Multi-affiliate

The station first signed on the air on November 15, 1953. WIBW-TV was the first television station to sign on in the Topeka market, and the third to sign on in the state of Kansas (after KCTY in Kansas City, which operated a transmitter in Overland Park, which signed on in June 1953. Channel 13 signed on the same day as KTVH (now sister station KWCH-DT) in Wichita; it is the second-oldest surviving television station in Kansas (behind KWCH, as KCTY ceased operations in February 1954). The television station originally operated from studio facilities located on 6th Street and Wanamaker Road in west Topeka, near the Menninger Clinic, where it shared the facility with co-owned WIBW radio (AM 580).^[3] The facility, which was later abandoned, was severely damaged by fire on January 5, 2012.^[4][5]

Channel 13 was originally owned by the family of the late Kansas Senator Arthur Capper, and was co-owned with the Topeka Daily Capital and WIBW radio. The station originally also carried programming from all four other major networks of the time (CBS, NBC, ABC and the DuMont Television Network), but has always been a primary CBS affiliate. On the day of its sign-on, following an introductory program presented by the station's staff, WIBW-TV aired its first program, a DuMont network broadcast of an NFL game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Cleveland Browns.

WIBW-TV was the only commercial television station in the Topeka market for fifteen years. This was largely because the only other VHF frequency in the Topeka area, channel 11, had been designated for non-commercial broadcasting use; that allocation eventually was occupied by KTWU, which signed on the air in October 1965. However, area residents did not have to worry about missing their favorite network programs since the Kansas City stations all provided decent signal coverage within Topeka; they have been available on the area's local cable providers since the 1960s. Although Topeka was originally part of the Kansas City market, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) made Topeka a separate market in 1963. While the city itself and its close-in suburbs receive strong signals from the Kansas City stations, some parts of northeastern Kansas to the west of the city only get a marginal signal at best.

In September 1954, the station relocated its transmitter facilities to a 950-foot (290 m) broadcast tower located 500 yards (457 m) west of the original tower (the tower was later leased to Washburn University when KTWU signed on). In 1961, WIBW-AM-TV were joined by a second radio sister, WIBW-FM (94.5 FM). The station lost the DuMont affiliation when that network ceased operations in August 1956.

WIBW-TV is one of the few television stations located west of the Mississippi River that utilizes a call sign that begins with the letter "W". WIBW radio began in Logansport, Indiana, in 1925 and was briefly a portable station for much of 1926 before moving to Topeka in 1927 under Capper's sponsorship. Capper bought the station later in 1927. However, Kansas was located on the eastern side of the original call divide, so it would have been acceptable to have a "W" in Kansas in any event.

In 1957, Capper Publications merged with Stauffer Publications, owner of Topeka's other newspaper, the Topeka State Journal. In 1966, WIBW-TV became the first television station in Topeka to broadcast in color. The station lost its NBC affiliation when KTSB (channel 27, now KSNT) signed on in December 1967.

CBS-only affiliate

WIBW-TV and KSNT continued to split the local rights to ABC programming for 16 years, until KLDH (channel 49, now KTKA) signed on the air as the market's third television outlet in June 1983.

The Daily Capital and State Journal, which later merged as the Topeka Capital-Journal in 1981, and WIBW-AM-FM-TV remained the flagships of Stauffer Publications (later renamed Stauffer Communications) until 1995, when Stauffer merged with Augusta, Georgia-based Morris Communications. Because the FCC's "one to a market" rule barred companies from owning newspapers and broadcast outlets in the same market, as a condition of the sale, Morris had to sell Stauffer's television holdings, including channel 13. However, Morris would have likely had to sell off channel 13 in any event. When the "one to a market" rule went into effect in 1968, the combination of the Daily Capital, State Journal, and WIBW-AM-FM-TV were protected by a grandfather clause that allowed existing newspaper and broadcasting combinations. This protection was ended when Stauffer merged with Morris. Most of Stauffer's television stations, including WIBW-TV, were sold to Benedek Broadcasting in 1996. Morris retained the Capital Journal and the WIBW radio stations, though it has since sold the WIBW radio stations to Alpha Media.

In 2001, WIBW-TV relocated from its original studios on Southwest 6th Avenue into a new state-of-the-art facility on Commerce Place in southwest Topeka (WIBW radio subsequently relocated to studio facilities located on Executive Drive in southwest Topeka's Huntoon Hill neighborhood).

