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|---|---|
| Channels | |
| Branding | ABC 57 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations | |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Weigel Broadcasting Company |
| WCWW-LD,WMYS-LD | |
| History | |
| Founded | June 26, 1995 |
First air date | October 18, 1995 (30 years ago) (1995-10-18) |
Former call signs | W58BT (October–December 1995) |
Former channel numbers |
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| Secondary:UPN (1995–2003) | |
Call sign meaning | South Bend |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 71426 |
| Class | LD |
| ERP | 15kW |
| HAAT | 320.2 m (1,051 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 41°36′54.9″N86°11′6.6″W / 41.615250°N 86.185167°W /41.615250; -86.185167 |
| Translator(s) | WCWW-LD 25.4 South Bend |
| Links | |
Public license information | LMS |
| Website | www |
WBND-LD (channel 57) is alow-power television station inSouth Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated withABC. It is owned byWeigel Broadcasting (as the company's only ABC affiliate), and issister toCW affiliateWCWW-LD (channel 25) andMyNetworkTV affiliateWMYS-LD (channel 69). The three stations share studios on Generations Drive (near theIndiana Toll Road) in northeastern South Bend; WBND-LD's transmitter is located just off theSt. Joseph Valley Parkway 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 entiremarket.
The station signed on the air on October 18, 1995, the date that longtime ABC stationWSJV (channel 28) became Michiana's newFox affiliate, as W58BT, originally broadcasting on UHF channel 58.[2] However, from the beginning, it branded itself under the fictional call letters "WBND", relegating mentions of its legal call sign tostation identifications, and signed on as the area's new ABC affiliate in Michiana. Prior to the launch, Fox won therights to NFL football games starting with the1994 season, and the network signed an affiliation agreement withQuincy Newspapers to have WSJV join Fox on April 21, 1995;[3] prior to this, some Fox programming (including its NFL game telecasts) had been airing onCBS affiliateWSBT-TV (channel 22),[4][5] while the network's full schedule was only available on cable via network-ownedWFLD fromChicago orWFFT fromFort Wayne (on the Indiana side), andWXMI fromGrand Rapids or, until late 1994,WKBD fromDetroit (on the Michigan side). ABC approachedWNDU-TV (channel 16) and WSBT, but both had firm affiliation deals withNBC and CBS, respectively. The only other viable choice wasWHME-TV (channel 46), but that station's owner, religious broadcasterLeSEA, 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-ownedWLS-TV in Chicago,WPTA in Fort Wayne, andWOTV inBattle Creek, Michigan, 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 stationWDJT-TV inMilwaukee (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 40-mile (64 km) 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 transmitter suffered a partial failure on the morning of October 18, rendering it almost unviewable. However, Weigel managed to keep ABC programming available viaW69BT, which became a satellite of W58BT. The transmitter was fixed within a few days.[6]
By the end of that year, the station changed its call letters to WBND-LP. During the late 1990s, the station carriedUPN programming outside of network hours as a secondary affiliate. The station relocated to UHF channel 57 in 2002, after WSJV received approval from theFederal Communications Commission (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 seconddigital subchannel, 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 anindependent 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'sHeroes & Icons network on their main channel.
In early August 2008, Weigel Broadcasting agreed to sell all three of its South Bend stations, including WBND, toSchurz Communications, founding owner of WSBT-TV, for undisclosed terms.[7] If this sale had been approved by the FCC, WBND's operations would have been moved into WSBT's new facility inMishawaka (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.[8]
From June to July 2011, the station's website was redirected to WBND'sFacebook 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 theirTwitter accounts to theTwitPic service and the station's Facebook photos section. The station debuted its new website by the start of August 2011.
WBND-LD carries the road games ofNotre Dame football which air as part of theESPN College Football on ABC package, either as a part of its regular schedule or games againstAtlantic Coast Conference opponents (including the2020 ACC Championship Game as part of that year's temporary conference affiliation);WNDU-TV (formerly owned bythe university itself until its 2005 sale toGray Television) has carried the team's home games since 1990 as NBC holds exclusive rights to the team'sregular season home games. Channel 57 aired its first ever Notre Dame home football game, an intrastate matchup and win against theIndiana Hoosiers, on December 20, 2024, as part of ESPN's coverage of the first round ofthat year's inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff.
WBND-LD currently broadcasts 31 hours of local newscasts each week (with4+1⁄2 hours each on Mondays through Saturdays and four hours on Sundays); in addition to the newscasts seen on WBND, the station produces and airs13+1⁄2 hours of news a week for CW affiliateWCWW-LD (with2+1⁄2 hours each weekday and a half-hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). Unlike most ABC stations in theEastern Time Zone, 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,[9] using a form of theEleven @ 11:00 news format, withThe 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 stationsWMLW-CA andWYTU-LD. 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.[10] 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.[9] 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 downscaled4:3 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).[11] 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.[12]
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 57.1 | 720p | 16:9 | ABC57 | ABC |
| 57.2 | MeTV | MeTV[14] | ||
| 57.3 | 480i | MOVIES | Movies![15] |
On June 2, 2011, WBND launched its second digital subchannel on 57.2 as anowned-and-operatedMeTV station.[14][16] On December 17, 2013,Movies! was added to 57.3.[15][17]
WBND received a construction permit from FCC on March 21, 2007, for a companion digital channel.[18] Six months later on September 14, 2007, the station began broadcasting itshigh definition digital signal on UHF channel 49, usingvirtual channel 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.[19] 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.
Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofIndiana | ||
|---|---|---|
Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Indiana | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS | ||
| Religious | ||
| Spanish | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofMichigan | ||
|---|---|---|
Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Michigan | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS | ||
| Religious | ||
| Spanish |
| |
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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