21 alive .2 fort wayne s nbc .3 mytv fort wayne slogan your news is alive . channels digital 24 uhf virtual 21 psip subchannels .1 abc .2 nbc .3 mynetworktv affiliations abc owner quincy media wpta license llc first air date september 28 1957 call letters meaning w patricia & thomas taarzian children of sarkes tarzian former channel number s analog 21 uhf 1957 2009 transmitter power 335 kw height 224.4 m facility id 73905 transmitter coordinates 41 6 7.7 n 85 11 3.7 w 41.102139 n 85.184361 w 41.102139 ; 85.184361 licensing authority fcc public license information profile cdbs website www.21alive.com wpta virtual channel 21 uhf digital channel 24 is an abc affiliated television station located in fort wayne indiana united states . the station is owned by quincy media ; sharing with cw affiliate and one time sister station wise tv channel 33 owned by sagamorehill broadcasting its studios and transmitter facilities are located on butler road in northwest fort wayne . the station can also be seen on comcast and frontier fios channel 7 and in hd on frontier fios digital channel 506 and comcast digital channel 1007 . contents 1 history 2 digital television 2.1 digital channels 2.2 analog to digital conversion 3 news operation 3.1 notable former on air staff 4 see also 5 references 6 external links history edit the station first signed on the air on september 28 1957 and was founded by sarkes tarzian an indianapolis engineer whose company owned bloomington s wttv and several other stations in indiana . the wpta call letters come from the long tradition of other tarzian stations including once former sister station wpth that base the call letters upon the initials of family members of company management . upon its launch channel 21 took all abc programming from nbc affiliate wkjg tv channel 33 now wise tv and cbs affiliate wane tv channel 15 . under federal communication commission fcc rules at that time the market was deemed too small to support three full power stations so tarzian s application listed wpta s city of license in the small town of roanoke located just across the allen and huntington county line approximately 14 miles to the southwest of its studios and transmitter in fort wayne . it was possible because the fcc had by this time allowed a station to have its main studio in a different location from its city of license . wpta identified itself as roanoke fort wayne on air until the license was officially transferred to fort wayne sometime in the 1970s . in addition to abc programming it also originally aired seven and a half hours of live local programming each week . in 1957 the station aired a spin off of american bandstand called teen dance and the afternoon kids show popeye and the rascals . in 1964 a 2 226 square foot 206.8 m2 addition to its studios was added to accommodate an expanding sales staff . on april 4 1973 the station was sold to combined communications for 3.6 million . under new management wpta purchased new cameras and a more modern switcher . on june 7 1979 combined merged with the gannett company . on may 12 1983 gannett sold wpta along with wlky in louisville kentucky to pulitzer publishing for an undisclosed amount . the station was sold again to granite broadcasting on september 25 1989 for 22.15 million . in late 1998 alongside the launch of the wb 100 and its cable only affiliates wpta began managing and providing promotional services for wbfw which used that callsign in a fictional manner since it was a cable exclusive service . when wsjv in south bend which signed on three years before wpta switched to fox in 1995 wpta became the longest tenured abc affiliate in indiana . at one time according to granite broadcasting s website 1 wpta was among the ten strongest abc affiliates in the country ranking up with wisn tv in milwaukee kmbc tv kansas city and koco tv in oklahoma city . on march 9 2005 after granite bought nbc affiliate wise tv it sold wpta to the malara broadcast group for 45.3 million . a local marketing agreement was established in which granite would provide operational services to wpta as well as for malara s other new station kdlh in duluth minnesota . although wise tv is nominally the senior partner in this lma the stations combined operation is based at wpta s studios and the bulk of the news staff came from wpta see below . malara jointly files its securities and exchange commission sec reports with granite which led to allegations that the company uses malara as a shell corporation for granite . if the allegations are proven to be true granite would be guilty of evading fcc duopoly rules . the fcc does not allow common ownership of two of the four highest rated stations in a single market . additionally fort wayne has only six full power stations only four of which are licensed as commercial outlets too few to legally allow duopolies in any case . after emerging from bankruptcy in the summer of 2007 granite stock was taken over by the privately owned hedge fund silver point capital of greenwich connecticut . silver point capital now controls granite according to a buffalo new york news article printed september 16 2007 . according to the same article granite planned to sell its properties to other parties and many of its stations laid off employees or cut salaries up to 20 percent . in march 2006 the cw a new network being formed as a merger of the wb and upn announced that cable only wb 100 station group affiliate wbfw would become the network s fort wayne affiliate as part of the cw plus a similar small market master feed to the wb 100 . wpta decided to create a new second digital subchannel to simulcast wbfw