History

On February 22, 2006, News Corporation (which would later spin-off its American television properties into 21st Century Fox in July 2013) announced the launch of MyNetworkTV, a new network that would be operated by two of its divisions, Fox Television Stations and 20th Television.^[12][13] MyNetworkTV was created to compete against another upstart network that would launch at the same time that September, The CW—a network created through a partnership between CBS Corporation and Time Warner, which had announced one month earlier on January 24 that the two companies would respectively shut down UPN and The WB, which originally consisted primarily of the higher-rated programs from its two predecessors; MyNetworkTV was also formed to give UPN- and WB-affiliated stations that were not named as The CW's charter affiliates another option besides converting into independent stations.^[14][15] Prior to the CW announcement, WIBW station management had considered launching a digital subchannel affiliated with UPN (which had previously been affiliated with Fox affiliate KTMJ-CA (channel 43) from the network's launch in 1995 until 2003, with its programming airing in late-evening timeslots).^[16]

On March 13, 2006, WIBW was named as MyNetworkTV's Topeka affiliate through a 13-station affiliation agreement with owner Gray Television.^[17] One month later on April 10, 2006, Montecito Broadcast Group announced that NBC affiliate KSNT (channel 27) would serve as The CW's Topeka affiliate (through its national feed for smaller markets, The CW Plus), carrying the network on its second digital subchannel.^[18]

WIBW-TV first signed its second digital subchannel on the air on September 5, 2006 as a primary affiliate of MyNetworkTV and a secondary affiliate of the multicultural television network Colours TV. In September 2009, WIBW-DT2 became a secondary affiliate of This TV, carrying a mix of syndicated programming to fill select evening time periods otherwise occupied by feature film content from the network.

The subchannel disaffiliated from This TV on September 10, 2012, and switched its secondary affiliation to MeTV (both networks were owned at the time by Weigel Broadcasting). MeTV programming airs on WIBW-DT2 during the late morning, afternoon and overnight hours as well as much of the weekend schedule outside of late afternoon and evening timeslots. In a September 5 interview with The Topeka Capital-Journal, then-WIBW-TV general manager Jim Ogle cited that the station chose to switch 13.2's secondary affiliation to allow leverage in scheduling local newscasts and sports programs onto the subchannel, as the vast majority of MeTV programs run either 30 minutes or an hour in length, in comparison to the feature-length movies aired by This TV. Most of the syndicated programming aired on the subchannel was dropped by September 2014, when WIBW-DT2 began clearing most of the MeTV schedule outside of the first two hours of prime time on weeknights that are occupied by MyNetworkTV content.^[19] As of 2021, MyNetworkTV programming now airs in the late night slot at 1:00 a.m CT.^[20]

Programming

WIBW-DT2 primarily carries MeTV programming. As of September 2019, MyNetworkTV programming was moved from prime time to overnight hours.

Notable former on-air staff

• Gary Bender – former play-by-play announcer for the NFL on CBS and NBA on CBS
• Kevin Harlan – summer sports intern (1979); now at CBS Sports and Westwood One radio
• Mike Jerrick – anchor/reporter; now at Fox News Channel
• Gordon Jump – later actor, known for his role in WKRP in Cincinnati
• Bill Kurtis – reported on 1966 Topeka tornado, more well-known as journalist and news personality later
• Steve Physioc – sports anchor; later served as play-by-play announcer for Kansas City Royals radio and television broadcasts
• Russ Ptacek – morning anchor/reporter (1988–1993); now at VNI Television and documentary filmmaker.
• Devin Scillian – anchor/reporter; now at WDIV-TV in Detroit, and a children's author and country singer
• Fred White – sports anchor; also former broadcaster for Kansas City Royals baseball games

Awards

WIBW-TV has won numerous awards for numerous newscasts and reporting throughout its history:^[24]

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

WIBW-TV signed on its digital signal on UHF channel 44 in 2002. The station shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 13, on February 16, 2009, the day prior to the original date on which full-power television stations in the United States were set to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later rescheduled for June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 44 to VHF channel 13.^[26][27][28] However, since the transition, some viewers in urban areas of the Topeka market have experienced difficulty receiving the station's channel 13 signal over-the-air. On December 7, 2009, the FCC granted WIBW a construction permit to build transmitter facilities for a fill-in digital translator on the station's pre-transition UHF digital channel 44.^[29]