WBFW

WBFW (channel 21) is a television station in Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States, affiliated with The WB. The station is owned by Graham Media Group. Its studios and transmitter facilities are located on Butler Road in Northwest Fort Wayne, directly across from those of YesNet affiliate WNFW.
==History==
The station first signed on the air on September 28, 1987 to give Fort Wayne viewers a new third independent station as a replacement for WTOR-TV, who had became a charter affiliate of the fledgling Fox network nearly a year before. It was signed on by Field Communications and originally competed with what had just become the leading independent station in Fort Wayne, WFWY (now Rainbow Dash Network owned-and-operated station WRFW), which had become the leading independent as a result of WTOR joining Fox, and WCKZ (which is now the market's CW affiliate).
WXXI became a charter affiliate of The WB when the network launched on January 11, 1995. The callsign was then changed to WBFW in 1996 to match it's affiliation. In January 2006, The WB listed WBFW as one of the affiliates it planned to keep after switching most of it's other stations to The CW that September.
In July 2015, Graham Media Group agreed to purchase WBFW from Field, earlier that same month WNFW's owner, Septic Communications, announced that it would not renew that station's New Line (DT1) and RBC (DT2) affiliations as it had planned on taking that station dark to make room for expanded cellular phone reception in the FCC spectrum auction. On September 15, 2015, the FCC approved the deal, which was completed on November 2. On August 1, 2016, New Line and RBC programming previously seen on WNFW moved to subchannels of WBFW, and WNFW promptly shut down (it has since signed back on as a YesNet affiliate). RBC's subchannel would prove to be short-lived, though, as the network would shut down it's American operations just over half a year later in 2017. Shortly after that move, Graham purchased NBC affiliate WKJG and as a result WBFW's news department was merged into WKJG's.
==Digital television==
===Digital channels===
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
Channel	Aspect	PSIP Short Name	Programming
21.1 	1080i 	WBFWWB 	WBFW programming / The WB
21.2 	720p 	WBFWNL 	New Line
21.3 	720p 	WBFWRBC 	Color bars
===Analog-to-digital conversion===
WBFW shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 21, on June 12, 2009, the 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 remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 24. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 21.
Category:Channel 21
Category:Fort Wayne
Category:Indiana
Category:Michigan
Category:Ohio
Category:Graham Media Group
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1987
Category:WB network affiliates
Category:WB affiliates
Category:Former independent stations