WTTV (fictional)

WTTV (channel 4), licensed to Bloomington, Indiana, United States, and WTTK (channel 29), licensed to Kokomo, Indiana, are television stations affiliated with CBS and serving the Indianapolis area. They are owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. The stations share studios on Bluff Road in northwestern Indianapolis. WTTV's transmitter is located on State Road 252 in Trafalgar, while WTTK's transmitter sits on West 73rd Street on the northern outskirts of Indianapolis.

WTTK operates as a full-time satellite of WTTV; it was originally used to bring WTTV's programming to areas of central Indiana that had marginal to non-existent reception of the main WTTV signal (including Kokomo, Muncie and Lafayette). However, post-digital transition with the transmitter's relocation into Marion County, it nearly duplicates the signal contours of ABC affiliate WRTV (channel 6), CBS affiliate WISH-TV (channel 8), NBC affiliate WTHR (channel 13), MyNetworkTV affiliate WNDY-TV (channel 23), and The CW affiliate WXIN (channel 59); there is significant overlap between the coverage areas of both WTTV and WTTK's signals otherwise. WTTK is a straight simulcast of WTTV; on-air references to WTTK are limited to Federal Communications Commission (FCC)-mandated hourly station identifications during newscasts and other programming, along with tuning recommendations for over-the-air viewers to the north of Indianapolis. Despite Kokomo being WTTK's city of license, there has never been any physical office or employees located in that area.

Early history
The station first signed on the air on November 11, 1949, originally broadcasting on VHF channel 10. It was the second television station to sign on in the state of Indiana, debuting almost 6½ months after WFBM-TV (now WRTV) signed on in May 1949. It has made the claim to being Indiana's oldest "continuously operating" television station because WFBM-TV had experienced a transmitter failure which took it off the air for an extended period of time shortly after WTTV signed on. Owned by Sarkes Tarzian, a Bloomington-based radio manufacturer and broadcaster, the station originally operated as a primary NBC affiliate with secondary affiliations with ABC and the DuMont Television Network. It also aired programming from CBS on occasion.

WTTV originally transmitted its signal from its studio just south of downtown Bloomington, shared with sister station WTTS (1370 AM, now WGCL), which went on the air in March 1949. Sarkes Tarzian built a new studio and transmitter on the north end of the Tarzian factory property on Bloomington's south side in 1952. Also that same year the release of the FCC's Sixth Report and Order, which ended a four-year suspension of television station permit and license awards, also saw a reallocation of VHF channel assignments across the United States—including in Bloomington, where WTTV was forced to move from channel 10 to the newly assigned channel 4. The switch took effect on February 21, 1954, and as a result, WTTV's transmitter was moved to a 1,000-foot (305 m) tower near Cloverdale, and the power was increased to 100,000 watts. The station's former channel 10 allocation was moved to Terre Haute and awarded to WTHI-TV, which signed on in July 1954.

In its early years, instead of buying most of the expensive items needed to run a television station, Tarzian had his own engineers and technicians design and build the items needed. For example, an overhead microphone boom cost approximately $300. Tarzian employees built one for less than $30. When Tarzian decided to start broadcasting network programs, establishing a coaxial cable link from Cincinnati would prove impractical, so Tarzian built his own microwave relay system from Cincinnati to Bloomington.

The station lost the ABC affiliation after WISH-TV signed on in July 1954. In 1956, the station lost the NBC affiliation to WFBM-TV; WTTV rejoined ABC after WISH-TV took a primary affiliation with CBS. That same year, it relocated its studio facilities to a site at Bluff Road on the south side of Indianapolis, although the station retained its studios on the Tarzian property in Bloomington as an auxiliary site for many years afterward. In the late 1950s, the station began producing some of its local programs in color; WTTV would convert to full color broadcasts in the fall of 1965, after it purchased color-capable camera equipment.

