WBND-LD (channel 57) is a
low-power television station
Low-power broadcasting is broadcasting by a Radio broadcasting#Station, broadcast station at a low transmitter power output to a smaller service area than "full power" stations within the same region. It is often distinguished from "micropower ...
in
South Bend, Indiana
South Bend is a city in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. It lies along the St. Joseph River (Lake Michigan), St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. It is the List of cities in ...
, United States, affiliated with
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting
* Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...
. It is owned by
Weigel Broadcasting
Weigel Broadcasting Co. is an American television broadcasting company based in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, alongside its flagship station WCIU-TV (Channel 26), at 26 North Halsted Street in the Greektown, Chicago, Greektown neighborhood. It cur ...
(as the company's only ABC affiliate), and is
sister
A sister is a woman or a girl who shares parents or a parent with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to ref ...
to
CW affiliate
WCWW-LD
WCWW-LD (channel 25) is a low-power television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by Weigel Broadcasting alongside two other low-power stations: American Broadcasting Company, ABC affiliate WBND- ...
(channel 25) and
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV (stylized as mynetworkTV; unofficially abbreviated MNT or MNTV) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its Fox Television Stations ...
affiliate
WMYS-LD
WMYS-LD (channel 69) is a low-power television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Weigel Broadcasting (as the company's only MyNetworkTV affiliate), and is sister to ABC affiliate WBND- ...
(channel 69). The three stations share studios on Generations Drive (near the
Indiana Toll Road
The Indiana Toll Road, officially the Indiana East–West Toll Road, is a controlled-access toll road that runs for east–west across northern Indiana from the Illinois state line to the Ohio state line. It has been advertised as the "Main ...
) in northeastern South Bend; WBND-LD's transmitter is located just off the
St. Joseph Valley Parkway
The St. Joseph Valley Parkway is a freeway in the U.S. states of Indiana and Michigan, serving as a bypass route around Elkhart, Mishawaka, and South Bend in Indiana and Niles in Michigan. The freeway runs to the south and west of Elkhart a ...
on the city's south side.
Due to its low-power status, its broadcasting radius only covers the immediate South Bend area. Therefore, Weigel relies on paid television subscription carriage for all three of its South Bend television stations to reach the entire
market
Market is a term used to describe concepts such as:
*Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand
*Market economy
*Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market
*Marketing, the act of sat ...
.
History
The station signed on the air on October 18, 1995, the date that longtime ABC station
WSJV
WSJV (channel 28) is a television station licensed to Elkhart, Indiana, United States, serving the South Bend area as an affiliate of the digital multicast network Heroes & Icons. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside dual CBS/ Fox ...
(channel 28) became Michiana's new
Fox
Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush").
Twelve species ...
affiliate, as W58BT, originally broadcasting on UHF channel 58. However, from the beginning, it branded itself under the fictional call letters "WBND", relegating mentions of its legal call sign to
station identification
Station identification (ident, network ID, channel ID or bumper (broadcasting), bumper) is the practice of radio and television stations and broadcast network, networks identifying themselves on-air, typically by means of a call sign or brand na ...
s, and signed on as the area's new ABC affiliate in Michiana. Prior to the launch, Fox won the
rights to NFL football games starting with the
1994 season, and the network signed an affiliation agreement with
Quincy Newspapers
Quincy Media, Inc., formerly known as Quincy Newspapers, Inc., was a family-owned media company that originated in the newspapers of Quincy, Illinois. The company's history can be traced back to 1835, when the ''Bounty Land Register'' was one of ...
to have WSJV join Fox on April 21, 1995; prior to this, some Fox programming (including its NFL game telecasts) had been airing on
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
affiliate
WSBT-TV
WSBT-TV (channel 22) is a television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated with CBS and Fox. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Heroes & Icons affiliate WSJV (channel 28). The two stations share studios on East ...
(channel 22), while the network's full schedule was only available on cable via network-owned
WFLD
WFLD (channel 32) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is owned and operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox network through its Fox Television Stations division alongside Gary, Indiana–licensed WPWR-TV (channe ...
from
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
or
WFFT from
Fort Wayne
Fort Wayne is a city in Allen County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 at the 2020 United S ...
