WPBI-LD (channel 16) 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 ...

Lafayette, Indiana Lafayette ( ) is a city in and is the county seat of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, located northwest of Indianapolis and southeast of Chicago. According to the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of Lafayette ...

, United States, affiliated with

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 ...

and

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 ...

. It is owned by Coastal Television Broadcasting Company

LLC A limited liability company (LLC) is the United States-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of a ...

alongside

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 ...

affiliate

WPBY-LD WPBY-LD (channel 35) is a Low-power broadcasting, low-power television station in Lafayette, Indiana, United States, affiliated with American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It is owned by Coastal Television Broadcasting Company Limited liability com ...

(channel 35). Both stations share studios on South 18th Street in Lafayette, while WPBI-LD's transmitter is located on McCarty Lane on the city's east side; the signal is oriented to the northwest.

History

The station's

construction permit Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. House building permits, for example, are subject to bu ...

was issued by 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) on February 22, 2011, under the

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...

of W16DB-D. The station's call sign was changed back and forth between WPBH-LD and WPBI-LD in August and October 2016 until October 18, 2016, when WPBI was settled upon. WPBI-LD started airing on October 25, 2016. The station signed on from the start as the Lafayette area's Fox affiliate, with NBC being launched on the second subchannel; the station was owned by Waypoint Media, a company operated by Mike Reed. Prior to the launch of WPBI-LD its owner, Lafayette TV LLC purchased four Lafayette market radio stations from Artistic Media Partners Inc. WPBI-LD's two subchannels are the first Fox and NBC affiliates ever based in the Lafayette

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 ...

; before the station signed on, Indianapolis television stations

WXIN WXIN (channel 59) is a television station in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Bloomington-licensed CBS affiliate WTTV, channel 4 (and its Kokomo-licensed s ...

and

WTHR WTHR (channel 13) is a television station in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside low-power broadcasting#Television, low-power, Class A television service, Class A MeTV affiliate WALV-CD ( ...

served as the default Fox and NBC affiliates for Lafayette via cable and satellite. Cable television providers

Comcast Xfinity Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, doing business as Xfinity, is an American telecommunications business segment and division of the Comcast Corporation. It is used to market consumer cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless servic ...

and Metronet began carrying WPBI in November 2016. Despite discontinuing carriage of Indianapolis-based Fox and NBC affiliates, satellite television provider

DirecTV DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...

has said it plans to carry WPBI-LD and WPBI-LD2 but has not announced its timetable for doing so. From 1953 until WPBI's 2016 launch,

WLFI-TV WLFI-TV (channel 18) is a television station in Lafayette, Indiana, United States, affiliated with CBS and The CW Plus. Owned by Allen Media Group, the station maintains studios on Yeager Road in West Lafayette; its transmitter is located on Co ...

had been the only " Big Three" (

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 ...

and NBC—or, including Fox, "big four") network television broadcaster in the Lafayette market. In July 2021, Waypoint announced that it would sell nine of its television stations, including WPBY-LD and WPBI-LD, to

Cumming, Georgia Cumming is a city and the county seat of Forsyth County, Georgia, United States, and the sole incorporated area in the county. It is a suburban city, and part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. In the 2020 census, the population is 7,318, up fro ...

–based Coastal Television for $36.9 million. The sale was completed on January 4, 2022.

Programming

Sports programming

WPBI-LD carries select

Purdue Boilermakers football The Purdue Boilermakers football team represents Purdue University in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of college football. Purdue plays its home games at Ross–Ade Stadium on the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. ...

games via ''

Fox College Football ''Fox College Football'' is the branding used for broadcasts of NCAA Division I FBS college football games produced by Fox Sports, and broadcast primarily by Fox, FS1, and FS2. Initial college football broadcasts on the Fox network were lim ...

'', and since 2023 via ''Big Ten Saturday Night'' on NBC. Some non-conference Purdue games may also air on ABC. WPBI-LD has blacked out live broadcasts of the

Indianapolis 500 The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly shortened to Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indian ...

to continue to enforce analog-era restrictions when Indianapolis stations served Lafayette to encourage attendance; the race otherwise airs on tape delay with the Indianapolis affiliate (from 2016, over its second NBC channel with

; and from 2025, on its Fox channel with

). The race has aired live on WPBI-LD in

2020 The year 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of even ...

due to no fans,

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

due to a sellout with limited attendance,

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

due to a weather delay as a public service to those who had to leave early, and

2025 So far, the year has seen the continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudanese civil war, and the Gaza war. Internal crises in Bangladesh post-resignation v ...

due to a sellout.

News operation

After beginning local weather coverage on January 1, 2017, WPBI aired its inaugural ''Star City News'' broadcast on May 29, 2017. As of 2017, WPBI broadcast hours of local newscasts each week, all on weekdays. The newscasts aired at 6 and 11 p.m. on NBC 16 and at 10 p.m. on Fox 16. The 6 p.m. newscast was exclusive to WPBI-LD2, while the 11 p.m. newscast also simulcast on WPBY-LD. Chris Morisse Vizza, a 10-year veteran of WLFI-TV, became WPBI's first news director. Sarah Blakely became the station's inaugural news anchor, broadcasting from a

Media Gateway A media gateway is a translation device or service that converts media streams between disparate telecommunications technologies such as POTS, SS7, Next Generation Networks ( 2G, 2.5G and 3G radio access networks) or private branch exchange ( ...

–owned studio in

Little Rock, Arkansas Little Rock is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Arkansas, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The city's population was 202,591 as of the 2020 census. The six-county Central Arkan ...

, airing segments from Lafayette-based Vizza. Blakely also anchored similar newscasts on sister station

KJNB-LD KJNB-LD (channel 39) is a low-power television station in Jonesboro, Arkansas, United States, affiliated with Fox and CBS. Owned by Coastal Television Broadcasting Company LLC, the station maintains a small office in the Regions Bank Buildi ...

Jonesboro, Arkansas Jonesboro () is a city located on Crowley's Ridge in the northeastern corner of the U.S. State of Arkansas. Jonesboro is one of two county seats of Craighead County, Arkansas, Craighead County. In 2023, the city had an estimated population of ...

. Waypoint Media purchased Media Gateway's centralized news operation in June 2019 and renamed it to

News Hub News HUB (formerly known as Independent News Network) is a production company based in Little Rock, Arkansas, which syndicates "localized" television news, news programs for terrestrial television, broadcast television stations in the United ...

; News Hub was purchased by Coastal Television in July 2021. Radio tie-ins of the newscasts are planned for

WSHY WSHY (1410 AM broadcasting, AM) is a commercial radio, commercial radio station in Lafayette, Indiana. It broadcasts a conservative talk radio radio format, format. WSHY is owned by William Fielder, III's Coastal Television, through licensee C ...

, WBPE,

WYCM WYCM (95.7 FM "MeTV Music 95.7") is a radio station in Lafayette, Indiana, owned by William Fielder, III's Coastal Television, through licensee CTI License LLC, as part of a cluster with Fox/NBC affiliate WPBI-LD, ABC affiliate WPBY-LD, and ...

, and

WAZY-FM WAZY-FM (96.5 MHz "Z96-5") is a radio station in Lafayette, Indiana, owned by William Fielder, III's Coastal Television, through licensee CTI License LLC, as part of a cluster with Fox/NBC affiliate WPBI-LD, ABC affiliate WPBY-LD, and sister ra ...

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— ...

References

{{Coastal TV Broadcasting American Broadcasting Company affiliates Fox Broadcasting Company affiliates Coastal Television PBI NBC affiliates PBI-LD Television channels and stations established in 2016 2016 establishments in Indiana