MONEY

WPBI begins news broadcast, launches ABC affiliate

Emma Ea Ambrose
Journal & Courier

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Star City Broadcasting, a new media company, recently aired its first newscast. The inaugural newscast ran on Monday.

Star City Broadcasting owns television channels WPBI NBC 16 and WPBI Fox 16 in addition to four radio stations.  The new media company also recently announced it will launch a local ABC affiliate. When established, WPBI’s newscast will run on that station as well.

The newscast covers events in the Greater Lafayette market. Chris Morisse Vizza will serve as the station’s news director. She has worked as a journalist within Greater Lafayette for more than 25 years.

"I am excited to be part of the Star City News startup and to have this opportunity to provide in-depth perspective on the issues, events and decisions that affect people in the Greater Lafayette area," Vizza said.

Sarah Blakely, a 2012 graduate of Purdue University, will serve as anchor. She will host the broadcast out of a studio in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Tom Comerford, WPBI’s general manager, said the broadcast is filling a necessary hole in the local market in terms of news coverage. He added that as Lafayette grows it makes more sense to have local network affiliates, instead of those out of Indianapolis.

“Lafayette is growing up; it’s time for it to have its own affiliates,” Comerford said.

For a town the size of Lafayette, he continued, there is no reason to have Indianapolis affiliates running programming locally.

“No one in Indianapolis ever cared about Lafayette unless something really bad happened there,” Comerford said, who previously worked in Indianapolis.

As far as coverage of sporting events goes, Comerford said that is largely up to the networks. During football season CBS tends to air Indianapolis Colts games, while Fox airs Chicago Bears games.

Coverage of away games will depend on what the networks elect to broadcast, but that has always been the case, Comerford continued.

“We would lean towards having Bears and Colts games when we can get them. We try to have as much influence on it as possible,” he said.

Local, live coverage of the Indy 500 might also be possible in the future.

“The race will be on ABC. … My gut is telling me it could still be blacked out. We will fight to have it live,” Comerford said.

The manager added that the local ABC channel will launch sometime in July, at which point the Indianapolis station carrying ABC will likely disappear, just as the Fox station has. Although some cable providers still carry both the Lafayette and Indianapolis NBC affiliates, Comerford said this will likely change soon.

The focus right now for WPBI is growing their newscast, getting more reporters on the ground and attracting more local advertisers.

Star City Broadcasting is still in negotiations with DirecTV, as the cable provider has not yet picked up the affiliates.

“We’re growing, little by little,” Comerford said. “We’re kind of the new kid in town.”

Reach Journal & Courier reporter Emma Ea Ambrose at eambrose@gannett.com or 765-431-1192.