WISE-TV
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| WISE-TV | |
|---|---|
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| Fort Wayne, Indiana | |
| Branding | NBC 33 (normal) Indiana's News Center (newscasts) My TV Fort Wayne (on DT2) |
| Slogan | A New Generation of News |
| Channels | 33 (UHF) analog, 19 (UHF) digital |
| Affiliations | NBC MyNetworkTV (on DT2) NBC Weather Plus (on DT3) |
| Owner | Granite Broadcasting |
| Founded | November 21, 1953 |
| Call letters meaning | WISE or wisdom |
| Former callsigns | WKJG-TV (1953-2003) |
| Transmitter Power | 589 kW (analog) 350 kW (digital) |
| Height | 235.0 m (analog) 224.3 m (digital) |
| Website | indianasnewscenter.com |
WISE-TV "NBC 33" is a television station in Fort Wayne, Indiana, broadcasting locally on channel 33 as an affiliate of NBC. The station is currently owned by Granite Broadcasting, and is jointly operated with the local ABC affiliate, WPTA. The station broadcasts in digital signal on channel 19, and its DT2 digital subchannel serves as the market's affiliate of MyNetworkTV, which began broadcasting on September 5, 2006. The MyNetworkTV subchannel is branded as "My TV Fort Wayne".
Contents |
[edit] Digital Television
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 19.1 / 33.1 | main WISE programming (includes some NBC HDTV programming in 1080i) |
| 19.2 / 33.2 | My TV Fort Wayne (MyNetworkTV) |
| 19.3 / 33.3 | NBC Weather Plus (in 480i, originally on .2 until July 24, 2006) |
[edit] History
The station was founded in 1953 as the first network affiliate in Fort Wayne, carrying programming from the NBC network. It signed on under the call letters WKJG-TV, standing for "William Kunkle, Journal Gazette". Kunkle operated The Journal Gazette and founded WKJG AM/FM, and other television stations.
On September 30, 1971, the radio stations were sold, and became known as WMEE-AM and WMEF-FM. The FM station is now WMEE. The AM station went through a variety of call signs: WQHK, WHWD, and WONO but went back to the original WKJG on November 3, 2003 as Fort Wayne's ESPN Radio affiliate.
Michael Martone, an Alabama writer, who was raised in the North Highlands development, writes of being taken as a child out on State Boulevard to the field where WKJG was erecting its tower. The building of the first and tallest of the towers attracted huge crowds of people who watched for hours as the tubular lattice pieces were raised up and bolted into place.
For years, WKJG was operated by Thirty Three Inc., a Tony Hulman company. Hulman also ran the 33-car Indianapolis 500 at his Indianapolis Motor Speedway and owned the Indianapolis Coca-Cola bottling franchise. He also owned two other TV stations in Indiana: WTHI in Terre Haute and WNDY in Indianapolis.
After Hulman's death in 1977, WKJG was operated by Joseph R. Cloutier. Cloutier, who had been a Terre Haute-based long time employee of Hulman's company starting as a cashier in 1926, was already being elevated to Vice President. After Hulman's death, Cloutier was made president of the Indianpolis Speedway, a title which he held until his death in 1989 at the age of 81. After Cloutier's death, a trust fund, which was called the Corporation for General Trade, was formed which made Joseph A. Cloutier the majority share holder with 51%. The Corporation of General Trade continued to operate WKJG until it sold it in 2003.
Daily management was performed by Hilliard Gates until his retirement in 1993, who doubled as a sportscaster for the station. Hilliard Gates and Dick DeFay offered outstanding sports coverage in an era when small market television news was generally poor. [1] John Siemers, a broadcasting engineer at the station, pressed into service as "Engineer John" to introduce cartoons in the early days. Engineer John is still remembered fondly by his audience decades later.
On January 13, 2003, the Corporation for General Trade was sold for $20 million to New Vision Television. The station changed its call letters to the current WISE-TV on May 26, 2003 to celebrate its 50th anniversery. A new antenna with a stronger signal and new HDTV options were installed.
