WTIX-TV

WTIX-TV, virtual channel 15 (VHF digital channel 14) is an indepedent television station licensed to,. The station is owned by locally-based Interstate Broadcasting. WTIX's studios are co-located with Interstate's operating headquarters on in Chicago, while it's transmitter is located atop the  in the.

Early years
WTIX-TV was launched over the air on August 20th, 1964 by husband and wife duo, Tyler James McArthur and Samiya Moyer. They already established themselves as radio stars with their talk show "The McArthur and Moyer Hour", and were looking forward to founding their own TV station. During its launch, WTIX-TV would be the third indepedent station in Chicago after WGN-TV and WCIU, and as such the three stations had a longtime rivalry that still continues to this day.

For the first years of broadcasting, WTIX-TV was notable for airing reruns of programming previously no longer airing on the main 3 networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC) and becoming Chicago's go to way to watch programming that had been taken off the air. WTIX-TV was also pretty notable for its children's programming, mainly Illinois' Playground which starred station co-founder Samiya Moyer as Tixie the Fox (who hosted the program). It was syncidated throughout Illinois and has become a local favorite.

On August 13th, 1970, the Evening News Association would purchase 49% of WTIX-TV, making the first assets they owned outside of Detroit. However, Tyler James McArthur and Samiya Moyer still had major involvement in the station until 1975, when Evening News Association bought the remaining 51% of the station. In between those events in mid-1972, Tixie would be officially used as the mascot of the station which lasted until the late 2000s.

Roddy Frackowiak/Interstate purchase
Despite its acquistion of WTIX-TV, the Evening News Association were forced to sell the station to due to problems with running the station and by 1977, the station was purchased by local buisness man Roddy Frackowiak, returning local ownership of the station after a measely 2 years. Frackowiak would then found Interstate Broadcasting to handle the station and future radio and TV stations under his banner.

WTIX-TV would remain the only television station to be still owned by Interstate Broadcasting, as Roddy would sell half of all TV stations to his son, David Frackowiak under his group, DF Media Group in 1987 until DF would merged with Ellis Communications (most of DF Media Group stations are now owned by Gray Television) while Roddy would start selling the other stations excluding WTIX-TV from 1991 up till 2009.