WCLJ-TV (channel 42) is a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...

licensed to

Bloomington, Indiana Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County, Indiana, Monroe County in the central region of the U.S. state of Indiana. It is the List of municipalities in Indiana, seventh-largest city in Indiana and the fourth-largest outside ...

, United States, serving the

Indianapolis Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...

area as an affiliate of the digital multicast network

Bounce TV Bounce TV is an American digital multicast television network owned by Katz Broadcasting, a subsidiary of E. W. Scripps Company. Promoted as "the first 24/7 digital multicast broadcast network created to target African Americans", the channel fe ...

. It is owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings alongside

Ion Television Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented enter ...

affiliate

WIPX-TV WIPX-TV (channel 63) is a television station licensed to Bloomington, Indiana, United States, serving the Indianapolis area as an affiliate of Ion Television. It is owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings alongside Bounce TV affiliate WCLJ-TV (channel ...

(channel 63, also licensed to Bloomington). WCLJ-TV and WIPX-TV share offices on Production Drive (near

I-74 } Interstate 74 (I-74) is an Interstate Highway in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States. Its western end is at an interchange with I-80 in Davenport, Iowa (Quad Cities); the eastern end of its Midwest segment is at an interchange ...

I-465 Interstate 465 (I-465), also known as the USS ''Indianapolis'' Memorial Highway, is the beltway circling Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. It is roughly rectangular in shape and has a perimeter of approximately . It lies almost complet ...

) in southwestern Indianapolis; through a channel sharing agreement, the two stations transmit using WIPX-TV's spectrum from an antenna on SR 252 in

Trafalgar, Indiana Trafalgar is a town in Nineveh and Hensley townships, Johnson County, Indiana, United States. The population was 1,101 at the 2010 census. This town is south of Indianapolis. It is the home of the transmitters for WTTV, WTTS, WSOM and WHZN ...

History

The station was built by the

Trinity Broadcasting Network The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) is an international Christian-based broadcast television network and the world's largest religious television network. TBN was headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, until March 3, 2017, when it sold its ...

(TBN) and first signed on the air on August 27, 1987. TBN entered into an agreement with

Ion Media Networks Ion Media (formerly known as Paxson Communications Corporation and Ion Media Networks) was an American broadcasting company that owned and operated over 71 television stations in most major American markets (through its television stations group ...

on November 14, 2017, which gave Ion the option to acquire the licenses of WCLJ-TV and three other TBN stations that had sold their spectrum in the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

(FCC)'s

spectrum auction A spectrum auction is a process whereby a government uses an auction system to sell the rights to transmit signals over specific bands of the electromagnetic spectrum and to assign scarce spectrum resources. Depending on the specific auction form ...

. Ion exercised the option on May 24, 2018. The sale was completed on September 25, 2018, creating a

duopoly A duopoly (from Greek δύο, ''duo'' "two" and πωλεῖν, ''polein'' "to sell") is a type of oligopoly where two firms have dominant or exclusive control over a market. It is the most commonly studied form of oligopoly due to its simplicit ...

with existing

station

. Ion immediately moved Ion Life (later Ion Plus) to the station in order to provide the network with full-market coverage equivalent to that of WIPX-DT1. On February 27, 2021, the date Ion Plus ceased broadcasting, WCLJ switched to

, sharing the affiliation with WNDY-DT2.

Technical information

Subchannel

On June 1, 2015,

JUCE JUCE is an open-source cross-platform C++ application framework, used for the development of desktop and mobile applications. JUCE is used in particular for its GUI and plug-ins libraries. It is dual licensed under the GPLv3 and a commercial l ...

and

Smile of a Child Smile (shortened from its former name of Smile of a Child) is an American Christian free-to-air television network owned and operated by the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The network is aimed at children between the ages 2 to 12, and offers ...

were consolidated into a single network on the third subchannel to accommodate the addition of a new network,

TBN Salsa TBN Salsa is an American Christian-based digital broadcast television network owned by the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The network offers a mix of religious and family-oriented programming aimed at English-speaking Hispanic Americans (serving a ...

, on the fifth subchannel where Smile of a Child used to reside. As a result of the change, children's programming that previously aired on Smile of a Child was carried on 42.3 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. On April 1, 2018, the channel switched off its non-shared signal, leaving it to air only on its new frequency shared with

Analog-to-digital conversion

WCLJ-TV shut down its analog signal, over

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

channel 42, on February 17, 2009, earlier than the June 12, 2009 official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 56, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era frequency, UHF channel 42.

References

External links

Bounce TV affiliates Mass media in Indianapolis Television channels and stations established in 1987 1987 establishments in Indiana CLJ-TV {{Indiana-tv-station-stub