMás. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside Univision station WLTV-DT. The two stations share studios known as "NewsPort" on Northwest 30th Terrace in Doral; WAMI-DT's transmitter is located in Pembroke Park, Florida.
WYCN-LD is a low-power television station in Providence, Rhode Island, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language network Telemundo. Owned and operated by NBCUniversal's Telemundo Station Group, the station has studios on Kenney Drive in Cranston, Rhode Island, and its transmitter is located on East Main Street in Norton, Massachusetts.
WTVJ is a television station in Miami, Florida, United States, serving as the market's NBC outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Fort Lauderdale–licensed WSCV, a flagship station of Telemundo. The two stations share studios on Southwest 27th Street in Miramar; WTVJ's transmitter is located in Andover, Florida.
WJHG-TV is a television station in Panama City, Florida, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power CBS, MyNetworkTV, and Telemundo affiliate WECP-LD. The two stations share studios on Front Beach Road/SR 30 in Panama City Beach; WJHG-TV's transmitter is located on SR 20 in unincorporated Youngstown, Florida.
Joel Cheatwood is an American television executive.
WHDT is an independent television station licensed to Stuart, Florida, United States, serving the West Palm Beach area. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside NBC affiliate WPTV-TV ; Scripps also provides certain services to Fox affiliate WFLX under a shared services agreement (SSA) with Gray Television. The stations share studios on South Australian Avenue in downtown West Palm Beach ; WHDT's transmitter is located near Wellington west of US 441/SR 7.
Sunbeam Television Corporation is a privately held broadcasting company based in Miami, Florida, that owns three television stations in the United States. Since the company's founding in 1953, it has been under the control of the Ansin family.
The WHDH-TV tower is a free-standing lattice tower with a triangular cross section located in the Newton Upper Falls section of Newton, Massachusetts. It was built in 1960 by RKO General and is currently owned by Sunbeam Television, which uses it to transmit its Boston television stations, WHDH and WLVI, which shares WHDH's channel spectrum. It was originally built for RKO-owned WNAC-TV, the original occupant of channel 7, until it surrendered its license in May 1982 due to long-standing issues with its parent company, when the tower and studio assets were transferred to the new channel 7 licensee.
Louis Juan Aguirre is an American news anchor currently at WPLG Local 10 News Miami. Former anchor covering the entertainment field for The Insider. His previous job was the co-anchor of Deco Drive, a weeknight entertainment show on WSVN in Miami, FL.
Kim Khazei is a female news anchor for 7News Boston WHDH-TV and its sister station WLVI-TV (CW56).
NBC Owned Television Stations is the division of NBCUniversal Owned TV Stations (NBCUniversal), a subsidiary of Comcast that oversees the NBC owned-and-operated television stations, Cozi TV network, LXTV and Skycastle Entertainment, its in-house marketing and promotion company. NBCUniversal's Telemundo owned-and-operated stations are held in the separate Telemundo Station Group.
Edmund N. Ansin was an American billionaire and co-founder of Sunbeam Television. He was credited with being an innovator in the television news industry, breaking away from the conventional mold that had been used by other independent stations. His approach ended up being a success, first in Miami and then in Boston.
WVFW-LD, virtual and VHF digital channel 8, is a low-power Estrella TV owned-and-operated television station in Miami, Florida, United States. The station is owned by Estrella Media. It was the network's second affiliate in the market; Estrella TV previously affiliated in Miami with the second subchannel of Sunbeam Television's Fox affiliate, WSVN to provide full-market coverage to South Florida. WSVN-DT2 switched to Light TV on July 14, 2017, temporarily leaving Estrella without much Miami cable coverage. The station allows homes that have trouble receiving WGEN's VHF signal or only a UHF antenna to receive WGEN in some form.
On January 1, 1989, six television stations in the Miami–Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, Florida, markets, exchanged network affiliations. The event, referred to in contemporary media coverage as "The Big Switch", was described as "Miami's own soap opera" and at times compared to Dallas and Dynasty because of the lengthy public disputes between multiple parties that preceded it. Approximately three million television viewers in both markets were affected.