(on the Indiana side), and
WXMI
WXMI (channel 17) is a television station licensed to Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States, serving West Michigan as an affiliate of the Fox network. Owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, the station maintains studios on Plaza Drive (near M-37 ...
from
Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids is the largest city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, United States. With a population of 198,917 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 200,117 in 2024, Grand Rapids is the List of municipalities ...
or, until late 1994,
WKBD
WKBD-TV (channel 50), branded as CW Detroit 50, is a television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside WWJ-TV (channel 62), a CBS owned-and-operated station. ...
from
Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
(on the Michigan side). ABC approached
WNDU-TV
WNDU-TV (channel 16) is a television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated with NBC. Owned by Gray Media, it maintains studios on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, the station's founding owner, along State Road 933 ...
(channel 16) and WSBT, but both had firm affiliation deals with
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
and CBS, respectively. The only other viable choice was
WHME-TV
WHME-TV (channel 46) is a television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated with the Spanish-language network Univision. The station is owned by locally based Family Broadcasting Corporation (formerly known as LeSEA Broadcast ...
(channel 46), but that station's owner, religious broadcaster
LeSEA
Family Broadcasting Corporation, formerly known as LeSEA Broadcasting, is an American Christianity, Christian television network. Founded by Lester Sumrall in 1972, Family Broadcasting Corporation is headquartered in South Bend, Indiana, and br ...
, never even considered putting it up for sale or taking a network affiliation.
With just weeks to go before WSJV was due to join Fox, it appeared that ABC would be left without an affiliate in Michiana. Facing the prospect of piping in network-owned
WLS-TV
WLS-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, serving as the market's ABC network outlet. It has been owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division since the station's inception. ...
in Chicago,
WPTA
WPTA (channel 21) is a television station in Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States, affiliated with ABC, NBC, and MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Gray Media alongside CW+ affiliate WISE-TV (channel 33). The two stations share studios on Butler Ro ...
in Fort Wayne, and
WOTV in
Battle Creek, Michigan
Battle Creek is a city in northwestern Calhoun County, Michigan, United States, at the confluence of the Kalamazoo River, Kalamazoo and Battle Creek River, Battle Creek rivers. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a tota ...
, for cable viewers, ABC agreed more or less by default to sign an affiliation deal with W58BT. This was the second 11th-hour affiliation deal Weigel had reached as a result of the massive network switches of 1994–95; sister station
WDJT-TV
WDJT-TV (channel 58) is a television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Weigel Broadcasting alongside three other stations in southeastern Wisconsin: independent station WMLW-TV (channel 49), ...
in
Milwaukee
Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...
(by coincidence, also on channel 58) had become a CBS affiliate under similar circumstances in 1994.
Weigel would have preferred to sign on the station in December, when it planned to bring a new transmitter online that would have increased channel 58's footprint to a radius of South Bend. However, ABC officials insisted that the swap be made on the day WSJV joined Fox. Due in part to the rush to get ready for the switch, the station's 2,000-
watt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...
transmitter suffered a partial failure on the morning of October 18, rendering it almost unviewable. However, Weigel managed to keep ABC programming available via
W69BT, which became a satellite of W58BT. The transmitter was fixed within a few days.
By the end of that year, the station changed its call letters to WBND-LP. During the late 1990s, the station carried
UPN
The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that operated from 1995 to 2006. It was originally a joint venture between Chris-Craft Industries (later sold to News Corporation)'s subsidiary, United Television, ...
programming outside of network hours as a secondary affiliate. The station relocated to UHF channel 57 in 2002, after WSJV received approval from the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
(FCC) to use channel 58 for its digital signal. In 2003, the station's UPN affiliate ended with that network's move to WSBT-TV's second
digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...
, known as "UPN Michiana", which programmed the network in regular prime time hours.