The station was sold again in 2005 to Granite Broadcasting Corporation for $44.2 million. Granite sold the market's ABC station, WPTA, to Malara Broadcasting for $45.3 million, with an agreement for Granite to provide operation services to Malara not only on WPTA in Fort Wayne, but also at Malara's other station KDLH in Duluth, Minnesota.
As a result of Granite acquiring WISE-TV, it moved the station to WPTA's studios, even though it is the senior partner in the LMA. Also, 57 employees of WISE-TV, both on-air personalities and production staff, were fired. Granite kept longtime weeknight anchor Linda Jackson to help smooth over the transition. Viewers did not react favorably and much of the negative feedback was given in the "rant" section of The News Sentinel where readers could write or voice their opinions. Many people were upset about the breakup of the news team and especially that meteorologist Greg Shoup was fired along with other employees. Shoup was quickly hired by the market's News Leader CBS affiliate WANE-TV where he currently does weather reports during the weekday morning and noon shows. WISE-TV's weekday morning meteorologist Kelly Koh was also hired by WANE-TV, where she is now a news reporter. Malara files its Securities and Exchange Commission reports jointly with Granite, leading to allegations that Granite uses Malara as a shell corporation to evade the FCC's rules on duopolies. The FCC does not allow common ownership of two of the four largest stations in a single market. In addition, Fort Wayne has only six full-power stations--too few to allow duopolies in any case.
WANE-TV has dominated the last eight ratings periods according to Nielsen Media Research. In the latest ratings period, which took place in February of 2007, WANE-TV won every newscast in every time slot. These ratings are the best in 25 years for that station.
[edit] Newscasts
WISE-TV produces five newscasts using three different "news teams". These newscasts are co-produced with sister station WPTA, and are essentially the same newscast with different anchors. The newscasts on WISE-TV and WPTA are branded as Indiana's News Center. When Granite acquired WISE-TV in 2005, the station began airing a weekday 7 PM newscast, 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 weekday 10 PM newscast on its DT3 digital subchannel, which is an affiliate of NBC Weather Plus. With the addition of "My TV Fort Wayne" on WISE DT2 and "Fort Wayne's CW" on WPTA DT2, this newscast can now be seen on those channels. The newscast is no longer seen 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 newscast on "My TV Fort Wayne" from 12 to 12:30 PM.
WISE-TV and WPTA also co-produce a webcast entitled "Indiana's NewsCenter exPRESS", 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 weekday newscasts at Noon, 5, or 6 PM. Instead, they air over on sister station WPTA. WISE-TV does not air morning or early evening newscasts on the weekends. However, there are local news and weather updates provided during The Today Show.
[edit] Weekdays
- Indiana's NewsCenter Plus on NBC 33 (5:30-7:00 AM)
- Indiana's NewsCenter Mornings (7:00-9:00 AM on My TV Fort Wayne/rebroadcast from WPTA)
- Indiana's NewsCenter Local News Update (7:00-9:00 AM and 10:00-11:00 PM) (segments during The Today Show)
- Indiana's NewsCenter Midday (12:30-1:00 PM on My TV Fort Wayne/rebroadcast from WPTA)
- Indiana's NewsCenter at 5:30 on NBC 33 (5:30-6:30 PM)
- Indiana's NewsCenter Prime News at 10 on My TV and CW Fort Wayne (10:00-10:30 PM)
- Indiana's NewsCenter Prime News at 11 on NBC 33 (11:00-11:35 PM)
[edit] Weekends
- Indiana's NewsCenter Weekend News Now on NBC 33
- Saturday 7:00-7:30 PM
- Sunday 6:00-6:30 PM
- Indiana's NewsCenter News Now on NBC 33(11:00-11:35 PM)
[edit] News Team
[edit] Anchors
- Linda Jackson - News Center at 5:30, 10, and 11 (was part of WISE-TV's pre-sellout news team)
- Lee Kelso - Considered a fill-in when Linda Jackson is unable to anchor
- Mary Collins - News Center Today and updates during The Today Show (also part of WISE-TV's pre-sellout news team)
- Vivian Nitecki - News Center Plus Mornings
- Eric Olson - News Center Weekend
[edit] Weather
(shared with WPTA)
- Curtis Smith - News Center at 5, 6, and 11
- Chris Daniels - News Center Plus Mornings
- Jason Meyers - News Center Weekend
[edit] Sports
- Kent Hormann - co-host of "The Score" (was part of WISE-TV's pre-sellout news team)
- Dean Pantazi - News Center at 6 and 11
- Tommy Scholger - News Center Weekend
WISE also uses personnel from WPTA
[edit] Notabe WISE-TV Alumni
Most were part of WISE-TV's news team before the station merged with WPTA in March 2005.
