WSJV
 | |
| Elkhart/South Bend, Indiana United States | |
|---|---|
| City of license | Elkhart, Indiana |
| Branding |
Fox 28 (general) Fox 28 News (newscasts) |
| Slogan | When You Want It! |
| Channels |
Digital: 28 (UHF) Virtual: 28 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels |
28.1 Fox 28.2 Live Well Network |
| Affiliations | Fox |
| Owner |
Quincy Newspapers (WSJV Television, Inc.) |
| First air date | March 15, 1954 |
| Call letters' meaning | St. Joseph River Valley |
| Former channel number(s) |
Analog: 52 (UHF, 1954–1958) 28 (UHF, 1958–2009) Digital: 58 (UHF, 2002–2009) |
| Former affiliations |
NBC (primary, 1954–1955) ABC (1954–1995; secondary until 1955) DuMont (secondary, 1954–1955) |
| Transmitter power | 311 kW |
| Height | 335 m |
| Facility ID | 74007 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 41°36′58″N 86°11′38″W / 41.61611°N 86.19389°W |
| Website | fox28.com |
WSJV, UHF digital channel 28, is a Fox-affiliated television station serving South Bend, Indiana, United States that is licensed to Elkhart. The station is owned by Quincy Newspapers. WSJV's studios are located on County Road 7/Oakland Avenue in unincorporated Elkhart County, and its transmitter is located on Johnson Road (east of Gulivoire Park) in unincorporated St. Joseph County. The station is also available on Comcast channel 9 and in high definition on digital channel 190. Syndicated programming on the station includes Two and a Half Men, The Simpsons, Modern Family, The Office, Family Guy and The Dr. Oz Show.
History
Early history
WSJV began broadcasting on March 15, 1954 on channel 52; the station was initially a primary NBC station with a secondary affiliation with ABC. The South Bend market was unique because it was a UHF island; it was sandwiched between Chicago to the west, Grand Rapids to the north and Indianapolis to the south, meaning that no VHF licenses could be assigned to South Bend. It was owned by the Truth Publishing Company, along with Elkhart's main newspaper, The Elkhart Truth. WSJV became solely an ABC affiliate in July 1955, after losing its NBC affiliation to WNDU-TV (channel 16) when that station signed on the air. During the late-1950s, channel 28 was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.[1]
WSJV moved its channel allocation to UHF channel 28 in 1958. After the station invested in purchasing color tape and film equipment, WSJV began broadcasting in color in 1966, five years after ABC began airing some of its programs in color in 1961. WSJV eventually bought two color television cameras, and converted the broadcasts of all of its locally produced shows to color starting in 1968. In 1971 and 1972, its studios were completely remodeled and enlarged into the present facility.
In 1974, the Truth Publishing Company sold WSJV to Quincy Newspapers after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began tightening its cross-ownership rules which forbid common ownership of a newspaper and a broadcasting outlet in the same market, except in a few grandfathered cases. While the FCC granted grandfathered status to Schurz Communications for its combination of the South Bend Tribune and WSBT-AM/FM/TV, it would not do the same to the Truth Publishing Company for its combination of The Truth and WSJV. As a result, Truth Publishing was forced to divest WSJV.
As a Fox affiliate
In 1993, Fox gained the broadcast rights to televise games from the NFL's National Football Conference,[2] which had firmly established itself as the fourth national network. As a result of the deal, the network sought to upgrade its affiliates in several markets over the next three years, moving Fox affiliations in several markets to longtime affiliates of the Big Three television networks, generally those with established news departments. For these reasons, Fox wanted to air its programming in South Bend on a full-power station rather than low-powered W58BT; Fox reached an agreement with WSJV to join the network on April 21, 1995.[3] On October 18, 1995, WSJV affiliated with Fox after a 40-year stint as an ABC affiliate, while W58BT took the ABC affiliation (that station is now WBND-LP, which moved from UHF channel 58 to channel 57 in 2002 to allow WSJV to use that channel for its pre-transition digital signal). Before the switch, WSJV was the longest-tenured ABC affiliate in the state of Indiana; an honor now held by WPTA in Fort Wayne. The switch had the benefit of giving South Bend viewers the ability to better receive the network's game telecasts of the Chicago Bears (a team which South Bend serves an unofficial secondary market, and is part of the NFC conference).[4]
As of the spring of 2013, WSJV is one of only three remaining Fox affiliates in the state of Indiana where the network's programming airs on the main channel – along with WXIN in Indianapolis and WFFT-TV in Fort Wayne. The Fox affiliations in Terre Haute and Evansville are carried on digital subchannels of stations whose main channel carries an affiliation with a Big Three network as they replaced the former Fox affiliates in those markets, WFXW (now ABC affiliate WAWV-TV)[5] and WTVW[6] (now a CW affiliate); the switches were the result of a dispute over retransmission consent fees between Fox and the owners/managers of the ex-Fox affiliates in Evansville and Terre Haute, Nexstar Broadcasting Group in 2011. WFFT (also owned by Nexstar) was also included in the switch,[7] but rejoined Fox in 2013.
