WLIN-FTV

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WLIN
12WLIN Fox logo.png
Lafayette, Indiana
United States
Branding 12WLIN (general)
12News (newscasts)
Slogan The Spirit of Indiana (news)
12WLIN: One of America's Leading Fox Stations (general)
Channels Digital: 44 (VHF)
Virtual: 12 (PSIP)
Subchannels 12.1 Fox
12.2 Antenna TV
12.3 This TV
Affiliations Fox
Owner NoSirGifts Television Stations
(Imperial Broadcasting of Lafayette, Inc.)
First air date June 1, 1979 (1979-06-01)
Call letters' meaning Lafayette INdiana
Sister station(s) WWKI-FTV
Former channel number(s) Analog:
12 (VHF, 1979–2009)
Former affiliations Primary:
Independent (1979–1986)
Transmitter power 986 kW
Height 383 m

WLIN-FTV, virtual channel 12, is a Fox affiliated fantasy TV station located in Lafayette, Indiana, United States. The station is owned by NoSirGifts Venues as part of a duopoly with CBS affiliate WWKI-FTV (channel 33). WLIN maintains studios and transmitter facilities located on East McCarty Lane near Interstate 65 in Lafayette.

The station began in 1979 as the first independent and the first full-powered VHF station in what had previously been a "UHF island." Distinctively, WLIN, along with sister stations WHAR Madison, Wisconsin and KXXX Austin, Texas are one of three markets where Fox is on VHF, while the other major networks are on UHF in the analog era.


History[edit]

Early history[edit]

WLIN-FTV signed on the air on June 1, 1979, becoming the first independent television station in Lafayette. It was originally owned by the Imperial Broadcasting, alongside Milwaukee ABC affiliate WXWI and then-independent Indianapolis station WIFX (now a CBS affiliate). In its early history, ran a format of cartoons, business news, religious shows, sitcoms, movies in primetime and late nights and rejected network programs from then-ABC affiliate WQLI (channel 35, now an NBC affiliate) and then-NBC outlet WLFY-FTV (channel 19, now an ABC affiliate), and classic movies.

As a Fox station[edit]

WLIN and its Indianapolis sister station became a charter affiliate of the Fox Broadcasting Company when the network launched on October 9, 1986. As was the case with other Fox stations during the network's early years, channel 12 was for essential intents and purposes, remained programmed as a de facto independent station as Fox initially ran primetime programs only on weekends and would not carry seven nights a week of programming until September 1993. Until Fox began airing programming on a nightly basis, WLIN aired a movie at 8:00 p.m. on nights when network programs did not air. The station began identifying as "12WLIN Fox" by 1988 (simply adding the Fox name to the "12WLIN" branding in use since its 1979 sign-on and has been the station's branding since 2012), which was simplified to "Fox 12" in 2008 after being sold to NoSirGifts. Channel 12 also added more sitcoms to its inventory, and eventually began to overtake newcomer WWKI and WTKI in the ratings. Fort Wayne, Indiana-based NoSirGifts Fantasy Television Stations bought Imperial Broadcasting's television properties for $1.13 billion on July 7, 2008. Under NoSirGifts ownership, WLIN added more first-run syndicated talk, court and reality shows to the schedule and also added the Sony-produced game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! for NoSirGifts' Fox and independent stations (becoming the fourth Fox affiliate to air both shows in 2008, KDNC in Denver has aired both shows since their debuts)

The station gained a major ratings windfall in the fall of 1994, as it became Lafayette's secondary home for the Indianapolis Colts. In December 1993, Fox outbid CBS to obtain the broadcast rights to football games from the National Football Conference of the NFL.[1][2]

WLIN logo 2009-2012

Owing to the market's status as a secondary market for the Indianapolis Colts, Colts games on WLIN are consistently among the highest-rated programs in the market during the Colts season when they host an NFC opponent. Imperial Broadcasting signed an unprecedented lifetime affiliation deal with Fox, which was establishing itself as a major network and was looking for more VHF stations. In late 1994, most stations owned by New Avon Communications (and eventual sister stations of WLIN) dropped their longtime "Big Three" affiliations and switched to Fox.[3][4]


Channel 12 became Lafayette's 'official station' of the Indianapolis Colts since the mid-1990s, giving it rights to air the team's non-nationally televised preseason games, which as a result of a March 2008 broadcast agreement, are shared with sister stations WIFX in Indianapolis, WTOR Fort Wayne, WXSB in South Bend, and WVTH in Terre Haute, in addition to the existing television broadcasters across Indiana. WLIN holds the broadcast rights to the weekly coaches show (which airs Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m. during the NFL season) and other shows involving the team and post-season team reviews. Regular season games televised over-the-air locally are split between WWKI (through CBS's rights to the team's American Football Conference division, and before that WLXL), and WLIN (for select games televised by Fox in which the Colts play against an NFC opponent because of Fox's rights to the NFC), with WQLI carrying non-preseason games via NBC's Sunday Night Football on occasions when a game involving the Colts is scheduled.

WLIN had carried most Indianapolis Colts preseason games since the team's relocation from Baltimore in 1984 and since also carried Colts preseason games.

As a result of fellow charter affiliate and sister station WIFX switching from Fox to CBS in 2009, WLIN became the longest-tenured Fox affiliate in the state of Indiana. It is the only station in Lafayette to have never changed its network affiliation.

