WRTV
WRTV is a television station in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by the E. W. Scripps Company. The station's studios are located on Meridian Street north of downtown Indianapolis, and its transmitter is located on the city's northwest side near Meridian Hills, Indiana.
History
WFBM-TV
The station first signed on the air on May 30, 1949, as WFBM-TV. Founded by the Consolidated Television and Radio Broadcasters subsidiary of the Bitner Group, owner of radio station WFBM, it is the oldest television station in the state of Indiana. The first program broadcast on the station was a documentary titled Crucible of Speed, about the early history of the legendary Indianapolis 500 auto race; this was followed by the inaugural live television broadcast of the event. The station originally operated as a CBS affiliate, although it maintained secondary affiliations with ABC and the DuMont Television Network.WFBM-TV began to split ABC programming with Bloomington-based primary NBC affiliate WTTV when that station signed on in November 1949; both stations lost their affiliations with ABC to WISH-TV when that station signed on in July 1954. WFBM-TV also aired programs from the short-lived Paramount Television Network, among them Time For Beany, Dixie Showboat, Hollywood Reel, Cowboy G-Men, and Hollywood Wrestling. Channel 6 acquired an FM sister in 1955 with the sign-on of WFBM-FM. In 1956, WFBM-TV became the market's NBC affiliate, taking the affiliation from WTTV. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.
Bitner sold its broadcasting interests to magazine publisher Time Inc. in 1957, who four years later subordinated their acquisition under its in 1961 established subsidiary Time-Life, Inc. as Time–Life Broadcasting, Inc. In the mid-1960s, WFBM-TV became the first television station in Indiana to begin broadcasting its programming in color.
WRTV
In late October 1970, WFBM-AM-FM-TV were sold to McGraw-Hill in a group deal that also involved Time-Life's other radio and television combinations in Denver, San Diego and Grand Rapids, Michigan; and KERO-TV in Bakersfield, California. To comply with the Federal Communications Commission's new restrictions on concentration of media ownership that went into effect shortly afterward, McGraw-Hill was required to sell the radio stations in Indianapolis, Denver, San Diego and Grand Rapids to other companies. Time-Life would later take WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids out of the final deal and retain ownership of that station. By the time the sale was finalized in June 1972, the purchase price for the entire group was just over $57 million. KERO-TV, KLZ-TV in Denver and KOGO-TV in San Diego were retained by McGraw-Hill along with WFBM-TV. The radio stations retained the WFBM designation; McGraw-Hill asked for a set of call letters containing the letters "TV" and received the call letters WRTV on June 1.By the late 1970s, NBC's national ratings crashed to third place, becoming the lowest-rated of the three major U.S. broadcast networks, while ABC rose to the ranks of first place around that same time; as a result, ABC sought stronger stations to serve as its affiliates in several markets. The two networks swapped affiliations in Indianapolis on June 1, 1979, with WRTV becoming the market's new ABC affiliate, and WTHR becoming an NBC affiliate. As a result, WRTV became the third television station in the Indianapolis market to affiliate with ABC. In the process, it became the first television station in the Indianapolis market, and one of the few television stations in the United States to have served as a primary affiliate of all three heritage broadcast networks. ABC announced its move from WTHR to WRTV in late 1978; the delay in the switch was largely a result of NBC having to choose between signing with WTHR or the then-independent WTTV. The final NBC program to air on WRTV was an episode of The Tomorrow Show that aired at the midnight hour of June 1, 1979. The first ABC program to air on WRTV was Good Morning America the following morning.
In October 1994, ABC and McGraw-Hill signed a long-term deal in which all of the group's stations would be affiliated with the network; in addition to renewing WRTV's existing affiliation, this deal saw sister outlets KMGH-TV in Denver and KERO-TV in Bakersfield affiliate with ABC.
On January 31, 1995, WBAK-TV in Terre Haute ended its 22-year affiliation with ABC to become that market's original Fox affiliate, citing the low viewership it had suffered due to the then-overabundance of higher-rated ABC stations in adjacent markets that were receivable in the area. This left viewers with only fringe access from WRTV, and other out-of-market ABC stations from Evansville, Indiana, and Champaign, Illinois, as Terre Haute did not have enough stations to support full-time affiliations from four networks. On September 1, 2011, WFXW voluntarily disaffiliated from Fox and rejoined ABC as part of a long-term affiliation renewal between ABC and the Nexstar Broadcasting Group involving the company's existing ABC stations in nine other markets; WRTV was dropped from most Terre Haute area cable providers by May 28, 2012.
