WCLJ-TV


WCLJ-TV, virtual channel 42, is an Ion Plus owned-and-operated television station serving Indianapolis, Indiana, United States that is licensed to Bloomington. The station is owned by West Palm Beach, Florida-based Ion Media Networks, as part of a duopoly with Ion Television owned-and-operated station WIPX-TV. The two stations share offices on Production Drive in southwestern Indianapolis and transmitter facilities on SR 252 in Trafalgar, Indiana.

History

The station first signed on the air on August 27, 1987 and was built and signed on by the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
TBN entered into an option agreement with Ion Media Networks on November 14, 2017, which gave Ion the option to acquire the licenses of WCLJ-TV and three other TBN stations that had sold their spectrum in the Federal Communications Commission 's spectrum auction; Ion exercised the option on May 24, 2018. The sale was completed on September 25, 2018, creating a duopoly with existing Ion Television station WIPX-TV. Ion immediately moved Ion Life to the station in order to provide the network with full-market coverage equivalent to that of WIPX-DT1.

Digital television

Digital channel

On June 1, 2015, JUCE and Smile of a Child were consolidated into a single network on the third subchannel to accommodate the addition of a new network, TBN Salsa, on the fifth subchannel where Smile of a Child used to reside. As a result of the change, children's programming that previously aired on Smile of a Child was carried on 42.3 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. On April 1, 2018, the channel switched off its non-shared signal, leaving it to air only on its new frequency shared with WIPX-TV.

Analog-to-digital conversion

WCLJ-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 42, on February 17, 2009, earlier than the June 12, 2009 official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 56, which was among the high band UHF channels that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era frequency, UHF channel 42.