Digital channels[edit]

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming
12.1 720p 16:9 WLIN-FDT Main WLIN-FTV programming / Fox
12.2 480i 4:3 WLIN-Ant Antenna TV
12.3 WLIN-TH This TV


Analog-to-digital conversion[edit]

WLIN-FTV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 12, at 11:30 p.m. on June 12, 2009, the date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 44. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 12.

WLIN replaced a standard definition feed of WWKI with Antenna TV on digital subchannel 12.2 on January 1, 2011, as part of a groupwide affiliation agreement with NoSirGifts; the Tribune Broadcasting-owned Antenna TV network also replaced RTV on some NoSirGifts-owned stations in other markets.

This TV was added digital subchannel 12.3 in October 2009, also as part of a groupwide affiliation agreement with NoSirGifts.

Programming[edit]

WLIN clears the entire Fox schedule with two notable exceptions: it delays the Saturday night Animation Domination High-Def block by a half-hour due to the station's 11:00 p.m. newscast, and airs the Xploration Station block on both Saturdays (airing 10-11 a.m.) and Sundays (11 a.m.-noon after Fox News Sunday) due to the July 30, 2011 expansion of its weekend morning newscasts. From September 1994 until the program was dropped by Fox on December 2008, WLIN tape-delayed 4Kids.TV (and their predecessors due to lack of E/I content (as was common with former New Avon's other Fox stations as they either did not air the block at all or tape-delayed) for broadcast on early Sunday and Monday mornings.

Unlike the New Avon Communications stations that converted to Fox affiliates, WLIN carried Fox Kids programming, running it one hour earlier on weekday afternoons from 1 to 4 p.m. The station ran Fox Kids until the weekday block ended in December 2001[5] (when it had been pushed back to as early as 10 a.m.), and its successor Saturday morning children's blocks known as Fox Box and later 4KidsTV until the latter block ended nationally in December 2008, when 4Kids Entertainment and Fox parted ways due to a contract dispute. By the time 4Kids TV ended its run, Fox permanently discontinued providing network-supplied children's programming, replacing it with the infomercial block Weekend Marketplace.


WLIN-FTV airs a mix of local programming, newscasts, and most of the highest-rated programs in syndication and because of this has usually had very limited turnover in its schedule each fall for the last few years, with syndicated programs presently including Live! with Kelly and Michael, The Dr. Oz Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Dr. Phil, Judge Judy, the Sony-produced game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!; and off-network reruns including The Middle, Modern Family and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit among others.

Although it will occasionally continue to preempt network programming for specials and breaking news coverage (which resulted in the preempted programming airing on WWKI, but until December 31, 2014). When WWKI became a CBS affiliate on June 1, 2015, any preempted programming will now airs on WLIN's second digital sub-channel, that is affiliated with Antenna TV.


As previously mentioned, channel 12 also airs select Indianapolis Colts telecasts, as part of Fox's NFC package. Shortly before WWKI switched to CBS, the team announced a deal with NoSirGifts that made WLIN and WWKI official broadcast partners. This means both stations will continue to air Indianapolis Colts preseason games with WWKI airing Colts games due to CBS' AFC rights or Thursday Night Football. Additionally, both stations will carry the Super Bowl for two out of every three years starting in 2016, with WWKI carrying CBS' coverage of Super Bowl 50 and WLIN carrying Fox's coverage of Super Bowl LI in 2017, though a majority of the games will air on WWKI, owing to CBS' AFC rights. The only time the Colts would not play on a NoSirGifts station in Lafayette would be if they were scheduled for an NBC Sunday Night Football telecast, which would air on NBC affiliate WQLI (channel 35) or ESPN Monday Night Football, which would air on ABC affiliate WLFY (channel 19).


News operation[edit]

WLIN presently broadcasts 75½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 12½ on weekdays and 13 hours on weekends); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest local newscast output among Lafayette's television stations. WLIN's weekend 6:00 p.m. newscast is subject to preemption due to network sports coverage, as is standard with Fox stations that carry early evening weekend newscasts (though the Saturday 6:00 p.m. newscast is usually delayed to 7:00 p.m. during baseball or college football coverage).

For most of the station's history, WLIN did not have a regular newscast. In 1979, it formed its initial news department and aired a half-hour primetime news program known as The 10 O’Clock Report; this was established during a time of heavy competition from other newscasts. As an independent, WLIN did not have network shows that could lead into its newscast, so consistent viewership and ratings were difficult to maintain, and the program was cancelled in the fall of 1979. The news team consisted of only five people, and personnel would shoot and edit their own video. For the next seven years, channel 12's news programming consisted solely of 60-second news and weather updates, branded as WLIN News Extra, that aired during commercial breaks within the station's daytime and evening programming.

Long-form newscasts returned on October 6, 1986 when channel 12 restarted its own in-house news department. Imperial Broadcasting started a news department for the station in the spring of 1986, with the debut of a nightly 10:00 p.m. newscast. It was the second attempt at a primetime newscast in the market and for channel 12 which began producing a nightly 35-minute newscast at 10:00 p.m.[6] Debuting as 12WLIN Newsroom: The 10:00 Report – which was later retitled 12 News at 10 in 1994 then to Fox 12 News at Ten in 2008 and then back to 12 News at 10:00 in 2012, it was first anchored by Laura Jefferson (who is the only original on-air member of the current news department that remains employed with WLIN as of 2015), alongside chief meteorologist Samuel Walker and sports director Will Johans and the weekend editions were first anchored by Robyn Hurd.

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Template:Lafayette IN FTV Template:Fox FTV Indiana Template:NoSirGifts FTV