WIPX-TV


WIPX-TV, virtual channel 63, is an Ion Television owned-and-operated station serving Indianapolis, Indiana, United States that is licensed to Bloomington. The station is owned by West Palm Beach, Florida-based Ion Media Networks, as part of a duopoly with Ion Plus owned-and-operated station WCLJ-TV. The two stations share offices on Production Drive in southwestern Indianapolis and transmitter facilities on SR 252 in Trafalgar, Indiana.
On cable, WIPX-TV is available on Charter Spectrum channel 6, Comcast Xfinity channel 17 and AT&T U-verse channel 63.

History

The station first signed on the air on December 27, 1988 as WIIB. Founded by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, it originally operated as an affiliate of the Home Shopping Network. Sinclair had planned to eventually convert WIIB into a general entertainment independent station. However, those plans were halted when Sinclair acquired the much more popular and established Bloomington-licensed station, UPN affiliate WTTV, through its April 1996 merger with River City Broadcasting, with the company immediately focusing its efforts on that station and its Kokomo satellite WTTK. In 1995, WIIB became an affiliate of the Infomail TV Network infomercial service.
As Federal Communications Commission regulations at that time had forbidden the common ownership of two full-power commercial television stations in the same market, Sinclair had to obtain a cross-ownership waiver from the FCC to keep WTTV/WTTK and WIIB. Channel 63 was sold to DP Media, a company owned by Devon Paxson, son of Paxson Communications and HSN founder Lowell "Bud" Paxson in 1998; around the same time, DP Media acquired low-power ValueVision affiliate W51BU and converted it into a translator of WIIB. On August 31 of that year, the station became a charter affiliate of Paxson's family-oriented network Pax TV, changing its call letters to WIPX-TV to reflect its new affiliation. WIPX-TV and WIPX-LP became Pax owned-and-operated stations, when DP Media merged with Paxson Communications in 2000.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
63.1720pIONMain WIPX-TV programming / Ion Television
63.2480iquboQubo
63.4480iShopIon Shop
63.5480iQVCQVC
63.6480iHSNHSN

WIPX-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 63, 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 continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 27. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 63, which was among the high band UHF channels that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.

Newscasts

In September 2000, in conjunction with a joint sales agreement that Paxson had signed with NBC affiliate WTHR, WIPX-TV began airing rebroadcasts of that station's 6:00 and 11:00 p.m. newscasts on a half-hour tape delay Monday through Fridays at 6:30 and 11:30 p.m..
On February 28, 2005, WTHR began producing a half-hour primetime newscast at 10:00 p.m. for channel 63, which competed with the longer-established 35-minute primetime newscast on Fox affiliate WXIN and a half-hour newscast on WNDY-TV —the latter of which WTHR had produced for nine years before then-CBS affiliate WISH-TV took over production responsibilities for the program after its owner LIN TV Corporation acquired WNDY. The news rebroadcasts ended and the primetime newscast was cancelled on June 30, 2005, as Pax TV's news share agreements with network-affiliated stations were terminated upon the network's rebranding as i: Independent Television as a result of the network's financial troubles.

Former translator

WIPX-TV's signal was formerly relayed on translator station WIPX-LP in Indianapolis; it maintained transmitter facilities on Walnut Drive in the northwestern portion of the city. WIPX-LP covered northern portions of the Indianapolis market that receive a Grade B to non-existent signal from WIPX-TV, though there was a decent amount of overlap between the coverage areas of both WIPX-TV and WIPX-LP's signals otherwise. WIPX-LP was a straight simulcast of WIPX-TV; on-air references to WIPX-LP were limited to FCC-mandated hourly station identifications during Ion Television programming. Channel 51 ceased broadcasting in 2013.
On December 15, 2014, Ion reached a deal to donate WIPX-LP to Word of God Fellowship, parent company of the Daystar network. The station is currently airing Daystar programming, and changed its call letters to digital-only WIPX-LD in 2015.