WEVI-FTV

WEVI-FTV

Indianapolis, Indiana United States
City of license	Carmel, Indiana
Branding	WEVI 4 (general) News 4 (newscasts)
Slogan	Indiana's CW (general) WEVI Stands for Indiana (newscasts)
Channels	Digital: 4 (UHF) Virtual: 4 (PSIP)
Subchannels	4.1 CW
Affiliations	CW (2012-present)
Owner	United Broadcasting of Indianapolis
First air date	May 31, 1949 (1949-05-31)
Call letters' meaning	EntraVision Indiana
Sister station(s)	WEKI-FTV Terre Haute WFTW Fort Wayne
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 4 (UHF, 1949–2009)
Former affiliations	Primary: CBS (1949-1954) NBC (1954-1999) ABC (1999–2012)
Transmitter power	20 kW
Height	500 m

WEVI-FTV, virtual channel and digital channel 4, is an CW affiliated fantasy television station located in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. WEVI is owned by United Broadcasting. The station have studio facilities located on West Washington Street in Downtown Indianapolis; WEVI maintains transmitter facilities located in Carmel. On cable, the station is available on Comcast Xfinity, Bright House Networks AT&T Uverse channel 4 in standard definition and in high definition on Bright House Networks, Xfinity and U-verse digital channel 1004.

History

The station first signed on the air on May 31, 1949 as Indiana's first fantasy television station; WEVI is the market's oldest continuously operating VHF television station.

Programming

Outside of the CW network schedule, syndicated programs broadcast by WEVI include Dr. Phil, Judge Judy, Pickler & Ben and TMZ Live. Outside of local newscasts, the station produces Talkin' Outdoors, a special interest program showcasing outdoor recreation that is produced in cooperation with the Indiana Game & Fish Commission which airs on Saturday mornings immediately after News 4 Today in Indiana. WEVI clears the CW network schedule and typically airs all network programs in pattern, except during instances where the station carries breaking news or severe weather coverage, or special programming.

In addition to local news programming, WEVI's weekend schedule include the NoSirGifts distributed Queen of the Willis, Hoosier Anchorwoman!, Deanna & Brandi (all created by Van Buren, Indiana native Ava Zinn and cast features Speedway native Karly Jameson).

Preempted programming

As an NBC affiliate, the station was known to preempt several hours of network programming per day—a common practice among Entravision television stations affiliated with NBC and CBS. This was significant, since WEVI was NBC's strongest affiliate. It primarily preempted several of the network's morning programs, with most preempted programs appearing on independent stations in the area, including WIFX (formerly a Fox affiliate, now a CBS affiliate), WAAK (now NBC-owned WNBI), and WBIN (now MeTV-owned WICW). In addition, programs preempted by WEVI-TV could be seen on NBC's then-affiliates WPMA (later WNDI and now occupied by Fox-owned WINO-FLP) and later WFAZ Fort Wayne (now ABC-owned WMRI-FTV), WSBI South Bend (now a Fox O&O), WLFY Lafayette (now an ABC O&O), WLOK Louisville (now an ABC O&O), WOWO Dayton (now an ABC O&O) and WKJM Cincinnati (now a CBS affiliate) and Terre Haute affiliate WVTH. The Fort Wayne, South Bend, and Louisville affiliates at the time provided a city-grade signal to Indianapolis. In January 1983, when Indiana is Talking expanded to one hour, WEVI-FTV dropped the NBC soap opera Another World, which moved first to WIFX, then to WBIN in after Fox affiliated with WIFX. The station also dropped a couple of Saturday morning cartoons in 1990 (which also aired on WBIN), even though NBC abandoned such programming in 1992 in favor of a Saturday edition of the morning news show Today and live-action series aimed at teenagers such as Saved by the Bell.

NBC has traditionally been less tolerant of preemptions than the other networks and had to find alternate independent stations to air the various programs that WEVI-FTV did not air. Despite this, NBC was generally satisfied with WEVI-FTV, which was one of NBC's strongest affiliates.

