WPTA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| WPTA | |
|---|---|
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| Fort Wayne, Indiana | |
| Branding | 21 Alive Indiana's NewsCenter Fort Wayne's CW (on DT2) |
| Slogan | A Network of Indiana's NewsCenter |
| Channels | Analog: 21 (UHF) |
| Affiliations | ABC The CW (on DT2) |
| Owner | Malara Broadcast Group (operated under LMA by Granite Broadcasting Corporation) (Malara Broadcast Group of Fort Wayne Licensee, LLC) |
| First air date | September 28, 1957 |
| Sister station(s) | WISE-TV |
| Transmitter Power | 562 kW (analog) 335 kW (digital) |
| Height | 226 m (analog) 224.4 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 73905 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | |
| Website | www.indianasnewscenter.com |
WPTA, channel 21, is the ABC-affiliated television station for Fort Wayne, Indiana. Its transmitter is located at the station's studios on Butler Road. Although WPTA is owned by Malara Broadcasting, it is operated by Granite Broadcasting (owner of NBC affiliate WISE-TV) through a local marketing agreement (LMA). WPTA operates the area's CW affiliate on its second digital subchannel. On cable, it can be seen on Verizon FiOS channel 6 and Comcast channel 19.
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[edit] Digital television
The station's digital channel is multiplexed.
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 21.1 / 24.1 | main WPTA programming / ABC HD |
| 21.2 / 24.2 | Fort Wayne's CW (The CW) |
[edit] History
The station began broadcasting on September 28, 1957. It took ABC affiliation from the beginning and broadcasted seven and a half 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 dollars. Under new management, WPTA purchased new cameras and a new switcher. Under the ownership of Combined Communications, the station invested more time in 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, newscasts that had been in the Eyewitness News format were replaced with the current Alive format that remains to this day. WXIA in Atlanta is another former Combined station that currently includes Alive in their name. On June 7, 1979, Combined Communications merged with Gannett. On May 12, 1983, Gannett sold WPTA (along with WLKY in Louisville, Kentucky) to Pulitzer Publishing for an undisclosed amount. In the Summer of 1984, WPTA received its first "live" truck to assist in news production. The station was sold to Granite Broadcasting on September 25, 1989 for $22.15 million dollars.
In 2005, after Granite bought NBC affiliate WISE-TV, it sold WPTA to Malara Broadcasting for $45.3 million dollars. A 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, Minnesota. Granite promptly folded the WISE-TV news department and fired those who worked in it with the exception of lead anchor Linda Jackson who was integrated into the WPTA operation. In November of 2005, after several months of using the Alive news brand on both stations' newscasts, WPTA debuted a new news set in its 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 ten strongest ABC affiliates in the country ranking with WISN in Milwaukee and KMBC in Kansas City. According to Granite's website in 1997, it was still a strong ABC affiliate at that time. When it took over WISE-TV, WPTA initially saw a significant decrease in its ratings. CBS affiliate WANE-TV was the market's news leader for the last two years according to Nielsen Media Research. This was most easily attributed to continued viewer resentment towards WPTA for Granite's elimination of WISE-TV's news department and arguably its identity and history. However, WPTA management said that the changes were part of a long-term plan that they said may need to take up to five years to take hold with viewers. Part of the plan to win back viewers included new technology such as text messaging, an improved website with more online video, and upgrading its weather equipment to a VIPIR system. The changes started to take hold and ratings began to drastically improve. In the November of 2007 sweeps period, WPTA and WANE were nearly neck-and-neck in the Fort Wayne television news ratings race with WANE continuing to show a slight lead.
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.
[edit] WPTA-DT2 "Fort Wayne's CW"
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 would represent the first initial of its corporate parents: CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. CBS affiliate WANE broadcasted UPN on its second digital subchannel. The Fort Wayne affiliate of The WB was cable-only "WBFW" which was part of The WB 100+.
WBFW was co-owned with WPTA by Malara Broadcasting. 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 second digital subchannel to simulcast WBFW and offer access to CW programming for over-the-air viewers. On September 18, The CW debuted on WBFW (which became officially known as having the WPTA-DT2 calls). The station became known on-air as Fort Wayne's CW.
[edit] News operation
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. When Granite acquired WISE in 2005, that station began airing a weeknight newscast at 7 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 weeknight 10 o'clock newscast on its third digital subchannel that is an affiliate of NBC Weather Plus. With the addition of My TV Fort Wayne on its second digital subchannel (on September 5) and Fort Wayne's CW on WPTA's second digital subchannel (on September 18), the newscast moved over to those stations. It is no longer offered on WISE's Weather Plus channel. WPTA rebroadcasts its weekday morning newscast on My TV Fort Wayne from 7 to 9 A.M. In addition, there is a rebroadcast of WPTA's weekday Noon news on My TV Fort Wayne from 12 to 12:30 P.M.
The two stations co-produce a webcast entitled "Indiana's NewsCenter exPRESS" that is shown online every weekday at 1 P.M. 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 P.M. On the weekends, WISE-TV simulcast all newscasts from WPTA. Also, there are local news and weather updates provided during the weekend editions of The Today Show.
[edit] News team
Anchors
- Ryan Elijah - weekday mornings
- Mary Collins - weekday mornings
- Corrine Rose - weekdays at Noon
- reporter
- Melissa Long - weeknights at 5, 6, and 11
- Linda Jackson - weeknights at 10
- Eric Olson - weekends
- reporter
Meteorologists
- Curtis Smith (AMS Seal of Approval) - Chief seen on weeknights
- Chris Daniels - weekday mornings and Noon
- Jason Meyers - weekends
- fill-in and weather reporter
- Jay Walker - weather reporter
Sports (all are seen on The Score)
- Dean Pantazi - Director seen on weeknights at 6, 10, and 11
- Tommy Schoegler - weekends
- sports reporter
- Kent Hormann - fill-in
Reporters
- Lee Kelso - fill-in anchor
- contributer
- Jennifer Blomquist - monthly specials
- Nicole Pence - breaking and political news focus
- fill-in anchor
- Jane Hersha - part time
- fill-in anchor
- Carl Smith - multimedia journalist
- Chris Erick - multimedia journalist
- Jeff Neumeyer
- Corinne Rose
- Jessica Toumani
[edit] Notable alumni
- Chris Fedele - President and General Manager
- now at WLEX-TV in Lexington, Kentucky
- Brent Trantum - meteorologist
- now Brent Cameron at WSVN in Miami, Florida
- Marti Wright - anchor and reporter (1981-1999)
- resigned after DUI in Angola, Indiana
- Victor Locke - anchor (1983-2004)
- now a voiceover announcer, anchor, and reporter at KSUT-FM in Durango, Colorado
- Keith Edwards - anchor (1983-2007)
- now retired
- Tacoma Newsome - reporter
- now at WCMH in Columbus, Ohio
- Sandra Jones - reporter
- now at WTVR-TV in Richmond, Virginia
- Christine Zak - reporter
- went to WEEK-TV in Peoria, Illinois (now retired)
- Janette Luu - weekend anchor (until 2005)
- now at CKXT-TV in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Heather McMichael - anchor and reporter
- went to WDAF-TV in Kansas City, Missouri
- Greg Johans - sports anchor (1980s)
- now retired
- Michael Morrissey - weather presenter (until 2006)
- now in public relations at Fort Wayne company
- Katherine Dorsett - morning news producer (1996-1999)
- now a news producer at CNN
[edit] External links
- WPTA "21 Alive"
- WPTA-DT2 "Fort Wayne's CW"
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WPTA
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WPTA-TV
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