WLFI-TV

CBS affiliate in Lafayette, Indiana

WLFI TV (channel 18) is a television station in Lafayette, Indiana, United States, affiliated with CBS and The CW Plus. Owned by Allen Media Broadcasting, the station maintains studios on Yeager Road in West Lafayette; its transmitter is located on County Road 700 in rural northwestern Clinton County (southwest of Rossville).

The station first signed on the air at 6 p. m. on June 15, 1953, as WFAM TV, broadcasting on UHF channel 59. It was founded by O. E. Richardson, owner of radio station WASK (1450 AM). The station originally operated as a primary CBS and DuMont affiliate. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network. WFAM TV's transmitter had originally broadcast at low power, making it unreceivable in parts of west central Indiana outside of the immediate Lafayette area. Out of its original 20 person staff, only one person had any experience in television; the rest were radio personalities who pulled double duty. In 1957, both the television station and the radio station were sold to assistant station manager Henry Rosenthal and his partners, who filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to move WFAM TV to channel 18, but the station instead went dark in May 1959. Rosenthal sold the station to Sarkes Tarzian, a radio manufacturer based in Bloomington, which also owned primary NBC/secondary ABC and DuMont affiliate WTTV (now a CBS affiliate) in Indianapolis and ABC affiliate WPTA in Fort Wayne. It was Tarzian who finished the relocation to channel 18, returning WFAM TV to the air on that channel on November 15 of that year. On March 21, 2014, Media General announced that it would merge with LIN Media in a $1.6 billion deal. The merger was completed on December 19. Nexstar Broadcasting Group announced on January 27, 2016, that it would merge with Media General in a $4.6 billion acquisition; it then announced on June 13, 2016, that it would sell WLFI TV and four other stations to Heartland Media, through its USA Television MidAmerica Holdings joint venture with MSouth Equity Partners, for $115 million, to comply with FCC ownership caps following the merger. WLFI was one of the Lafayette area's two commercial network television broadcasters between its launch in 1953 and the 2016 launch of WPBI LD, a Fox and NBC affiliate; the other station was WTTK (channel 29), a satellite station of WTTV that began broadcasting in 1988. Cable providers have long supplemented the area with stations from Indianapolis. Comcast Xfinity dropped the Indianapolis stations from its lineup on March 7, 2018, but resumed carriage of NBC affiliate WTHR and ABC affiliate WRTV two days later.

WLFI TV carries the entire CBS network schedule; however, it airs the CBS Dream Team lineup in two blocks—with the first two hours airing on Saturday mornings (leading into the Saturday edition of CBS Mornings, which itself airs two hours later than most CBS stations that carry the broadcast) and the final hour airing on Sunday mornings.

WLFI TV presently broadcasts 22 1/2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with four hours each weekday, 1 1/2 hours on Saturdays and one hour on Sundays); unlike most CBS affiliates in the Eastern Time Zone, the station's early evening newscast at 5 p. m. runs only for a half hour, with the station opting to run syndicated programs during the 5:30 p. m. half hour. Even after cable systems began piping in Indianapolis stations in the 1970s, the station's newscasts have performed well in the ratings; its success was largely attributed to the longevity of most of its news staff, some of whom had been at the station for over 20 years, including former anchors Jeff Smith and Chris Morisse, sports anchor Larry Clisby and meteorologist Steve Scherer. In September 2012, WLFI became the third television station in Central Indiana to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition; as part of the upgrade, the station unveiled a new graphics package (a modified version of the package used by CBS owned and operated station WBBM TV in Chicago from when it upgraded its newscasts to high definition in 2008 until 2010) and a new set for its newscasts.