WISH Indianapolis Newscasts To Air Live In South Bend

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

https://tvnewscheck.com/article/mor...anapolis-newscasts-to-air-live-in-south-bend/

DuJuan McCoy, owner, president and CEO of Circle City Broadcasting, and Drew Sumrall, CEO of Family Broadcasting, today announced a multi-year agreement to air live News 8 newscasts from Circle City’s CW affiliate WISH Indianapolis (DMA 25) in South Bend, Ind. (DMA 98).

Family Broadcasting’s independent WHME “will air more than 60 hours of live News 8 broadcasts each week beginning April 6,” said McCoy. “We are proud to make WISH Indiana’s only single-source, statewide news network and bring the quality news broadcasts that Central Indiana knows and loves to viewers in the South Bend area.”

 

[PTBoardOp94]

That will be a huge programming change for WHME, which currently airs a mixture of infomercials, televangelists, old time TV, judge shows, and some "wholesome" scripted shows like Heartland in prime time.

I'm not sure what WHME think the appeal of news from Indianapolis will be. Yes, WISH-TV will report on matters of statewide interest, but that's probably less than 20% of a typical day's newscast.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

WLMO Fort Wayne Joins WISH’s Indiana News Network

DuJuan McCoy, owner, president, and CEO of Circle City Broadcasting, and Gregory Phipps, president of Metro Video Productions, today announced an agreement to b

tvnewscheck.com

This might be a factor here.

 

[Juan Bodley]

WLMO-LD is on channel 2, and most people in the Fort Wayne area usually don't have a VHF antenna.
Unless they bought one as seen on TV or bought an combo antenna by mistake. I installed a few HD-4400 Winegards and they pick up some of the higher band VHF.

 

[gr8oldies]

That will be a huge programming change for WHME, which currently airs a mixture of infomercials, televangelists, old time TV, judge shows, and some "wholesome" scripted shows like Heartland in prime time.

I'm not sure what WHME think the appeal of news from Indianapolis will be. Yes, WISH-TV will report on matters of statewide interest, but that's probably less than 20% of a typical day's newscast.

I heard a few years ago that the rest of the family and Drew Sumrall were at odds about the operation of the company, with family members accusing Drew of being "too liberal".

With the news itself, South Bend is a long way from Indy. Statehouse content is important, but most of what happens in Indianapolis is of no consequence in South Bend or Fort Wayne, nor vice versa.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

I heard a few years ago that the rest of the family and Drew Sumrall were at odds about the operation of the company, with family members accusing Drew of being "too liberal".

Yes, there was a lengthy lawsuit between branches of Lester Sumrall's family. I'm not aware of how it was adjudicated, but it has settled out.

With the news itself, South Bend is a long way from Indy. Statehouse content is important, but most of what happens in Indianapolis is of no consequence in South Bend or Fort Wayne, nor vice versa.

Yeah. I was in Indy for Labor Day and watched some of the WISH news. I can't understand why a viewer in Fort Wayne would prefer this product to what airs on WANE.

 

[gr8oldies]

Yes, there was a lengthy lawsuit between branches of Lester Sumrall's family. I'm not aware of how it was adjudicated, but it has settled out.


Yeah. I was in Indy for Labor Day and watched some of the WISH news. I can't understand why a viewer in Fort Wayne would prefer this product to what airs on WANE.

True. They are no longer co-owned and of course WISH is no longer CBS. WISH has a lot more quantity of news but geographically it doesn't make sense.

 

[Juan Bodley]

It has me scratching my head.
Fox Fort Wayne (WFFT) has a 10 PM newscast that is one hour and pretty good for a small operation.
What WISH can add to Fort Wayne market is likely not much. Unless there is better statewide news and such in there it likely isn't worth the cost of transmission.