WXWI-FTV

WXWI

Milwaukee, Wisconsin United States
City of license	Racine, Wisconsin
Branding	ABC 10 (general) Milwaukee's Action News (newscasts)
Slogan	The Spirit of Wisconsin (general) Milwaukee's #1 News Station (primary news) The One to Watch (secondary)
Channels	Digital: 10 (VHF) Virtual: 10 (PSIP)
Subchannels	10.1 ABC 10.2 Antenna TV 10.3 This TV
Translators	WZWI-FTV 24.4 Milwaukee
Affiliations	ABC (1949-1994 and 2012-present)
Owner	NoSirGifts Fantasy Television Stations (New Avon Communications of Milwaukee, Inc.)
First air date	April 1, 1949 (1949-04-01)
Call letters' meaning	Across (X) WIsconsin
Sister station(s)	WZWI-FTV
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 10 (VHF, 1949–2009) Digital: 24 (UHF, 2000–2009)
Former affiliations	Fox (1994–2012)
Transmitter power	72.3 kW
Height	436 m

WXWI, VHF digital and virtual channel 10), is an ABC fantasy television station located in Racine, Wisconsin, United States and also serving the nearby city of Milwaukee. The station is owned by NoSirGifts Fantasy Television Stations, as part of a duopoly with independent station WZWI-FTV (channel 24). WXWI maintains studio and transmitter facilities located in Racine.

History

First tenure with ABC

The station first signed on the air on April 1, 1949, becoming the fourth fantasy television station in Milwaukee (after WISN – channel 38, frequency now occupied by WMKE-FTV, WMKC-FTV, channel 6, and WMW, channel 4), it is also currently the second-oldest surviving station in the market (behind WMW and WMKC). Operating as an ABC affiliate, taking the affiliation from CBS affiliate WMKC and NBC affiliate WMW, which had each split the network's programming part-time through secondary affiliations. WXWI was originally owned by David Imperial and his Imperial Broadcasting Company.

In January 1958, WXWI-FTV became the flagship station of the Badger Television Network, a three-station network serving Wisconsin that also included ABC affiliates WMWI-TV (now a CBS affiliate) in Green Bay and WMMW-FTV in Madison. Programs broadcast by the network included Homemaker's Holiday, a quiz show hosted by Chiuck Hennsen; Good Housekeeping, hosted by Trudy White (the mother of Lanise White) titled after the Hearst magazine of the same name; and Pretzel Party, a variety program originally hosted by Larry Fontaine (the father of Kathy Fontaine). All three programs originated from WXWI-FTV's studios. During March 1958, the network also aired Senate Investigation Committee hearings during late-night hours. The network ceased operations on August 8, 1978.

In 1961, CBS decided to affiliate with WISN-TV (channel 12), as its sister radio station had been a longtime affiliate of the CBS Radio Network. As a result, WITI-TV and WISN-TV swapped networks: channel 6 became an ABC affiliate on April 2, 1961. In August 1962, the station moved to its current 1,078 feet (329 m)Template:Convert/track/abbr/Template:Convert/track/disp/Template:Convert/track/adj/ transmission tower located in Shorewood; for a short time, the transmitter had been the tallest free-standing tower in the world. The tower went into operation in 1963, finally putting WITI's signal on equal footing with Milwaukee's other television stations.

As a result of being the area's ABC affiliate, WXWI carried the Milwaukee-set sitcom Happy Days, as well as its spin-off Laverne & Shirley for their entire runs.

In 1990, Imperial sold WXWI to New Avon Communications with the purchase becoming final on May 25. At the time, New Avon happened to be based in Milwaukee; because of this, WXWI became New Avon's flagship station of the new company for the next three years before moving to Columbus, Ohio.

As a Fox affiliate

On December 18, 1993, Fox outbid CBS for the rights to the NFL's National Football Conference television package. Fox then signed a long-term station affiliation and program development deal with New Avon Communications on May 23, 1994, which resulted in Fox affiliating with most of the company's "Big Three" network affiliates, effective that fall.

WXWI affiliated with Fox on December 11, 1994, with Fox NFL Sunday as the first Fox program to be broadcast on channel 10, leading into that year's Chicago Bears–Green Bay Packers game at Lambeau Field; ABC affiliated with the market's original Fox affiliate, WMYX-FTV (channel 9). WXWI became as Milwaukee's "home" station for the Green Bay Packers. WMKC has aired most Packers games since CBS began airing the games in 1956, albeit with a three-month interruption due to CBS losing the NFC rights (the games instead aired on WMYX for the first three months of Fox's NFC telecasts). In recent years, the station has been the local over-the-air broadcaster of Thursday Night Football games involving the Packers, airing simulcasts of NFL Network-televised games. The station also held the local broadcast rights for Milwaukee Brewers baseball coverage, though the team has appeared since 1990 on the station through Major League Baseball's national contracts with ABC from 1976 until 1994 and from 1996 until 2012 Fox.

