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WPTA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| WPTA | |
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| Fort Wayne, Indiana | |
| Branding | 21 Alive (general) Indiana's NewsCenter (newscasts) Fort Wayne's CW (on DT2) |
| Slogan | A Network of Indiana's NewsCenter |
| Channels | Analog: 21 (UHF) Digital: 24 (UHF) |
| Affiliations | ABC The CW via The CW Plus (on DT2) |
| Owner | Malara Broadcasting (operated under LMA by Granite Broadcasting Corporation) |
| Founded | September 28, 1957 |
| Transmitter Power | 562 kW (analog) 335 kW (digital) |
| Height | 224 m (analog) 224 m (digital) |
| Website | indianasnewscenter.com |
WPTA is the ABC-affiliated television station for Fort Wayne, Indiana. Licensed to the city, the station broadcasts an analog signal on UHF channel 21 and a digital signal on UHF channel 24. WPTA's transmitter is located at the station's studios. The station is owned by Malara Broadcasting as part of a duopoly with the area's NBC affiliate WISE-TV. Malara does not operate WPTA but Granite Broadcasting (the owner of WISE-TV) does through a local marketing agreement. WPTA and WISE-TV share studios located on Butler Road in Fort Wayne. WPTA is known on-air as "21Alive".
WPTA operates the area's CW affiliate on its DT2 digital subchannel. The station is also offered on Verizon FiOS cable channel 6 and Comcast digital cable channel 19. It is part of The CW Plus and is known on-air as "Fort Wayne's CW".
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The station began broadcasting on September 28, 1957. It took ABC affiliation right from the start and broadcasted 7 1/2 hours of local live programming per week. WPTA was owned by Sarkes Tarzian, Inc.
In 1957, WPTA broadcasted a spin-off of [American Bandstand]] called "Teen Dance" and an afternoon kids show "Popeye and the Rascals". Bill Jackson hosted the afternoon show with hand puppets "Fergie" and "Morty", "Jingles" the clown, and "Cecil B. Rabbit".
In 1964, a 2,226 square foot addition to WPTA's studios was added to accommodate an expanding sales staff. On April 4, 1973, the station was sold to Combined Communications for $3.624 million. Under new management, WPTA purchased new cameras and a new switcher.
Under the ownership of Combined Communications, the stration invested a lot of time in it news production. During that time, Wes Sims and Harry Gallagher were co-anchors, with meteorologist Bill Eisenhood and Tom Campbell with sports.
In July of 1978, WPTA constructed a new news set. Also, its newscasts that had been in the "Eyewitness News" format was replaced with the current "Alive" format that remains to this day. WXIA-TV in Atlanta is another former Combined station that currently includes "Alive" in their nickname.
On June 7, 1979, Combined Communications merged with Gannett. On May 12, 1983, Gannett sold WPTA (along with WLKY-TV in Louisville) to Pulitzer Publishing for an undisclosed amount. In the Summer of 1984, WPTA received its first "live" truck to assist in news production.
WPTA was sold to Granite Broadcasting on September 25, 1989 for $22.15 million.
In 2005, after Granite bought NBC affiliate WISE-TV, it sold WPTA to Malara Broadcasting for $45.3 million. An local marketing agreement (LMA) was established that called for Granite to provide operation services to WPTA as well as for Malara's other new station: KDLH in Duluth. Granite promptly folded the WISE news department and fired those who worked in it, save for lead anchor Linda Jackson, who was integrated into the WPTA operation. In November 2005, after several months of using the 21Alive News brand on both stations' newscasts, WPTA debuted a new news set in the basement studio formerly used to tape public-affairs programs such as "Impact." With it came a new branding for the newscasts, Indiana's NewsCenter.
At one point, WPTA was among the top 10 strongest ABC affiliates in the country ranking up with WISN-TV in Milwaukee and KTRK in Houston. According to Granite's website in 1997, it was still a strong ABC affiliate at that time. Since it took over WISE-TV, WPTA has seen a significant decrease in its ratings. In fact, WANE-TV has been the market's news leader for the last two years according to Nielsen Media Research. This is most easily attributed to continued viewer resentment towards WPTA for Granite's elimination of WISE's news department and arguably its identity and history. WPTA has attempted to counter this effect by employing technology such as text messaging and online video, and upgrading its weather equipment to a VIPIR system.
Currently, Malara files its SEC reports jointly with Granite leading to allegations that it is simply a shell corporation for Granite. If these allegations are ever found to be true, Granite would be in violation of FCC rules regarding duopolies. The FCC does not allow common ownership of two of the four largest stations in a single market. Fort Wayne has only six full-power stations which is too few to allow duopolies in any case.
On January 24, 2006, the WB and UPN networks announced that they would cease broadcasting and merge. The new combined network would be called The CW, the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents: CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner.
The area's CBS affliate WANE-TV broadcasted UPN on its DT2 digital subchannel. The Fort Wayne affiliate of The WB was cable-only "WBFW" which was part of The WB 100+. WBFW was owned by Malara Broadcasting in a similar arrangement that WPTA is.
It was announced in March of 2006 that WBFW would affiliate with The CW via The CW Plus (a similar operation to The WB 100+). WPTA decided to create a new DT2 digital subchannel to simulcast WBFW and offer access to CW programming for over-the-air viewers.
