CBS programming will shift from WISH to WTTV in 2015

For Central Indiana TV viewers, the news Monday that WISH-8 will lose its longtime CBS network affiliation was as jolting as if Washington Street were being renamed.

WISH has been the home of The Eye, as the CBS logo is known, for 58 years. And the change marks the first time a network TV station like WISH has been left without a major network affiliation in Indianapolis since the days of rabbit-ear antennas in the 1950s.

"It's startling, to say the least," said Tom Cochrun, a retired former news director at WISH. "It's not something you would ever have anticipated."

CBS Corp. said it's switching its network programming from WISH to the Tribune Broadcasting-owned WTTV-4 on Jan. 1.

The switch will make WTTV, the onetime Bloomington-based independent station that now broadcasts a lineup of old sitcoms and other reruns, a top three Indianapolis station. It will gain CBS programming that includes Indianapolis Colts games, PGA golf including the Masters, the NCAA college basketball tournament, plus top prime-time evening shows such as "NCIS" and "The Big Bang Theory."

The fate of WISH is up in the air. Local management and the station's owner, Lin Media of Austin, Texas, which is being sold to Media General of Richmond, Va., wouldn't comment on the de-affiliation.

WISH's options include finding another notable network with which to affiliate — an unlikely occurrence — or going independent. WISH's owner also could opt to sell the station, which — without a major network affiliation — would command much less in the market.

"Channel 8 has now been devalued considerably," said David L. Smith, a professor emeritus at Ball State University's Department of Telecommunications.

Industry experts said the sticky issue of network reverse retransmission payments was behind the station switch. WISH's owner had been renegotiating its affiliation contract with CBS and was apparently unwilling to ante up the kind of affiliate payments that CBS demanded, according to several industry sources.

"Lin was kind of playing hardball on how much they were willing to pay and perhaps did not take seriously" CBS' demands, said Rick Gevers, an Indianapolis agent for on-air TV talent.

In the past, networks would pay local affiliates to broadcast their national programming. Instances of networks switching to another station were rare, Cochrun said.

But "we're now in a digital age where people are watching on demand in their own time. Those old models just don't have the same clout they used to," he said.

Networks are demanding that affiliates pay more for expensive national programming. The fees are coming out of increasing payments that affiliate stations receive from cable companies.

"They're asking for more money (from affiliates) every year," Smith said.

"They're fighting over pretty good revenue," said Kevin Finch, a former Indianapolis TV news director who teaches journalism at Washington & Lee University in Virginia.

He said he thinks CBS is using WISH as an example to other local TV stations of what might happen if they resist CBS' demands for higher reverse retransmission payments.

Tribune Broadcasting President Larry Wert said Channel 4 will get its own news team. That could cost several million dollars a year to build and operate in a TV market the size of Indianapolis, the nation's 26th largest.

Tribune also owns the Fox network-affiliated WXIN (Fox 59) in Indianapolis but isn't likely to tap its newsroom for news programming to put on WTTV, he said.

Call Star reporter Jeff Swiatek at (317) 444-6483. Follow him on Twitter: @JeffSwiatek.