WRTV (channel 6) is a television station in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is locally owned by Circle City Broadcasting alongside WISH-TV (channel 8), WNDY-TV (channel 23), and WIIH-CD (channel 17). The four stations share studios on North Meridian Street (at the north end of the Television Row section) on the near north side of Indianapolis; WRTV's transmitter is located on the city's northwest side near Meridian Hills, Indiana.FCC Antenna Structure Registration
History WFBM-TV
The station first signed on the air on May 30, 1949, as WFBM-TV.FCC History Cards for WRTV. Federal Communications Commission. Founded by the Consolidated Television and Radio Broadcasters subsidiary of the Bitner Group, owner of radio station WFBM (1260 AM, now WNDE), 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 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 (channel 10, which moved to channel 4 in February 1954) when that station signed on in November 1949; both stations lost their affiliations with ABC to WISH-TV (channel 8) 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 (94.7 FM, now WFBQ). 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,"Time Inc. gets Bitner properties, pays $15,750,000 for 3 TVs, 3 AMs." Broadcasting – Telecasting, December 24, 1956, pg. 7. "Time Inc. buy gets green light." Broadcasting – Telecasting, April 22, 1957, pg. 56. 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."McGraw-Hill buys into TV in a big way." Broadcasting, November 2, 1970, pg. 9. 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."McGraw-Hill sets record for concessions to minorities." Broadcasting, May 15, 1972, pp. 25–26. 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 (now KMGH-TV) in Denver and KOGO-TV (now KGTV) 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."It's all theirs." Broadcasting, June 5, 1972, pg. 43.
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 (channel 13) 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 (WTTV would become the second Indianapolis station 35 years later when that station became a CBS affiliate), 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,TV Guide (Central Indiana Edition) – January 29 – February 4, 1995 WBAK-TV in Terre Haute (which changed its call letters to WFXW in 2005) 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 (including WRTV) that were receivable in the area. This left viewers with only fringe access from WRTV (which can be received in Terre Haute via an outdoor antenna and became the default ABC affiliate on cable providers on the Indiana side of the market), and other out-of-market ABC stations from Evansville, Indiana, and Champaign, Illinois (both of which were carried on cable on the Illinois side of the market), as Terre Haute did not have enough stations to support full-time affiliations from four networks (only three commercial full-power stations—WTWO, WTHI-TV and WBAK—are licensed to the market, and ABC opted not to relegate itself to a secondary affiliation). On September 1, 2011, WFXW (which changed its callsign to WAWV-TV) voluntarily disaffiliated from Fox and rejoined ABC as part of a long-term affiliation renewal between ABC and the Nexstar Broadcasting Group (which manages the station through owner Mission Broadcasting) 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 (theindychannel.com) in the late 1990s; it later became the first to offer a mobile website (6News OnTheGo) 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.
Sale to Scripps 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 (93.1 FM) 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.WRTV launches broadcast studio on Monument Circle, Indianapolis Business Journal, May 10, 2012.
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.Command center being built at WRTV will run 19 stations , Indianapolis Business Journal, May 3, 2014. Scripps renewed ABC affiliations for WRTV and nine other stations through 2019 on December 10, 2014.
On August 13, 2020, as part of the transition to Scripps' then-new group-wide graphics package, WRTV dropped the long-time "RTV6" moniker and began to brand as simply "WRTV", with its newscasts accordingly rebranded from RTV6 News to WRTV News.
Sale to Circle City Broadcasting In October 2025, Scripps announced it had agreed to sell WRTV for $83 million to Circle City Broadcasting, owner of WISH-TV and WNDY-TV. The sale was approved on February 27, 2026, and completed on March 31, giving CCB ownership of three full-power television station licenses in Indianapolis. The FCC granted a waiver to its duopoly rules for the purchase, arguing that the sale would "advance the public interest". The new ownership moved to immediately merge WRTV into WISH, and began the process of laying off the majority of its employees that evening (with some of the employees receiving severance packages), all while they produced the station's final in-house newscasts. The extent of the layoffs were unclear, with meteorologist Todd Klaassen reporting that "essentially the entire staff" of the station had been laid off. The following day, WRTV's newscasts were replaced with WISH-produced programs.
In combination with Tegna's sale to Nexstar Media Group the previous month, it further consolidated the "big four" network affiliates in the Indianapolis market under two different owners (with Nexstar controlling WTHR, WTTV, and Fox affiliate WXIN [channel 59], although Nexstar committed to divesting WTHR within two years of the sale's completion) and reduced the number of distinct news voices in the market.
The sale also separated WRTV from KERO, KGTV, and KMGH, its longtime sister stations dating back to their ownership under Time-Life.
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