On the 75th anniversary of WTVJ, we look back at the many “firsts” that helped shape television news for decades to come.
On March 21, 1949 — or 75 years ago — WTVJ first went on air.
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Here's a look at WTVJ's many "firsts" that helped shape television news for decades to come:
On March 21, 1949, WTVJ became Florida's first television station.
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It was also the nation's 16th.
Now-legendary WTVJ anchor Ralph Renick led the first live broadcast of a hurricane in Florida in Aug. 1949.
Back then, they didn't have names and the station didn't have a weather department.
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The first underwater live remote aired on Jan. 20, 1957.
For "Odyssey," underwater cameras televised live a sunken Spanish galleon and reconstructed a treasure hunt. The WTVJ mobile unit, the world's largest at that time, was taken out to sea 3 miles from Plantation Key on a barge for the program.
The first Spanish-language news program aired on an English-language station on Aug. 28, 1960.
Manolo Reyes' News En Español made news accessible to the growing Cuban exile community in Miami.
In 1968, C.T. Taylor became the first African American journalist on South Florida airwaves
He was the voice of a community as the only Black reporter on air.
In 1969, Jane Chastain became the nation's first woman television sportscaster in the country.
And decades later, WTVJ was the first in South Florida to have an all-women's sports department.
In 1975, WTVJ was the first South Florida station to have a live eye video tape camera that could broadcast instantly from anywhere, live.
“Going to tape where you could instantly see if you had it or not with the major revolution in the news business," said former news director Joe Abrell.