On September 18, 2006, The CW debuted on WBFW (which then became officially known as WPTA-DT2). The station became known on-air as "Fort Wayne's CW". On that date, WPTA-DT2 began simulcasting a weeknight 10 PM newscast that aired on WISE-TV's DT2 digital subchannel that had MyNetworkTV affiliation.
WPTA produces five newscasts using three different "news teams". These newscasts are co-produced with sister station WISE-TV and are essentially the same newscast with different anchors. The newscasts on WPTA and WISE-TV are branded as Indiana's News Center. When Granite acquired WISE-TV in 2005, that station began airing a weeknight newscast at 7 PM which was the first and only one in the state of Indiana. On September 11, 2006, the newscast was replaced with an extra episode of Dr. Phil due to low ratings.
Starting on July 24, 2006, WISE-TV began airing a 10 PM weeknight newscast on its DT3 digital subchannel that is an affiliate of NBC Weather Plus. With the addition of "My TV Fort Wayne" on its DT2 digital subchannel (on September 5, 2006) and "Fort Wayne's CW" on WPTA's DT2 digital subchannel (on September 18, 2006), the newscast moved over to those stations. It is no longer offered on WISE-TV's Weather Plus channel. WPTA rebroadcasts its weekday morning newscast on "My TV Fort Wayne" from 7 to 9 AM. In addition, there is a rebroadcast of WPTA's weekday Noon news on "My TV Fort Wayne" from 12 to 12:30 PM. "My TV Fort Wayne" rebroadcasts other WPTA newscasts as well.
The two stations co-produce a webcast entitled "Indiana's NewsCenter exPRESS" that is shown online every weekday at 1 PM. The program is five minutes long and includes news updates from Corinne Rose and weather from meteorologist Chris Daniels.
WISE-TV does not air newscasts on the weekdays at Noon, 5, or 6 PM. On the weekends, WISE-TV only airs a newscast on Saturdays at 6 PM that is simulcasted from WPTA. Also, there are local news and weather updates provided during the weekend editions of The Today Show.
Anchors
- Ryan Elijah - weekday mornings
- Mary Collins - weekday mornings and news updates during Good Morning America
- Corrine Rose - weekdays at Noon
- Keith Edwards - weeknights at 5, 6, and 11 PM
- Melissa Long - weeknights at 5, 6, and 11 PM
- Linda Jackson - weeknights at 10 PM (on WPTA-DT2) and 5:30 (On WISE 33)
- Eric Olson - weekends
Indiana's News Center Weather Presenters (shared with WISE-TV)
- Curtis Smith (AMS Seal of Approval) - Chief seen weeknights
- Chris Daniels - weekday mornings and Noon
- Jason Meyers - weekends (also weekday fill in and weather reporter)
- Jay Walker - weather reporter (Said to be on staff not seen on air for two years)
Sports (shared with WISE-TV)
- Dean Pantazi - Director seen weeknights at 6, 10 (on WPTA-DT2), and 11 PM
- Tommy Schoegler - weekends (also weekday sports reporter)
Reporters (shared with WISE-TV)
- Jeff Neumeyer - crime, judicial, and politics focus
- Jennifer Blomquist(Part time one report per week)
- Corinne Rose
- Jessica Toumani
- Nicole Pence
- Jane Hersha(Part time)
- Chris Fedele (President/General Manager, now at WLEX-TV in Lexington, Kentucky)
- Brent Trantum (meteorologist, Now Brent Cameron at WSVN Miami, Florida)
- Marti Wright (anchor/reporter 1981-1999, resigned after a DUI in Angola, IN)
- Victor Locke (anchor 1983-2004, now a voiceover announcer and anchor/reporter at KSUT-FM in Durango, Colorado)
- Tacoma Newsome (reporter, now at WCMH in Columbus, Ohio)
- Sandra Jones (reporter, now at WTVR in Richmond, Virginia)
- Christine Zak (reporter, went to WEEK-TV Peoria, Illinois in 1976, now retired)
- Janette Luu (weekend anchor until 2005, now at CKXT-TV in Toronto, Ontario Canada)
- Heather McMichael (anchor/reporter ??-1995, went to WDAF-TV in Kansas City, Missouri)
- Greg Johans (sports anchor in the 1980's, now retired)
- Michael Morrissey (weather presenter until 2006, now in public relations at a Fort Wayne company)
- Station Website (shared with WISE-TV)
- WPTA-DT2 "Fort Wayne's CW" Website
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WPTA
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Broadcast TV stations: WPTA 21 (ABC) · WISE 33 (NBC) Digital subchannels: WISE-DT2 "My TV Fort Wayne" (MyNetworkTV) · WPTA-DT2 "Fort Wayne CW" (The CW) · WISE-DT3 (NBC Weather Plus) Website: www.indianasnewscenter.com |
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W07CL 7 (3ABN) - WANE 15 (CBS) - WPTA 21 (ABC) (The CW on DT2) - Local cable television channels
WPTA-DT2 (The CW) - FSN Midwest |
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WRTV 6 (Indianapolis) - WPTA 21 (Fort Wayne) - WEHT 25 (Evansville) - WBND-LP 57 (South Bend) |
| See also: CBS, CW, Fox, MyNetworkTV, NBC, PBS, Religious and Other stations in the state of Indiana |