WIFS (TV)


WIFS, virtual channel 57, is an Ion Plus-affiliated television station serving Madison, Wisconsin, United States that is licensed to Janesville. The station is owned by Byrne Acquisition Group. WIFS' studios are located on Syene Road on Madison's far south side, and its transmitter is located in the city's Middleton Junction section.

History

As a UPN/WB/CW affiliate

The station's original construction permit was granted on May 2, 1998 with the call letters WJNW. After a few delays and an aborted attempt to become Wisconsin's first digital-only broadcast TV outlet, the station, now under the WHPN call sign, would begin analog broadcasting on channel 57 in the summer of 1999, with partial test airings occurring the week before the station's full-time launch on July 5, 1999. The location of its then-transmitter, outside the Rock County community of Evansville, accorded WHPN to serve as the UPN affiliate for both the Madison and Rockford TV markets. Prior to WHPN's launch, UPN programming in Madison had aired on CBS affiliate WISC-TV on a secondary basis.
In the spring of 2002, after WHPN's owners had declared bankruptcy, the station's assets were acquired by ACME Communications, a station group run by Jamie Kellner, a founder of The WB network and former CEO of that network and TBS. Though they would not close on the acquisition until the end of 2002, ACME took over operations immediately through a local marketing agreement. The most evident change resulting from ACME's takeover was a network affiliation swap with WISC-owned cable channel/digital subchannel TVW the final week of August 2002; at that time, TVW became Madison's UPN affiliate, while WHPN joined The WB and adopted a new call sign, WBUW.
In 2004, WBUW moved its transmitter to a new tower located on property owned by Gray Television and next to the studios of Gray-owned WMTV in the Greentree neighborhood of Madison's southwest side. The stronger signal the new tower provided WBUW allowed the station's coverage reach to extend throughout south-central Wisconsin and well into Northern Illinois, allowing WBUW to remain Rockford's default WB affiliate until the launch of The CW in September 2006, when Rockford's WREX-TV added The CW to its secondary subchannel.
In March 2006, WBUW was confirmed as Madison's affiliate of The CW, the result of the WB and UPN networks amalgamating. WBUW, branded as "Madison's CW," was one of eight ACME-owned WB affiliates who joined The CW as a group at the network's September 2006 launch.
On December 13, 2011, ACME announced a deal to sell WBUW to Byrne Acquisition Group; the $1.8 million transaction was part of ACME's gradual exit from the TV business. The deal, which was approved by the Federal Communications Commission and consummated in February 2012, gave the Byrne Group its second TV property. The Byrne Group would rebrand WBUW from "Madison's CW" to "CW 57" later in 2012. By that time, it would also subsequently upgrade the station's master control and begin an expansion of locally focused content. By 2015, the station would add its first two digital subchannels, a number that would grow to eight by 2019.

As an independent station

An affiliation agreement announced by The CW and Gray Television in December 2015 included the addition of the network to the DT2 subchannel of Gray-owned Madison NBC affiliate WMTV. WMTV-DT2 formally joined The CW on September 12, 2016, when WBUW's 10-year affiliation deal with the network, reached by then-owner ACME Communications at the network's 2006 launch, reached its expiration. The September 10 airing of The CW's One Magnificent Morning E/I block was the final CW program on WBUW.
On-air wise, WBUW would begin its post-CW transition during the first quarter of 2016, when it first applied a simple "Channel 57" brand to its local programming. During its last week as a CW affiliate, it unveiled a new branding of "Wisconsin's 57 Television", and would adopt a new call sign to go along with that brand—WIFS—on December 1, 2016. WIFS would retain its mix of locally produced and syndicated programming as an independent, mostly utilizing the latter to fill the prime time void left by The CW's departure.

As an Ion Plus affiliate

On February 1, 2019, WIFS added a ninth digital subchannel, affiliated with Ion Television, whose programming had been carried for the two years prior to that on WISC-DT3. That same day, primary channel 57.1 added a round-the-clock feed of Ion's sister network, Ion Life. The changeover was done without any advance word to viewers or local media. The only social media announcement occurred two days after WIFS joined Ion, when the station's Facebook profile picture change to the default Ion Television logo.
The unusual placement of Ion Plus on WIFS' main channel and Ion on a subchannel preserves the station's contractual obligations for its other subchannels. It also gives Ion Plus an advantageous exposure: In some markets where it owns and operates stations, network parent Ion Media has employed a strategy since 2018 to acquire a second station, keep Ion on one station's primary channel, and move Ion Plus to the newly acquired signal, thereby taking advantage of stations' must-carry provisions required of local cable/satellite providers. With WIFS' must-carry status, Ion Plus has equal footing on Madison's pay TV lineups with Ion's national feed. It also makes WIFS the first full-powered station not owned or operated by Ion Media to carry Ion Plus on its primary channel.
The 2019 addition of Ion Plus to channel 57.1 meant the displacement from WIFS of all syndicated programs, local features, and local advertising. Jessa Jeremiah, who had been the station's general manager and an on-air host, confirmed to the Northpine.com website that she and station manager Tony Virga were among those no longer employed at WIFS. Jeremiah then assured viewers the lifestyle programming that had been produced through WIFS would relaunch in February 2019 as a part of the schedule of TVW, WISC's MyNetworkTV-affiliated subchannel, either as originally titled or under different names. A handful of the syndicated content WIFS had carried would also move to TVW that same February.