Ultimately, WBND would outlast WSJV, when in August 2016, "SBT2" (which had carried an
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States
* Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...
format after UPN's demise) assumed the market's Fox affiliation from WSJV as "Fox Michiana". WSJV then positioned themselves to try to sell their broadcast spectrum in the 2016 auction, but were ultimately unsuccessful, and now carries Weigel's
Heroes & Icons
Heroes & Icons (H&I) is an American digital multicast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Usually carried on the digital subchannels of its affiliated television station in most markets, the network airs classic television series ...
network on their main channel.
In early August 2008, Weigel Broadcasting agreed to sell all three of its South Bend stations, including WBND, to
Schurz Communications
Schurz Communications, Inc. is an American broadband media group and cloud services provider based in South Bend, Indiana. It previously owned newspapers and television stations.
History
The company was founded in 1872 by Alfred B. Miller and ...
, founding owner of WSBT-TV, for undisclosed terms.
[WSBT Purchases Three Low-Power Stations](_blank)
''Broadcasting & Cable'', August 4, 2008. If this sale had been approved by the FCC, WBND's operations would have been moved into WSBT's new facility in
Mishawaka
Mishawaka () is a city on the St. Joseph River, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States. The population was 51,063 as of the 2020 census. Its nickname is "the Princess City". Mishawaka is a principal city of the South Bend-Mishawaka, Indi ...
(which opened in November 2008) and it may have resulted in the WDJT-produced newscast on channel 57 being replaced by simulcasts of WSBT-TV's newscasts. However, after the FCC failed to approve the deal within a year, Weigel and Schurz walked away from the deal in August 2009.
From June to July 2011, the station's website was redirected to WBND's
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
account as Weigel's web staff undertook a major rebuilding of both WDJT and WBND's websites (WDJT's original site remained operational, while WBND's was taken down completely). During this time, the station unusually reported current weather conditions using map imagery uploaded through its on-staff meteorologists via their
Twitter
Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
accounts to the
TwitPic service and the station's Facebook photos section. The station debuted its new website by the start of August 2011.
Programming
Sports programming
WBND-LD carries the road games of
Notre Dame football
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team is a college football team representing the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana (CDP), Notre Dame, Indiana, north of the city of South Bend, Indiana. The team plays its home games at the ca ...
which air as part of the ''
ESPN College Football on ABC
ABC first began broadcasting regular season college football games in 1950, and has aired games of the now-National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) annually since 1966. After the ABC Sports div ...
'' package, either as a part of its regular schedule or games against
Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, the ACC's eighteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athlet ...
opponents (including the
2020 ACC Championship Game as part of that year's temporary conference affiliation);
WNDU-TV
WNDU-TV (channel 16) is a television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated with NBC. Owned by Gray Media, it maintains studios on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, the station's founding owner, along State Road 933 ...
(formerly owned by
the university itself until its 2005 sale to
Gray Television
Gray Media, Inc., doing business as Gray Television, is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 statio ...
) has carried the team's home games since 1990 as NBC holds exclusive rights to the team's
regular season home games. Channel 57 aired its first ever Notre Dame home football game, an intrastate matchup and win against the
Indiana Hoosiers
The Indiana Hoosiers are the intercollegiate sports teams and players of Indiana University Bloomington, named after the demonym for people from the state of Indiana. The Hoosiers participate in NCAA Division I, Division I of the National Coll ...
, on December 20, 2024, as part of ESPN's coverage of
that year's College Football Playoff first round.
News operation
WBND-LD currently broadcasts 31 hours of local newscasts each week (with hours each on Mondays through Saturdays and four hours on Sundays); in addition to the newscasts seen on WBND, the station produces and airs hours of news a week for CW affiliate
WCWW-LD
WCWW-LD (channel 25) is a low-power television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by Weigel Broadcasting alongside two other low-power stations: American Broadcasting Company, ABC affiliate WBND- ...
(with hours each weekday and a half-hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). Unlike most ABC stations in the
Eastern Time Zone
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 U.S. states, states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, and the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico.
* Eastern Standard Time (EST) is five ...
, the station does not produce a midday newscast on weekdays. WBND-LD's news operation has no sports department.
