WSUN-TV and the Dawn of Tampa Bay Television

On May 31, 1953, WSUN-TV, Channel 38, signed on in the Tampa Bay area as St. Petersburg’s first television station and one of the earliest UHF outlets in the United States.

Broadcasting began at 4:15 p.m. with a dedication ceremony featuring the mayors of St. Petersburg, Tampa, and Clearwater. The station operated from a highly unusual studio on the ground floor of the Million Dollar Pier in downtown St. Petersburg, repurposed from a former trolley turnaround overlooking the waterfront.

WSUN-TV launched as an independent station but carried programming tied to all major networks of the era, including NBC, CBS, ABC, and DuMont. Its first evening lineup included an NBC newsreel, Hopalong Cassidy, and a Liberace performance.

Despite its ambition, the station faced major technical hurdles as a UHF broadcaster, since many televisions required costly converter tuners to receive its signal. When VHF competitors arrived in 1955, network affiliations shifted away. WSUN-TV eventually lost its ABC connection in 1965 and ceased broadcasting in 1970.

Today, its story remains a key chapter in Tampa Bay’s early television broadcasting history development era.