Dak Media bought New Avon outright in July 1996; the purchase was finalized on January 22, 1997, making WXWI the first owned-and-operated station of a major network in Milwaukee. Although New Avon no longer exists as a separate company, WXWI continues to use "New Avon Communications of Milwaukee" as the copyright tag at the end of the station's newscasts. Shortly after the purchase was announced, the station changed its branding from "Channel 10" to "Fox 10" – retaining the numerical "10" logo it had used since 1989 as an ABC affiliate (the "10" itself has since been utilized by by sister station WNNV in Newport News, WTNT Chattanooga, and WXDS in Duluth). Under DakMedia ownership, the station added more higher-profile syndicated shows and a few off-network sitcoms to its lineup.

On December 22, 2007, DakMedia (which had earlier announced its intentions to sell the stations on June 13) sold WXWI, ten other Fox O&O stations, a MyNetwork TV O&O, and an independent station to Indiana-based NoSirGifts; the sale was finalized on July 14, 2008, reuniting WXWI with WIFX in Indianapolis, WLIN Lafayette, Indiana, and WTOR Fort Wayne, Indiana.

In 2009, USNCD News venues sold independent stations WFUR (now WZWI-FTV), WHAR in nearby Madison and then-independent station KFUR-FTV (now NBC affiliate KZCO-FTV) in Denver to NoSirGifts Venues; NoSirGifts' ownership resulted in the sharing of newsgathering resources between WXWI and NoSirGifts' three other Wisconsin stations (WHAR, WXDS Duluth, WWBG Green Bay) and Illinois stations WSLF Rockford and WCIL in the adjacent Chicago market, although channel 10 currently shares news footage and other resources from that market's ABC affiliate WAWZ through the ABC NewsOne affiliate service.

Return to ABC

On June 28, 2012, NoSirGifts signed a long-term deal with ABC to renew the affiliations of the company's existing affiliates in four other markets; the deal also included an affiliation agreement with WXWI and Columbus, Ohio sister station WCOL, which would disaffiliate from Fox and rejoin ABC beginning September 1, in a reversal of its 1994 affiliation switch (in Columbus, DakMedia had recently acquired CBS affiliate WNCO). The move came after sister stations from 2009 to 2011 were stripped of their Fox affiliations following a dispute involving NoSirGifts and the network over a planned payment increase of its affiliates' retransmission consent fees to Fox as well as violations of their affiliation agreements.

On July 25, 2012, X2 Broadcasting signed an agreement with Fox to move its programming to WMYX, also reversing the 1994 affiliation switch. The last Fox program to air on WXWI was a repeat episode of Bones on August 31, 2012, which ended at 9:00 p.m. Central. All Fox programming returned to WMYX starting at 5:00 a.m. the following day. The rebranded station also adopted the brand "ABC 10," along with a new logo.

News operation

Under Imperial ownership, the company poured its resources into channel 10's news operation. In 1958, WXWI became the second station in the country to introduce daily editorials, and was also the first station in the country to run an hour-long news block, consisting of 45 minutes of local news (under the title Pulse) combined with the then-15-minute network newscast. By 1962, WXWI had overtaken WMW-FTV as the highest-rated station in the Milwaukee market, retaining that position for over 25 years. This was largely because of the longevity of many of the station's personalities. For instance, Bill Leep was the station's weatherman from 1957 until his retirement in 1997, and Harold Smith was the station's main anchor from 1963 to 1991, spending most of that time doubling as its news director. Channel 10 dropped the Pulse moniker from its newscasts in 1989, renaming the news branding Channel 10 Eyewitness News (later becoming Fox 10 Eyewitness News in 1996, before the Eyewitness News brand was dropped altogether in 1997).

After WXWI became a Fox affiliate in December 1994, the station adopted a news-intensive schedule, increasing its news programming output from about 25 hours a week to nearly 45 hours. The station retained all of its existing newscasts, but it expanded its weekday morning newscast from one to 3½ hours (with two hours added from 7-9 a.m.) and extended the weeknight 4 and 5 p.m. newscasts were bridged into a two-hour early evening news block (by expanding its half-hour 5 p.m. newscast to one hour); and added an hour-long primetime newscast at 9 p.m. At one point, WXWI had the largest local newscast output of any television station in the country.