- Jake Miller - anchor until 2005 (now at WGEM in Quincy, IL)
- Jim Flink - anchor in the early 1990s (now at KMBC Kansas City)
- Zach Meyers - morning anchor until 2005 (now reporter at WXIN Indianapolis)
- Marni Huges - weekend anchor (now at KMSP Minneapolis)
- Amy Bradley - morning co-anchor (now at WBRE in Scranton, PA)
- Dan Kraus - weekend anchor (now at WXMI Grand Rapids, MI)
- Greg Shoup - chief meteorologist (now at WANE)
- Kelly Koh - morning weather specialist (now reporter and fill-in anchor at WANE-TV)
- Jim O'Brien - weekend meteorologist (now morning meteorologist at WXIN Indianapolis)
- Betsey Kling - weekend meteorologist (now at WKYC Cleveland - married to Paul Thomas)
- Susan Ware - Weekend meteorologist in the mid-late 1990s (now meteorologist at WTVG Toledo)
- Alexis Means - Reporter in the late 1990s (now at WTVG Toledo)
- Dalia Ferguson - Reporter in the early 2000s (now Bay News 9 in Tampa)
- John Thornert - Weekend Forecaster in early 2000s (now at Fort Wayne International Airport)
- Jim Bailey - Anchor 1998-2001 (now ??)
- Steve Rappaport - Sports Director in 2000 (now at WVIR in Charolettesville, VA
- Jesse Wells - Reporter 2002-2005 (now at WGBA-TV in Green Bay, WI)
- Kristen Pflum - reporter (now at WLEX-TV in Lexington)
- Dick Florea - news director in the 1980s and editor's desk anchor (retired in 2000 after 35 years)
- Dick DeFay (1927-2007) - Sports Director (died on Februrary 21, 2007)
- Paul Thomas - Reporter mid-1990s (now reporter/anchor at WKYC in Cleveland - married to Betsy Kling)
[edit] External links
- WISE-TV Website (shared with WPTA)
- "My TV Fort Wayne" Website
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WISE-TV
| Broadcast television in the Fort Wayne market (Nielsen DMA #106) | ||
|---|---|---|
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W07CL 7 (3ABN) - WANE 15 (CBS) - WPTA 21 (ABC) (The CW via "WBFW" on DT2) - WISE 33 (NBC) (MNTV on DT2) - WFWA 39 (PBS) - WFWC-CA 45 (3ABN) - WFFT 55 (FOX) - WINM 63 (TCT/TBN) |
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| Local cable television channels | ||
| NBC Network Affiliates in the state of Indiana | |
|---|---|
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WTWO 2 (Terre Haute) - WTHR 13 (Indianapolis) - WFIE 14 (Evansville) - WNDU 16 (South Bend) - WISE 33 (Fort Wayne) |
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| See also: ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, MyNetworkTV, PBS, Religious and Other stations in the state of Indiana | |
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WNDY 23 (Marion/Indianapolis) - WISE-DT 33.2 (Fort Wayne) - WPWR 50 (Gary/Chicago, IL) - |
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| See also: ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, NBC, PBS, Religious and Other stations in Indiana | |