Digital television

Digital channels

As WBUW, the station would begin multiplexing its signal with its first two digital subchannels in the summer of 2015, carrying the Weigel Broadcasting-owned Movies! and Heroes & Icons. After becoming WIFS, the station would add two more subchannels in the first quarter of 2017, the QVC shopping channel and the American Sports Network. In May 2018, WIFS would add three more channels, carrying the Katz Broadcasting-owned Laff, Escape, and Grit. Another Katz-owned channel, Bounce TV, would replace Stadium in December 2019. WIFS carries nine programming streams, the most of any full- or low-powered TV station in the state of Wisconsin.
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
57.1480iIONPLUSMain WIFS programming / Ion Plus
57.2480iMOVIES!Movies!
57.3480iH&IHeroes & Icons
57.4480iBOUNCEBounce TV
57.5480iQVCQVC
57.6480iLAFFLaff
57.7480iMYSTERYCourt TV Mystery
57.8480iGRITGrit
57.9720pION HDIon Television

Analog-to-digital conversion

WIFS discontinued programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 57, on February 17, 2009, the original target date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. From February 17, the analog station acted as a "nightlight", broadcasting a loop of digital transition instructions until signing off for good the first week of March 2009.
WBUW's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 32. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 57, which was among the high band UHF channels that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the digital transition. As part of the FCC's reallocation and repackaging of station signals, WIFS relocated to UHF channel 21 on October 18, 2019.

Programming

Just prior to joining Ion Life in February 2019, WIFS' programming schedule included syndicated series Access Live, The Doctors, and TMZ as well as The King of Queens, How I Met Your Mother, and Bones. The station also carried live college football and basketball broadcasts from the ACC Network, Chicago Bears preseason football, and tape-delayed broadcasts of Madison Radicals ultimate and Notre Dame Fighting Irish football. WIFS also featured nighttime second airings of Dr. Phil, The Dr. Oz Show, and Entertainment Tonight, all three of which air earlier in the day on other Madison stations.

Local news and features

In September 2003, WBUW launched The WB57 Nine O'Clock News, a 35-minute, Monday-thru-Friday newscast produced in partnership with the news operations at NBC affiliate WMTV. Geared toward The WB's younger, female-skewing audience, the newscast offered what WBUW station manager Tom Keeler called "a different energy" than that found on other newscasts in Madison. Presented with anchors standing in a desk-free studio, WBUW's newscast featured a fast-paced format that largely emphasized entertainment and lifestyle features. Nightly email contests and sweeps-month "free gas giveaways" were also included, as were in-studio performances by local musicians during Friday editions of the newscast. Never gaining notice against competing 9 p.m. newscasts on WMSN-TV and UPN14, WBUW canceled The WB57 Nine O'Clock News and its news-share relationship with WMTV in December 2005, restoring syndicated programming to the time slot.
At the beginning of 2007, local content on WBUW resumed in the form of "Buzzed Into Madison." Airing each day during WBUW's broadcasts of The Daily Buzz, the "Buzzed Into Madison" vignettes included "positive" features on Madison-area news, events, and personalities, as well as features with and promotions from station sponsors. The success of "Buzzed into Madison" would lead ACME Communications, The Daily Buzzs then-producer, to permit other Daily Buzz affiliates to insert their own local segments if they so desired. Emmy Fink served as the original host and producer of "Buzzed into Madison," doing so from the feature's 2007 launch until she departed WBUW in June 2011. "Buzzed" would air on a limited basis in the subsequent 12 months, with content that included entertainment previews from the Isthmus newspaper and, during the 2011-2012 academic year, a series of "junior reporters" from area schools, with a different student reporter each month.
When it acquired what was then WBUW in 2012, The Byrne Group would begin a gradual yet eventually significant expansion of the station's local content, using an advertiser-friendly approach similar to that used by its South Carolina sister station. Such local content would occupy significant blocks of WIFS' non-syndicated daily schedule until its move to Ion Plus, featuring discussion programs, sporting events, and other content that featured station sponsors, other businesses, and community/non-profit organizations from Madison and Southern Wisconsin.
Programs produced at WIFS would include the following over the years :
;Entertainment and lifestyle programming
;Sports broadcasts
Tape-delayed, in-their-entirety broadcasts of the following sporting events: