WISH-TV

WISH-TV channel 8 is the CBS affiliate in Indianapolis, Indiana. Its transmitter is also located in Indianapolis. It's currently owned by the LIN TV group, which also owns area stations WIIH-CA (a Univision affiliate) and WNDY-TV (a UPN affiliate). WISH-TV, WNDY-TV and WIIH-TV are co-located at a building on Meridian Street, which also serves as an operations hub for other LIN television stations in the Midwest. WISH also offers a 24-hour weather service, LWS to central Indiana cable systems.

History

The station began broadcast operations at 6pm on July 1, 1954 and has been a CBS affiliate from the start. It also carried some programming from DuMont, but became solely affiliated with CBS in 1956. Notably, WISH is the only station in Indianapolis that has never changed its primary network affiliation.

At one point WISH and sister CBS affiliate WANE-TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana were owned by Corinthian Broadcasting, a division of Dun & Bradstreet. Dun sold its entire broadcasting unit to Belo in 1984; however, due to FCC ownership limits at the time, Belo sold WISH and WANE to LIN Broadcasting (the predecessor of LIN TV) shortly thereafter.

From the mid-1980s until 2002, WISH was the leading news station in the Indianapolis market until WTHR took over the position. This was due largely because most of its news team has been at the station for over 20 years. At one time, WISH boasted that "more people in Central Indiana get their local news from 24-Hour News 8 than from any other source" at the close of many newscasts and in promos.

Mike Ahern was the station's main evening news anchor, as well as the de facto face of WISH's newsroom for more than thirty years. He joined the station as a reporter in 1967, and retired from the anchor chair on December 1, 2004. His longtime co-anchor, Debby Knox, joined him in 1980 and is still on the air today. Popular Stan Wood served as the station's main weatherman for much of the 1960s through the 1990s, while Patty Spitler was an afternoon news anchor and entertainment reporter from 1982 to 2004. News director Lee Giles, who left the station in 2004, was one of the longest-tenured news directors in local broadcasting.

Currently, WISH is a distant No. 2 in the ratings behind WTHR, except during the early news when it runs neck and neck with WRTV. However, due to the recent strength of CBS primetime, WISH is gaining some ratings points against other newscasts at 11PM.

WISH-TV's newsroom began to produce WNDY-TV's 10pm newscast in 2005, when LIN purchased WNDY from Viacom.

Since 1991, all of WISH's news music themes have had components of the song Back Home Again in Indiana. This tradition continues today.

Newscasts

Weekdays

*Daybreak Early Edition - 5 AM-5:30 AM
**David Barras, Joy Dumandan, Julie Patterson (traffic), Randy Ollis (weather)
*Daybreak First Edition - 5:30 AM-6 AM
**David Barras, Joy Dumandan, Julie Patterson (traffic), Randy Ollis (weather)
*Daybreak - 6 AM-7 AM
**David Barras, Joy Dumandan, Julie Patterson (traffic), Randy Ollis (weather)
*Daybreak 'Til Eight - 7 AM-8 AM
**David Barras, Joy Dumandan, Julie Patterson (traffic), Randy Ollis (weather)
*WISH 8 Noon News - Noon-12:30 PM
**David Barras, Deanna Dewberry, Randy Ollis (weather)
*WISH News 8 at Five - 5 PM-6 PM
**Debby Knox, Karen Hensel, Deanna Dewberry, Steve Bray (weather)
*WISH News 8 at Six - 6 PM-6:30 PM
**Debby Knox, Eric Halvorson, Angela Buchman (weather), Anthony Calhoun (sports)
*WISH News 8 at Eleven - 11 PM-11:35 PM
**Debby Knox, Eric Halvorson, Angela Buchman (weather), Anthony Calhoun (sports)

Saturdays

*Daybreak Saturday Early Edition - 6 AM-7 AM
**Rick Dawson, Ruthanne Gordon, Ken Brewer (weather)
*Daybreak Saturday Morning - 7 AM-9 AM
**Rick Dawson, Ruthanne Gordon, Ken Brewer (weather)
*WISH News 8 at Six - 6 PM-7PM
**Mike Corbin, Shana Kelley, Sean Ash (weather), Chris Widlic (sports)
*WISH News 8 at Eleven - 11 PM-11:22 PM
**Mike Corbin, Shana Kelley, Sean Ash (weather), Chris Widlic (sports)
*SportsLocker - 11:22 PM-Midnight
**hosted by Anthony Calhoun

Sundays

*Daybreak Sunday Early Edition - 6 AM-7 AM
**Rick Dawson, Ruthanne Gordon, Ken Brewer (weather)
*Daybreak Sunday Morning - 7 AM-9 AM
**Rick Dawson, Ruthanne Gordon, Ken Brewer (weather)
*WISH News 8 at Six - 6PM-7 PM
**Mike Corbin, Shana Kelley, Sean Ash (weather), Chris Widlic (sports)
*WISH News 8 at Eleven - 11 PM-11:22 PM
**Mike Corbin, Shana Kelley, Sean Ash (weather), Chris Widlic (sports)
*SportsLocker - 11:22 PM-Midnight
**hosted by Anthony Calhoun

WISH-TV does not air the CBS Evening News weekend broadcasts.

See also

*WLFI-TV in Lafayette, WANE-TV in Fort Wayne, WTHI-TV in Terre Haute-sister CBS affiliates in Indiana

External links

*WISH-TV website
*What Columbus Watched... - History of television in Indianapolis and Central Indiana from the perspective of a Columbus, Indiana resident