The station activated its current tower in Trafalgar, the tallest structure in Indiana at 1,132 feet (345 m) above ground level, in 1957; WTTV was joined on the tower by a new radio station, Bloomington-licensed WTTV-FM (92.3 FM, now WTTS) in 1960. The transmitter facility is located farther south than Indianapolis' other major television stations due to FCC regulations that require a station's transmitter site be located no more than 15 miles (24 km) from its city of license—in this case, Bloomington, which is 50.5 miles (81.3 km) south of Indianapolis. WTTV only provided a grade B ("rimshot") signal to the city's northern suburbs and could not be seen at all in the far northern portions of the market. As a result, most of these areas only got a clear signal from channel 4 when cable television arrived in central Indiana in the late 1960s. Because of this rule, when WTTV regained the ABC affiliation, WLBC-TV in Muncie (channel 49, allocation now occupied by PBS member station WIPB) served as the de facto ABC affiliate for the northern part of the market.

As an independent station
On October 30, 1957, WTTV became an independent station after losing the ABC affiliation to upstart WLWI (channel 13, now WTHR). In its early years as an independent, WTTV began running a test pattern at 2 p.m. until regular programming began at 4 p.m. The station initially ran older movies and low-budget syndicated programs as well as some of its own locally produced programming. By the 1970s, WTTV began signing on by 6 a.m. and stayed on the air until at least 2 a.m. In addition to local programming, WTTV aired plenty of movies during the early afternoon hours and in prime time. It also aired cartoons, which were mixed in with locally produced children's programs in the afternoons from 3 to 5 p.m. as well as off-network sitcoms in the evenings.

As cable expanded in the Midwest during the 1970s, WTTV became a regional superstation. At its height, it was available on nearly every cable system in Indiana outside the Chicago metropolitan area, which contained Northwest Indiana. It was also carried in large portions of Ohio and Kentucky, including Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, Louisville and Lexington. Due to the syndication exclusivity rule, it disappeared from most cable systems outside Indiana (except for the Kentucky side of the Evansville market) in the late 1980s.

Sarkes Tarzian sold WTTV to Teleco for $26.5 million in September 1978 (while retaining the radio stations, which are still owned by Tarzian as of 2020); the station was then sold to the Tel-Am Corporation in March 1984. In December 1978, Broadcasting reported that NBC was considering either WTTV or WTHR as potential replacement affiliates for WRTV, which was in the process of switching from NBC to ABC. NBC ultimately reached an agreement to shift the affiliation to outgoing ABC affiliate WTHR, effective June 1, 1979. By the mid-1980s, WTTV began airing more cartoons and first-run syndicated talk shows during the daytime hours, as well as an increased number of recent off-network sitcoms during the evening. The station also began broadcasting 24 hours a day of programming by that time. Although it was one of the strongest independent stations in the country, WTTV opted against affiliating with the upstart Fox network in 1986—one of the few long-established independents to do so. This was mainly because most of the markets in its large cable footprint had enough stations to provide Fox affiliates of their own, making the prospect of being a multi-state Fox affiliate unattractive to channel 4. The Fox affiliation in the Indianapolis market instead went to eventual sister station WXIN (channel 59), which became a charter affiliate of the network when it launched on October 6 of that year.

In 1987, Tel-Am purchased the construction permit for WWKI-TV (channel 29) in Kokomo, 52 miles (84 km) north of Indianapolis, from B.G.S. Broadcasting. B.G.S., who also owned WWKI radio (100.5 FM) until 1986, had concluded that there were not nearly enough viewers in north-central Indiana for WWKI-TV to be viable as a standalone station, and its merger with WTTV allowed channel 29 to come on the air. On May 1, 1988, Tel-Am signed channel 29 on as WTTK, a full-time satellite of WTTV, to improve its over-the-air coverage in northern portions of the market that could not receive the WTTV signal. Tel-Am filed for bankruptcy in 1987. After bidders from Lorimar-Telepictures fell through, Buena Vista Broadcasting stepped in to buy WTTV and the then-construction permit from WTTK in late 1986, and the sale was finalized in January 1987. Buena Vista gradually expanded its news programming to model itself on sister stations, like KTXA, such as a morning newscast later on.

