WIPX-TV, virtual channel 63 (UHF digital channel 27), is an Ion Television owned-and-operated television station serving Indianapolis, Indiana, United States that is licensed to Bloomington. The station is owned by Ion Media Networks, as part of a duopoly with Ion Life owned-and-operated station WCLJ-TV (channel 42, also licensed to Bloomington). The two stations share offices on Production Drive (near I-74/I-465) in southwestern Indianapolis and transmitter facilities on County Road 50 in rural southwestern Johnson County (due southeast of Trafalgar).
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 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 another Bloomington-licensed station, UPN affiliate WTTV (channel 4, now a CBS affiliate), through its April 1996 merger with River City Broadcasting, with the company immediately focusing its efforts on that station and its Kokomo satellite WTTK (channel 29). In 1995, WIIB became an affiliate of the Infomail TV Network (inTV) infomercial service.
As Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 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 (now Ion Television), 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 (Paxson had earlier attempted to purchase WB affiliate WNDY-TV [channel 23, now a MyNetworkTV affiliate] for $28.4 million in 1997, before it was outbid by a $35 million offer from the Paramount Stations Group that October).
| TV stations in Indiana |
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| WIPX, Bloomington WKOI, Richmond, IN |
| TV stations in Central Indiana, including Indianapolis, Bloomington and Muncie |
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| WTTV 4 (CBS) WRTV 6 (ABC) WISH 8 (CW) WTHR 13 (NBC) WREP-LD 15 (Youtoo) WIIH-CD 17 (GetTV) WDNI-CD 19 (TLM) WFYI 20 (PBS) WNDY 23 (MNTV) WSOT-LD 27 (NRBTV) WUDZ-LD 28 (Buzzr) WTTK 29 (CBS) WTIU 30 (PBS) WSDI-LD 30 (Quest) WHMB 40 (FBC) WCLJ 42 (Bounce TV) WALV-CD 46 (MeTV) WBXI-CD 47 (Start TV) WIPB 49 (PBS) WIWU-CD 51 (Rel) WXIN 59 (Fox) WIPX 63 (Ion) WDTI 69 (Daystar) |