The station ran an abbreviated 11-minute-long newscast at 11 p.m. from 2007 to April 2011,
using a form of the ''Eleven @ 11:00'' news format, with ''
The Insider'' filling out the timeslot following the newscast until 11:35 p.m. The newscast was produced and anchored by staff at WDJT, and featured emphasis on a weather forecast segment within the first ten minutes, under the "First Alert Weather" branding. WBND was the third Weigel station to carry a newscast produced by WDJT, the others being their Milwaukee sister stations
WMLW-CA
WBME-CD (channel 41) is a low-power, Class A television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, airing programming from the classic television network MeTV. It is owned and operated by Weigel Broadcasting alongside CBS affiliate WDJT-TV ...
and
WYTU-LD
WYTU-LD (channel 63) is a low-power television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with the Spanish-language network Telemundo. Owned by Weigel Broadcasting (as the company's only Telemundo affiliate), it is sister to CBS ...
. Local news footage was shot by photographers in South Bend, and then transmitted to WDJT's studios in Milwaukee via satellite. WDJT's reporters and anchors then edited the video and added voiceovers, before sending the completed program back to South Bend.
In November 2010, Weigel began to seek applicants for reporting, anchoring and web content positions to be locally based in South Bend, suggesting the station was looking to start a standalone news operation. On April 4, 2011, the station officially launched its news operation and began broadcasting locally produced daily newscasts at 6 a.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m.
[ This made WBND one of the few low-powered television stations to operate an in-house news department. The newscasts air in high definition, though in downscaled 4:3 on its analog low-power signal until that channel went dark later that year.
In September 2011, WBND-LD added an additional hour to its weekday morning newscast at 5 a.m. and launched two half-hour newscasts: one at 7 p.m. on Monday through Saturday evenings and a newscast at 6 p.m. on Saturdays (replacing the 6:30 p.m. newscast previously seen on that night). The station launched an hour-long 5 p.m. newscast on September 10, 2012, simultaneously discontinuing the 7 p.m. newscast on weeknights (the station continued production of the Saturday edition of the 7 p.m. newscast). In September 2014, the station expanded its weekday morning newscast by a half-hour to 4:30 a.m., and debuted a two-hour extension of the program from 7 to 9 a.m. on WCWW-LD; WBND also debuted three hours of newscasts on weekend mornings, with a two-hour block running from 6 to 8 a.m. on both Saturday and Sunday, and an additional hour on Saturdays from 9 to 10 a.m. and on Sundays from 10 to 11 a.m.
]
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's signal is multiplexed
In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource— ...
:
On June 2, 2011, WBND launched its second digital subchannel on 57.2 as an owned-and-operated MeTV
MeTV, an acronym for Memorable Entertainment Television, is an American broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV", the network airs a variety of classic television progra ...
station. On December 17, 2013, Movies!
Movies! (also known as simply M!) is an American free-to-air television network, owned by Popcorn Entertainment, LLC, a joint venture between Weigel Broadcasting and the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of Fox Corporation. The network's pr ...
was added to 57.3.[''RabbitEars: Stations for Network - Movies!''](_blank)
/ref>
Analog-to-digital conversion
WBND received a construction permit from FCC on March 21, 2007, for a companion digital channel. Six months later on September 14, 2007, the station began broadcasting its high definition digital signal on UHF channel 49, using virtual channel
In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered as digits on a receiver's ...
57. The station had been providing an HD feed to local cable providers for over a year prior to the launch of the over-the-air digital signal to provide ABC programming in high definition.
On May 29, 2012, the FCC granted WBND-LD a permit to move its digital signal from UHF channel 49 to channel 39. On August 19, WBND-LD swapped digital frequencies with WMYS-LD, with WBND taking WMYS's proposed channel 34 allotment and WMYS taking the channel 39 allotment. The newly reassigned digital RF channels went on the air on August 19, replacing the previous digital signals.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wbnd-LD
1995 establishments in Indiana
American Broadcasting Company affiliates
BND-LD
MeTV affiliates
Movies! affiliates
Television channels and stations established in 1995
BND-LD
Weigel Broadcasting