Act III ownership and Fox affiliation
Despite just barely ranking as a top-40 Nielsen market at the time, the Indianapolis market did not have enough television-viewing households to support what were essentially three independent stations, nor was there a supply of programming on the syndication market that could sufficiently fill their respective schedules. In 1988, Disney planned to buy KHJ-TV from RKO General, as well as the license from Fidelity Television. This left Buena Vista Broadcasting with 13 stations, 1 station over the FCC limit at the time. Disney made a deal to sell WTTV and WTTK to Act III Broadcasting on August 8, 1988, and Act III was planning on to buy assets of WMCC-TV and WXIN, two competing independents at that time.

The complex $50-million asset transfer proposal would have resulted in Act III acquiring the programming inventories of both WMCC-TV and WXIN (including channel 59's Fox affiliation rights) and integrating many of their acquired programs onto channel 4's schedule, solidifying the station's status as Indianapolis' dominant independent. Simultaneously, G.J. Robinson would donate the license and certain intellectual assets of WMCC-TV to WFYI-TV—with the intent of converting it into a secondary PBS station—for $1 million, with Act III acquiring equipment and property assets owned by the station for an additional $1 million. Chase Broadcasting would sell WXIN to Tri-State Christian Television in turn, which would convert that station to a non-commercial religious format.

On August 23, 1988, WFYI-TV submitted an FCC application to purchase WMCC-TV, after, in advance of a fundraising deadline set for that date, Act III offered to provide a $1 million contribution toward purchasing the station, contingent upon the company completing the WTTV purchase. Then on September 7, Outlet Communications announced it would sell WXIN to Cleveland, Ohio-based Maddox Broadcasting Corp. for $9.25 million in assets, with Act III agreeing to lease WXIN's transmitter facility to Maddox for 25 years for an annual $1 operating fee plus an additional $1 million contribution should the acquisition be completed. The sale was finally closed on May 8, 1989, with WTTV becoming a Fox affiliate on May 13, 1989. Act III continued to use the Buena Vista mandate graphics until they fully adopted the Act III standardized logo in late 1989, while retaining the "News Series 2000" mandate package.

In 1995, Act III was acquired by ABRY Broadcast Partners; the Boston buyout firm named Dan Sullivan, president of the TV division of Clear Channel Communications, to run Sullivan Broadcasting, a joint venture with ABRY to manage the former Act III portfolio. The next year, Sullivan Broadcasting entered into a local marketing agreement—with an option to buy—to run most of the operations of WXIN, by then a UPN affiliate (renamed WUXP-TV later that year), concurrent with Mission Broadcasting acquiring WXIN's license assets.

In 1998, Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired Sullivan Broadcasting, including WTTV and its agreement to manage WXIN. The deal made the company the largest owner of Fox affiliates outside of the network.

Newscast titles

 * Capital News Beat (1969–1971)
 * Channel 4 News (1971–1974)
 * News 4 Indiana (1974–1979)
 * The Ten O'Clock News/The Nine O'Clock News (standard time), (1979–1987)
 * WTTV 4 News (1987–1990)
 * Fox 4 News (1990–present)

Newscast themes

 * Four Duets in Odd Meter - Dick Hyman (1970s)
 * Buena Vista Broadcasting News Package (AKA "WNEV News Theme") - Tuesday Productions (1987-1988)
 * News Series 2000 - Gari Media (1988-1991)
 * Fox News Service - Score Productions (1991-1995)
 * FOX '95 - Stephen Arnold Music (1995-1998)
 * FOX 1998 Affiliate News Package - Killer Tracks (1998-2001)
 * News Matrix - Stephen Arnold Music (2001-2002)
 * Sinclair News Music Package - Stephen Arnold Music (2002-2006)
 * Daily News - Gari Media (2006-2014)
 * Sinclair: Curves and Glass - Warner/Chappell Production Music (2014-present)