WRTV became the first television station in the Indianapolis market to launch its own website in the late 1990s; it later became the first to offer a mobile website the following decade. In 1998, the station changed its on-air branding to "RTV6"; however, its newscasts were instead branded as 6 News until 2001 and again from 2006 to 2012. On October 3, 2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies announced that it would sell its seven-station broadcasting division, including WRTV, to the E. W. Scripps Company for $212 million. The sale received FCC approval on November 29, 2011, and was formally consummated on December 30. The deal made WRTV a sister station to Scripps flagship and adjacent-market ABC affiliate WCPO-TV in Cincinnati.
In June 2012, WRTV opened a secondary facility at the studios of news/talk radio station WIBC in downtown Indianapolis; most of the station's newscasts are produced out of the Monument Circle studio, which underwent renovations to house production facilities. This resulted from a multi-year agreement with WIBC's owner Emmis Communications that was signed that April, in which WRTV also provides news content for WIBC with some staff appearing on both stations.
In May 2014, Scripps announced that WRTV's North Meridian Street studios would begin handling the master control operations of the company's 19 television stations as early as July of that year, expanding upon an existing regional centralcasting hub built under McGraw-Hill ownership. The expanded operations created 10 new jobs. Scripps renewed ABC affiliations for WRTV and nine other stations through 2019 on December 10, 2014.
On August 13, 2020, WRTV dropped its longtime "RTV6" moniker, and began branding itself as simply "WRTV: Working for You". Concurrent with the move, the station introduced a new logo; for the first time in WRTV's 71-year history, the station's analog/virtual channel number was not shown. The station's newscast was rebranded from RTV6 News to WRTV News. On the same date, WRTV updated to the latest Scripps standard graphics package.
In October 2025, E. W. Scripps Company announced it had agreed to sell WRTV for $83 million to Circle City Broadcasting, owner of WISH-TV and WNDY-TV.
Programming
WRTV clears the entirety of ABC's network schedule and typically airs all network programs in pattern, except during instances where the station carries breaking news or severe weather coverage, or special programming. During the 1987-88 season, WRTV preempted ABC's 9:30 p.m. time slot on Fridays, following the move of Max Headroom to Thursdays, in favor of the short-lived Suzanne Somers vehicle She's the Sheriff. In 2004, WRTV, along with the other McGraw-Hill stations, claimed that they tried to preempt Saving Private Ryan, but out of desperation, aired the film.Sports programming
For most of the time since ABC began airing live, flag-to-flag coverage of the Indianapolis 500 in 1986, WRTV aired the race in prime time on a tape delay rather than airing it live. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway insisted on this arrangement to encourage residents and tourists in the Indianapolis metropolitan area to attend the race. During the time slot in which the race aired live, that day's ABC prime time schedule aired early under special dispensation from the network. In 1999, WRTV televised the Indianapolis 500 live, in addition to the tape-delayed prime time broadcast, as part of WRTV's 50th anniversary. On May 25, 2016, with the 100th anniversary event sold out, IMS and WRTV announced that channel 6 would air the Indianapolis 500 live in the market for the first time since 1999. WRTV lost its role as the local broadcaster of the Indianapolis 500 after the 2018 race, when ABC lost the rights to air the race after 54 years ; beginning in 2019, with the broadcast rights to the race going to NBC, WTHR serves as the local broadcaster. The blackout policy, however, has continued.The station carries select Indianapolis Colts NFL games broadcast by ABC as part of the network's Monday Night Football package from the 1984 season until the 2005 season, and since 2020 through ABC's simulcasts. The station acquired the local rights to two Colts regular season games during the 2014 season between the Philadelphia Eagles and between the New York Giants, both of which aired on ESPN's Monday Night Football—whose Colts broadcasts are normally carried over-the-air by WNDY-TV. In both situations, the station rescheduled ABC's Monday lineup: Dancing with the Stars aired the following Tuesday afternoon before the station's 5 p.m. newscast on the night of its original broadcast, but did not open a separate voting window for the Indianapolis market, while it aired Castle after ABC's late night programming. In addition, all Indiana Pacers games aired through ABC's NBA coverage are broadcast on WRTV, including the team's appearance in the 2025 NBA Finals.