Template:WFTW-FTV History

History

Early History

The station first signed on the air on May 30, 1952 as WFTW-FTV. Founded by the Shoreline Broadcasting group, it is the oldest fantasy television station in the state of Indiana. The first program broadcast on the station was a documentary titled Crucible of Speed, about the early history of the legendary Three Rivers Festival; this was followed by the inaugural live television broadcast of the event. The station originally operated as an ABC, although it maintained secondary affiliations with NBC and the DuMont Television Network.

WFTW began to split NBC programming with WFAZ-FTV (channel 36, which moved to channel 9 in 2003, now WMRI-FTV) when that station signed on in January 1954; both stations lost their affiliations with NBC to WPMA-FTV (channel 7, later WNDI-FTV and now silent), which maintained a secondary affiliation with the network, when that station signed on in 1961. In 1954, WFTW became the market's CBS affiliate.

As a Fox affiliate

In 2003, Shoreline Communications sold WFTW to its current owner United Broadcasting. The station already owned UPN affiliate WGOM (channel 59, now channel 27). While at the same time, Fox sought stronger stations to serve as its affiliates in several markets.

After five decades, channel 6 ended its long relationship with CBS and joined Fox as an exclusive affiliate of the network on February 1, 2004.

WTOR (channel 41) which became the market's CBS affiliate, has since made strong strides in the market as cable penetration allowed WTOR's traditional disadvantage of being on the UHF band to fade, and other factors allowed the station to strengthen its news operation and adequately compete with WFTW's newscasts. In addition, WTOR became the local home for the Indianapolis Colts and the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, and owing to the region's status as a college basketball hotbed with local teams such as Notre Dame and Indiana being longtime fixtures in the tournament, Indianapolis Colts football and NCAA tournament games on WTOR are consistently among the highest-rated programs in the market during the tournament's run. Channel 6 saw some struggles over the years during television seasons when Fox suffers from a weaker-rated schedule, while WTOR's ties to CBS have boosted that station through most of the 2000s and eventually overtook long-time dominant station WMRI. With Fox's schedule at that time, both stations usually exchange the second place in the Fort Wayne market's news ratings.

As a CW affiliate

In a Twitter post by Tim Ripley in March 2010, it was announced that MHB Television (which would later merge with DakMedia, had acquired low-power station WINO (channel 12) and respective WMRI and WNDI satelites WMRN and WORT) had signed an affiliation agreement with Fox for WINO/WMRN/WORT. Fox cited concerns with WFTW's performance and DakMedia was in the process of acquiring WINO as a Fox-owned station.

The fate of both WFTW remained unclear until on July 2, 2010, when channel 6 announced that it had signed an affiliation agreement with The CW, taking that affiliation from WECW (channel 51).

The station began dropping on-air references to Fox just over two weeks later on July 19, 2010, rebranding itself as "Fort Wayne 6". The affiliation switches officially took place two weeks afterward on August 1, ending WFTW's 6-year association with Fox – with channel 6 joining The CW, while the Fox affiliation moved over to WINO and the MyNetwork TV service moving from WGOM to WECW. The Fort Wayne 6 logo incorporated a miniature CW logo in its top left corner for news programming, otherwise setting it off to the right of the station's logo in proportionate size; instead of being the standard green color, the CW logo is colored a bright blue in non-news advertising to match the station logo's blue, gold and white color scheme at the time.

As an NBC affiliate

On May 22, 2015 after NBC announced it would end their 67-year affiliation with its Denver sister station KIAA and moved to KZCO (which is owned by and of which rival WTOR and WXXC (channel 47) is the flagship duopoly of NoSirGifts Fantasy Television Stations), United Broadcasting announced that WFTW would become the new NBC affiliate for the Fort Wayne market effective November 1, 2015. The affiliation came nearly a month after X2 Broadcasting announced it was closing down WNDI-FTV (channel 7),

This made WFTW the first station in Fort Wayne market and became one of the few television stations in the United States to have served as a primary affiliate of all three heritage broadcast networks. It is one three stations in the country to have had primary affiliations with all four current major networks--the others are Fox affiliates WNNV in Newport News, Virginia, WKYI-FTV in Louisville and WIND in Indianapolis; it also became only station to have had primary affiliations with all five current major networks.

WFTW became the third station in Fort Wayne to affiliate with NBC. The network first affiliated with WFAZ (now WMRI) on a secondary basis before moving to WPMA (later WNDI) in 1961 before moving to WFAZ in 1984 and then back to WNDI in 2005.

Throughout the summer of 2022, WFTW celebrated 70 years of broadcasting by airing past image campaigns such as "Hello Fort Wayne," "Share the Spirit of Channel 6," "Channel 6 Spirit," as well as retro promos for current shows airing on WFTW. One example is a promo for Queen of the Willis and The Souzas using WFTW's "Share the Spirit" campaign as a CBS affiliate.