WBND-LD


WBND-LD, virtual channel 57, is a low-powered ABC-affiliated television station licensed to South Bend, Indiana, United States. Its second digital subchannel serves as an owned-and-operated station of the classic television network MeTV. Owned by Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting, it is a sister station to CW affiliate WCWW-LD and MyNetworkTV affiliate WMYS-LD. The three stations share studios on Generations Drive in northeastern South Bend; WBND's transmitter is located just off the St. Joseph Valley Parkway on the city's south side.
On cable, the station can be seen in standard definition on Comcast Xfinity channel 7 and AT&T U-verse channel 57, and in high definition on Xfinity digital channel 187 and U-verse channel 1057.

History

The station signed on the air on October 18, 1995, the date that longtime ABC station WSJV became Michiana's new Fox affiliate, as W58BT, originally broadcasting on UHF channel 58. However, from the beginning, it branded itself under the fictional call letters "WBND," relegating mentions of its legal callsign to station identifications, and signed on as the area's new ABC affiliate in Michiana. Prior to the launch, Fox won the rights to NFL football games starting with the 1994 season, and the network signed an affiliation agreement with Quincy Newspapers to have WSJV join Fox on April 21, 1995; prior to this, some Fox programming had been airing on CBS affiliate WSBT-TV, while the network's full schedule was only available on cable via network-owned WFLD from Chicago or WFFT from Fort Wayne, and WXMI from Grand Rapids or, until late 1994, WKBD from Detroit. ABC approached WNDU-TV and WSBT, but both had firm affiliation deals with NBC and CBS, respectively. The only other viable choice was WHME-TV, but LeSEA never even considered putting the station 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-owned WLS-TV in Chicago, WPTA in Fort Wayne, and WOTV in Battle 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 station WDJT-TV in Milwaukee 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 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. The transmitter was fixed within a few days.
By the end of that year, the station changed its call letters to WBND-LP. During the late 1990s, the station carried UPN programming outside of network hours as a secondary affiliate. The station relocated to UHF channel 57 in 2002, after WSJV received approval from the Federal Communications Commission 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 second digital subchannel, known as "UPN Michiana", which programmed the network in regular primetime hours.
Ultimately, WBND would outlast WSJV, when in August 2016, "SBT2" 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's Heroes & Icons network on their main channel.
In early August 2008, Weigel Broadcasting agreed to sell all three of its South Bend stations, including WBND, to Schurz Communications, longtime owner of WSBT-TV, for undisclosed terms. If this sale had been approved by the FCC, WBND's operations would have been moved into WSBT's new facility in Mishawaka and it may have resulted in the WDJT-produced newscast on channel 57 being replaced by simulcasts of WSBT-TV's newscasts. However, in the absence of action by the FCC, the deal was called off in August 2009.
From June to July 2011, the station's website was redirected to WBND's Facebook account as Weigel's web staff undertook a major rebuilding of both WDJT and WBND's websites. During this time, the station unusually reported current weather conditions using map imagery uploaded through its on-staff meteorologists via their Twitter accounts to the TwitPic service and the station's Facebook photos section. The station debuted its new website by the start of August 2011.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
57.1720pWBND-HDMain WBND-LD programming / ABC
57.2480iMeTVMeTV
57.3480iMovies!Movies!

On December 15, 2010, WBND launched its second digital subchannel on 57.2 as an owned-and-operated MeTV station. On December 17, 2013, Movies! was added to 57.3.

Analog-to-digital conversion

WBND received a construction permit from FCC on March 21, 2007 for a . Six months later on September 14, 2007, began broadcasting its high definition digital signal on UHF frequency 49; using PSIP to display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog 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. 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.

Programming

Syndicated programming featured on this station includes Live with Kelly and Ryan, The Dr. Oz Show, Family Feud, and Judge Judy.

News operation

WBND-LD currently broadcasts 31 hours of local newscasts each week ; in addition to the newscasts seen on WBND, the station produces and airs 13½ hours of news a week for CW affiliate WCWW-LD. Unlike most ABC stations in the Eastern 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, using a form of the Eleven @ 11:00 news format, with The 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 stations WMLW-CA and WYTU-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. 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. 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 downscaled 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. The station launched an hour-long 5 p.m. newscast on September 10, 2012, simultaneously discontinuing the 7 p.m. newscast on weeknights. 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 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. on WCWW-LD; WBND also debuted three hours of newscasts on weekend mornings, with a two-hour block running from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m. on both Saturday and Sunday, and an additional hour on Saturdays from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. and on Sundays from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m.