Digital television
Digital channels
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
| Channel | Video | Aspect | PSIP Short Name | Programming[8] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28.1 | 720p | 16:9 | WSJV-DT | Main WSJV programming / Fox |
| 28.2 | 480i | 4:3 | WSJV-SD | Live Well Network |
Analog-to-digital conversion
WSJV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 28, on February 17, 2009, the original date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later changed to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 58, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its former analog UHF channel 28 for post-transition operations.[9]
News operation
WSJV presently broadcasts 22 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with four hours seen on weekdays and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays).
After gaining the Fox affiliation in August 1995, this station revamped its local news offerings: local news programming began running on weekdays from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m. (the morning newscast being extended by one hour and syndicated programming filling the 8 a.m. hour to fill timeslots vacated by the departure of Good Morning America; it was later expanded until 9:00 a.m. several years later), and 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. The 5, 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts were dropped and replaced with syndicated programming, making WSJV the only former Big Three station to join Fox during the mid-1990s not to maintain a news-intensive schedule (instead partly resembling the common newscast scheduling of most Fox affiliates that more heavily rely on syndicated programming). A half-hour 5 p.m. newscast was later added to the schedule by the mid-2000s, but was cancelled in 2008.
The station began having competition to its weeknight prime time broadcast on September 5, 2006 after CBS affiliate WSBT-TV (channel 22) added its own weeknight 10 p.m. newscast on its second digital subchannel after WSBT-DT2 converted into an independent station. On January 19, 2012, WSJV became the fourth and last television station in the South Bend market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. Since March 19, 2012, the WSJV newscast also competes with a nightly 10 p.m. newscast on CW affiliate WCWW-LD (channel 25) that is produced by that station's co-owned ABC affiliate WBND; however, the WCWW newscast airs for only 30 minutes whereas WSJV's newscast airs for one hour.
News/station presentation
Newscast titles
- 28 Newswatch (1976–1980)
- NewsWatch 28 (1980–1994)
- News 28 (1994–1995)
- Fox 28 News (1995–present)
Station slogans
- "On Your Side" (1991–1995)
- "Accurate. Dependable." (2007–2010)
- "When You Want It!" (2010–present)
On-air staff
Current on-air staff[10]
- Anchors
- Traci Capellman - weeknights at 10 p.m.
- Steve DuVal - weekday mornings on Fox 28 Morning Show (6-9 a.m.)
- Tom Powell - weeknights at 10 p.m.
- Amanda Tetlak - weekends at 10 p.m.; also weeknight reporter
- Courtney Ward - weekday mornings on Fox 28 Morning Show (6-9 a.m.)
- Fox 28 Five Degree Guarantee
- John Fischer (AMS and NWA Seals of Approval) - chief meteorologist; weeknights at 10 p.m.
- Joe Hansel - meteorologist; weekday mornings on Fox 28 Morning Show (6-9 a.m.); also general assignment reporter
- Courtney Jorgensen - meteorologist; weekends at 10 p.m.
- Sports team
- Dean Huppert - sports director; weeknights at 10 p.m., also Sports Extra host
- Adam Shear - sports anchor; weekends at 10 p.m., also sports reporter and Sports Extra host
- Reporters
- Amir Abbas - weekday morning reporter
- Melanie Yuill - multimedia journalist
References
- ↑ "Require Prime Evening Time for NTA Films", Boxoffice, November 10, 1956: 13
- ↑ "NBC Gets Final N.F.L. Contract While CBS Gets Its Sundays Off". The New York Times. December 21, 1993. Retrieved June 22, 2012.
- ↑ "ABC out, Fox in at WSJV". The News-Sentinel. April 21, 1995. Retrieved October 25, 2012.
- ↑ "Rocky Start for New South Bend ABC Affiliate". Times-Union. October 19, 1995. Retrieved October 25, 2012.
- ↑ "FOX ends affiliation with WTVW," from Evansville Courier & Press, May 11, 2011.
- ↑ Foulkes, Arthur (June 30, 2011). "Channel 38 switching from Fox to ABC". Tribune-Star. Retrieved July 6, 2011.
- ↑ Nexstar's Fort Wayne Fox Going Independent, Broadcasting & Cable, July 19, 2011.
- ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for WSJV
- ↑ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-03-24.
- ↑ News team
External links
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