WNDU TV: История телеканала из Саут-Бенда

NBC affiliate in South Bend, Indiana

WNDU TV (channel 16) is a television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Elkhart licensed Heroes & Icons affiliate WSJV (channel 28). The two stations share studios on the campus of WNDU TV's founding owner the University of Notre Dame along State Road 933 on South Bend's north side; WNDU TV's transmitter is located southeast of the St. Joseph County Fairgrounds on the city's south side. The station's studios also house production facilities for the syndicated agricultural news programs AgDay and U. S. Farm Report, the former of which is broadcast locally by WNDU TV; WNDU TV's weather department provides the forecasts seen on those shows.

The station first signed on the air on July 15, 1955, originally broadcasting on UHF channel 46. WNDU TV was owned by the Michiana Television Corporation, a subsidiary of the University of Notre Dame. The station took its call letters from WNDU radio (1490 AM and 92.9 FM, now WNDV FM), which were also owned by the university until 1998. However, like its radio sisters, it operated as a full fledged commercial station rather than a non profit public broadcaster (which is standard, and much like fellow NBC affiliate KOMU TV in Columbia, Missouri, was and still is; after WNDU TV was sold, this left KOMU and WVUA CD/WVUA in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, as the only commercial TV stations owned by a university). In 1957, to much fanfare, WNDU TV moved to UHF channel 16. The station immediately took the NBC affiliation from WSJV (channel 28) and has been with the network ever since. WNDU TV's early broadcast schedule included programs like Romper Room and the first local telecast of a Notre Dame football game. WNDU aired the children's program Sesame Street from 1970 until February 1974, when non commercial PBS member station WNIT (channel 34) signed on the air. From 1967 to 1986, WNDU aired Beyond Our Control, a locally produced sketch comedy program, which was presented as part of the station's involvement in the Junior Achievement program. The studio at State Road 933 and Dorr Road opened in 1982. On October 18, 1995, as a result of the affiliation changes in the South Bend market, WSJV switched to Fox (it disaffiliated from Fox in 2016 and is now a primary Heroes & Icons affiliated station) and W58BT signed on as an ABC affiliate; it eventually became WBND. WNDU was one of the two stations that retained its network affiliation (the other was WSBT TV, which retained its affiliation with CBS). On November 24, 2005, the University of Notre Dame entered into an agreement to sell the station to Gray Television for $85 million in an all cash deal, with the university placing the money received from the sale in an endowment. The sale closed on March 5, 2006, after which the Federal Communications Commission granted Gray a cross ownership waiver for WNDU and Goshen based newspaper The Goshen News. This was necessary because the FCC prohibits the common ownership of a newspaper and a television station in the same market (Gray eventually spun off the Times and four other newspapers the following year into a new company called Triple Crown Media, which was subsequently merged with Host Communications). WNDU TV was named station of the year by the Indiana Broadcasters Association for 2015 and 2016. In September 2015, Gray Television announced that it would purchase Schurz Communications for $442.5 million; Schurz had owned WSBT TV since it began broadcasting in December 1952. Despite WSBT TV's higher ratings, Gray kept WNDU and sold WSBT TV to expedite approval of the deal; on October 1, 2015, Gray announced that WSBT TV would be swapped to Sinclair Broadcast Group for WLUC TV in Marquette, Michigan. The FCC approved the sale on February 12, 2016; the transaction would be completed four days later. On February 1, 2021, Gray Television announced its intent to purchase Quincy Media, owner of Heroes & Icons affiliate WSJV, for $925 million in a cash transaction. As WSJV is lower ranked than the top four stations in ratings in the South Bend market, Gray sought a failing station waiver to permit common ownership of both WSJV and WNDU TV. The sale was completed on August 2.

As an NBC affiliate, WNDU TV is the home station for the network's broadcast of Notre Dame football home games. It produces and airs its own pregame show, Countdown to Kickoff, which airs prior to every Notre Dame football home game broadcast on NBC. The station also airs reruns of Inside Notre Dame Football and Inside Notre Dame Basketball, a review show of Notre Dame athletic teams that is produced by Fighting Irish Media at the University of Notre Dame. Due to an increased focus on news programming, WNDU TV made room for a three hour Saturday morning newscast in 1994, by airing NBC's teen oriented program block TNBC in early hours of Saturday and Sunday mornings to fulfill E/I guidelines. WNDU currently airs the network's The More You Know programming block for two of the three hours on Saturday with the final hour airing on Sundays at 7 a. m. In addition, the station's primary channel preempts the Saturday edition of Today for its Saturday morning newscast with the program airing on its second digital subchannel instead; the primary channel airs the Sunday edition of Today on a one hour delay in order to accommodate its Sunday morning newscast. Prior to its move to Peacock on September 12, 2022, WNDU aired the soap opera Days of Our Lives one hour later than most NBC affiliates at 2 p. m. local time.

Under Notre Dame's ownership, WNDU opted not to air certain NBC programs out of concerns over inappropriate content. Such shows included the animated series God, the Devil and Bob (for content offensive to the religious values of the university) and the American version of the British sitcom Coupling (due to the program's sexual content). The latter series instead aired on WSBT DT2, then South Bend's UPN affiliate, on Thursday nights after UPN programming. Neither show was renewed for a second season. The station also aired the Notre Dame commencement address of President Barack Obama in full on May 17, 2009 (four years after the university sold the station), in lieu of the first half of a Stanley Cup Playoff game.

WNDU TV broadcasts a total of 38 1/2 hours of local newscasts each week (with 6 1/2 hours each weekday, four hours on Saturdays and two hours on Sundays). WNDU TV used a helicopter for its news gathering purposes from the 1980s through 2006. On April 21, 2010, starting with its noon newscast, WNDU became the second television station in the South Bend market (behind WSBT TV) to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. On September 4, 2018, WNDU debuted a 4 p. m. newscast. as of 2024, there were twelve people on the news team and five on the weather team, in addition to there being a sports journalist team.

WNDU TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 16 on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre transition UHF channel 42, using virtual channel 16. As part of the SAFER Act, WNDU TV kept its analog signal on the air until March 3 at 7 p. m. to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.