and offer access to cw programming for over the air viewers . on september 18 the cw launched on wpta dt2 . this move along with wise dt2 s switch to mynetworktv on september 5 resulted in the deactivation of wane tv s second digital subchannel which had been affiliated with upn prior to the network s shutdown that subchannel remained dark until 2010 when it affiliated with thecooltv . on september 28 2007 wpta unveiled a 3d version of its current logo to commemorate the station s 50th anniversary and conjunction with abc s new image campaign but did not fully switch to it until august 4 2008 . on january 10 2009 wpta brought a new digital master control center online which services the station wise tv and granite s other stations in the midwest . on february 11 2014 quincy media agreed to purchase wpta from the malara broadcast group as part of a deal to purchase granite broadcasting s stations in four markets the other stations were kbjr tv in superior wisconsin and its satellite krii in chisholm minnesota week tv in peoria illinois and wbng tv in binghamton new york . quincy opted to purchase wpta s license instead of wise s license because wpta has been the higher rated of the two stations in the local viewership ratings . in addition to acquiring wpta outright which would make it the senior partner in the fort wayne duopoly quincy newspapers would operate wise tv whose license would be acquired by sagamorehill broadcasting through a shared services agreement . 2 in november 2014 the deal was reworked to remove sagamorehill from the transaction with quincy acquiring wise and wpta remaining with malara . 3 in july 2015 the deal was reworked yet again ; it reverted to its previous structure with quincy and sagamorehill acquiring wpta and wise respectively . however it also called for the ssa to be wound down within nine months of the acquisition s closure . on september 15 2015 the fcc approved the deal 4 which was completed on november 2 . 5 on august 1 2016 as a result of the end of the ssa nbc and mynetworktv programming previously seen on wise moved to subchannels of wpta and the cw moved to wise which is now independently operated by sagamorehill broadcasting without entering into any further operational agreements with quincy . 6 7 8 digital television edit digital channels edit the station s digital channel is multiplexed channel video aspect psip short name programming 9 21.1 720p 16 9 wptaabc abc 21.2 1080i wptanbc nbc 21.3 480i wptamy mynetworktv analog to digital conversion edit wpta shut down its analog signal over uhf channel 21 on june 12 2009 the official date in which full power television stations in the united states transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate . the station s digital signal remained on its pre transition uhf channel 24 . 10 11 through the use of psip digital television receivers display the station s virtual channel as its former uhf analog channel 21 . news operation edit wpta presently broadcasts 27 hours of locally produced newscasts each week with five hours on weekdays and one hour each on saturdays and sundays ; in addition the station also produces the public affairs insight which airs on sunday mornings and the sports highlight program the score and the half hour sports discussion program sound off which both air on sunday evenings following the 11 p.m. newscast . while wpta has a weather radar dating back to the late 1990s on its premises it has used nexrad data exclusively since 2007 first with baron systems vipir processing under the name pinpoint vipir hd then from 2016 onwards with the weather company s max radar as a result of the station s acquisition by quincy . under combined communications ownership wpta significantly invested in its news department . during that time wes sims and harry gallagher served as co anchors with meteorologist bill eisenhood and sports anchor tom campbell . in july 1978 wpta replaced the eyewitness news format for its newscasts with the current alive as 21 alive format that remains in use to this day originating from a studio doubling as the station s newsroom ; wxia in atlanta is another former combined station that currently uses the alive brand though it abandoned the open newsroom concept in the early 1980s . in the summer of 1984 the station received its first live truck to assist in news production . after being taken over by granite wise tv s news department was promptly folded and combined with wpta . the company fired most of wise tv s news staff with the exception of lead anchor linda jackson who became part of the wpta operation and would eventually become morning co anchor on wpta . that station began airing a weeknight newscast at 7 p.m. which was the first and at the time only one in the state of indiana . on september 11 2006 this was replaced with an additional episode of dr. phil due to low ratings . in november 2005 after several months of using the alive news brand on both stations wpta debuted a new set in the basement of its studios formerly used to tape public affairs programs such as impact . with it came a new branding for the newscasts indiana s newscenter . when wpta took over news production for wise tv there was initially a significant decrease in ratings . wane tv became the market s news leader for several years after that according to nielsen media research since it was the only other local news operation in the area at the time . this was most easily attributed to continued viewer resentment towards wpta and granite for the elimination of wise tv s news department and arguably its identity and history . however wpta management said