WXIN (TV) - History

History

During the 1950s, the UHF channel 59 frequency was assigned to Lafayette, Indiana (northwest of Indianapolis). Sarkes Tarzian launched CBS affiliate WFAM-TV in that city in 1953, before it was moved to UHF channel 18 in 1957 (the station now uses the callsign WLFI-TV). After the Lafayette station moved off channel 59, that channel allocation would remain dormant until the frequency was later reassigned to Indianapolis.

Channel 59, as an Indianapolis station, signed on the air on July 12, 1983 as independent station WPDS-TV. The station was originally locally-owned, with a programming lineup featuring cartoons, movies, old sitcoms, drama shows and a short-lived hour-long evening newscast. The WPDS callsign stood for the initials of the station's three founders: local businessman Ron Palamara, former Indianapolis TV station executive Chris Duffy and shopping mall magnate and co-owner of the NBA's Indiana Pacers, Melvin Simon. The station was sold to Outlet Broadcasting in 1985, and had its call letters to changed the current WXIN. On October 9, 1986, WXIN became the Indianapolis charter affiliate of the upstart Fox network.

By the late 1980s, the station was branded on-air as "Fox 59", and had added more sitcoms to its schedule. It began to overtake competing independent WTTV in the ratings. WXIN was bought by Chase in 1989, and was later purchased by Renaissance Broadcasting in 1993, when Renaissance merged with Chase and acquired WTIC-TV/Hartford, KDVR/Denver and WATL/Atlanta (the latter, a former Fox owned-and-operated station that later affiliated with The WB and is now a MyNetworkTV affiliate). WXIN came under the ownership of the Tribune Company in 1997, following its acquisition of Renaissance's television properties. Under Tribune ownership, the station gradually added more talk shows, reality series and court shows.

Tribune Broadcasting acquired WTTV and its satellite WTTK from Sinclair Broadcast Group in 2002, creating a duopoly with WXIN. However, Tribune chose not to move the Fox affiliation to WTTV/WTTK and the WB affiliation to WXIN as even though WXIN is on the UHF dial, it has been one of Fox's strongest affiliates, while WTTV's primary broadcast signal during the analog television era did not cover the entire Indianapolis market, requiring its Kokomo satellite WTTK to beam its signal to northern portions of the market). That same year, WXIN relocated from its previous studios on North Meridian Street in Indianapolis' Television Row to its current facilities at 6910 Network Place on Indianapolis' northwest side.

WXIN is one of only two remaining full-power Fox affiliates in the state of Indiana, along with WSJV in South Bend, which holds a primary channel affiliation with the network; the Fox affiliations in Terre Haute, Evansville and Fort Wayne are all carried on digital subchannels of stations whose main channel carries an affiliation with one of the Big Three networks as they replaced former Fox affiliates WTVW, WFFT-TV and WAWV-TV, as the result of a dispute between Fox and Nexstar Broadcasting Group (owners/managers of the aforementioned former Fox affiliates) over reverse compensation of retransmission consent fees that led to the affiliation switches that occurred between July 1 and September 1, 2011. Since WFFT-TV dropped its Fox affiliation, WXIN is the longest-tenured Fox affiliate in the state of Indiana.