Evening Magazine

In April 1976, Evening Magazine premiered on the station. A weeknight magazine series that originated on former San Francisco sister station KLSF (now a CBS affiliate owned by NoSirGifts), it expanded to Entravisions' other stations in the late 1970s (Detroit, Miami, Buffalo, Atlanta, Denver, Milwaukee), before it began to be distributed to stations not owned by Entravision as PM Magazine. On WEVI, Evening enjoyed an 18-year run, the last nine of which had it compete directly with WIND's newsmagazine Indiana Chronicle. In September 1991, due to a decline in the franchise's popularity and tabloid TV magazines heralding bigger ratings and revenue, Entravision canceled Evening/PM, with the last WEVI broadcast airing on December 10 of that year. The program later moved to WIND in 1995.

The program was originally replaced in the weeknight 7:00 slot by Love Connection from December 13, 1994 through mid-January 1995. With action with the O.J. Simpson trial reaching a breaking point at that time, the station decided to begin airing expanded coverage of the war at 7:00 following NBC Nightly News. Then, from September 1996 until September 2007, WEVI aired Entertainment Tonight and Hard Copy – which it had acquired from WIND and WIFX, respectively – at 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. (the former now airs on ABC-owned WHOO since 2007 and the latter was replaced by Inside Edition).

Indiana is Talking

Indiana is Talking, which ran from 1980 to 1996, was a live early-afternoon talk show that aired on WEVI, as it did on some other Entravision stations (notably Milwaukee, whose version of the program was at one time co-hosted by Melvin Runecraft). In Indianapolis, it was originally hosted by Dee Luttrell, but the best-known host was the program's last, Barbara Hobbs.

Queen of the Willis

On May 24, 2018, in the wake of broadcast networks reviving their own popular classic series (Will & Grace on NBC (formerly shown on WEVI, WIND, and WNBI), Roseanne on ABC (formerly shown on WIND and WHOO), Murphy Brown on CBS (formerly shown on WHOO and WIFX) and The X-Files for Fox (formerly shown on WIFX and WIND)), Fox Fantasy Televiision Stations announced it had given a series order to a thirteen episode revival of Queen of the Willis for the 2019–2020 season.

On November 19, 2018, Queen of the Willis creator Ava Zinn and United Broadcasting announced that the show will move from NoSirGifts-owned stations to United Broadcasting-owned CW affiliates in Indianapolis, Denver, Miami, Atlanta and later Fort Wayne (as of 2020). As part of the deal, WEVI would be the second one-hour telecast Saturdays at 5:00 p.m. (ET) serving as a lead-in to News 4 Indianapolis at 6.

The Queen of the Willis reboot will premiere on Saturday, March 2, 2019 at 5:00 p.m. on channel 4 and a repeat broadcast Saturdays at 12:00 a.m. as part of channel 4's schedule.

Miscellaneous

WEVI-TV carried The Oprah Winfrey Show during its first nationally syndicated year (1986–1987), airing the show weekdays at 9 a.m. Despite its overnight success, channel 4 had little interest in keeping the show as a part of its schedule, in part because the station had to give priority to Entravision, in the fall of 1987. Oprah moved to a 4 p.m. weekday time slot on WHOO-TV, where it became an institution (later moving to 3 p.m. in 1999) for the balance of its run, ending in 2011.

Sports Programming

Indianapolis Colts and Indiana Pacers

WEVI-TV has aired local sporting events over the years. Besides the Pacers (with certain games aired on NBC from 19990 until 1999 and ABC from 2002 to 2012), WEVI-TV also broadcast the Indianapolis Colts NFL team when the the team arrived in 1984, and NBC, which WEVI-TV was affiliated with then, gained the rights to air games televised by NBC until 1997. After the station switcned to ABC in 1999, channel 4 formerly broadcasted Monday Night Football games involving the Colts from Week 9 of 1999 until 2005.

