WFIE
WFIE is the NBC-afifliated television station for the Tri-State area of Southwestern Indiana, Northwestern Kentucky and Southeastern Illinois that's licensed to Evansville, Indiana. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 46 (mapping to virtual channel 14 via PSIP) from a transmitter in the Wolf Hills section of Henderson, Kentucky. