History
WINK-TV was founded in March 1954 as sister to WINK radio (1240 AM, now at 1200 AM; and 96.9 FM). The station aired an analog signal on VHF channel 11. It was the first television station in Southwest Florida and is currently the fifth-oldest surviving station in the state (behind Miami's WTVJ, Jacksonville's WJXT, Orlando's WKMG-TV, and West Palm Beach's WPTV-TV). At the time of its beginning, Southwest Florida was underpopulated and people had to rely on television stations from Miami and Tampa Bay. Stations from these markets were and continued to be obtainable with large outdoor antennas. WINK-TV was the only station in the area for 14 years and remained the only full-powered VHF station in the market for nearly two years after the analog to digital switch.
Due to Fort Myers being sandwiched between Miami to the east and Tampa Bay to the north, WINK-TV was fortunate to gain the only VHF license allocated to the area. As such, it originally carried programming from NBC, ABC, and DuMont along with CBS. DuMont folded in 1956 and it lost NBC when WBBH-TV signed-on in 1968 but continued to share ABC with WBBH until WEVU-TV (now WZVN-TV) signed-on in 1974. WINK-TV's broadcasts became digital-only at noon on February 17, 2009. The station's digital signal moved to channel 50 on the UHF dial in mid-2011 because of viewer reception issues on channel 9.
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