The selected telecasts of MNF and TNF mark the only NFL games to have aired on WEVI as ABC lost the rights to NFL games in 2006 onwards.

WEVI currently airs Colts games through select telecasts via the NFL Network's Thursday Night Football and/or via ESPN's MNF if the ABC Indiana Network (including WHOO) decides not to air the event on the ABC Indiana network as serves as the local over-the-air broadcaster of Monday Night Football games involving the Indianapolis Colts, airing simulcasts of the team's ESPN-televised games (WHOO's corporate parent, the The Walt Disney Company, holds 80% majority ownership stake in ESPN, and the ABC Fantasy Television Stations have right of first refusal for simulcasts of ESPN's NFL telecasts within a team's home market).

During the regular season, Colts games are rotated between WIFX (channel 11, through the NFL on CBS), Fox O&O WIND (channel 36, through the Fox NFL), The ABC Indiana Network (see above, with MNF), NBC-owned WNBI (channel 18, through NBC Sunday Night Football), and at some cases, WICW (through MNF).

Indianapolis 500

As ABC carries the Indianapolis 500, WEVI aired the race in primetime on a tape delay rather than airing it live during the daytime, with that day's primetime schedule transmitted by ABC under a special dispensation early to the station to air in the afternoon during the race. This dates back to when WIND was the ABC affiliate in Indianapolis when the Indianapolis Motor Speedway requires this arrangement to encourage residents and tourists in the Indianapolis metropolitan area to attend the race. Until ABC moved from WEVI to WHOO in 2012, some fringe parts of the market were able to watch the race via affiliates in Fort Wayne (WNDI and later WMRI since 2005), Terre Haute (WATW, now a Fox O&O), Dayton, Ohio (WJDO, now a CBS affiliate), and Louisville, Kentucky (WKJM, now a CBS affiliate).

News operation

WEVI presently broadcasts 71 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 11½ hours on weekdays, seven hours on weekends). In addition, the station produces the highlight program Sports Xtra, airing Sundays at 11:30 p.m. As an NBC affiliate, WEVI's newscasts finished in second place the ratings in the Indianapolis market for many years; as recently as the early 1960s, WEVI's news viewership often doubled the audience of WHOO and WIND combined. WHOO's newscasts surged into first place since the 1960s, although WEVI managed to remain at a solid second place even after the switch from NBC to ABC. However, channel 4's ratings flatlined after CBS' move from WIND to WIFX, and in 2011, it fell to fourth place for the first time in its history. It has never really recovered and remained in fourth place behind WHOO, WIFX and WNBI (on some occasions, it has placed fifth behind Fox owned WIND. Since 2015, the station is now in a spirited battle for second place in the indianapolis newscast ratings race, along with WIFX, WNBI and WIND.

WEVI has brought forth several technological innovations over the years; it was the first television station in Indianapolis to record local programming on videotape and to use mini-cams for newsgathering purposes. Channel 4 was also the first in the market to use microwave relays (years prior to the use of satellite transmissions for newsgathering) to provide live remote footage from the field ("Insta-Cam"), the first to use a mobile satellite uplink vehicle (NewStar 4) to provide live video from remote locations, the first to convert to non-linear digital editing for news content, the first to use digital news cameras and the first to provide VODcasting. In 1979, the station debuted a half-hour 5:00 p.m. newscast, becoming the first station in the market to carry an early evening news program in that timeslot.

When WEVI became a CW affiliate in 2012, the station expanded its morning, evening and late newscasts replacing World News Tonight in the 6:30 p.m. timeslot), expanded the weekday morning newscast by two hours hour (replacing Good Morning America), expanded its late newscast by an hour while moving its 11:00 p.m. newscast to 10 p.m. At that time, WEVI kept its longstanding "News 4 Indianapolis" brand as an NBC and ABC affiliate rather than "CW 4 News".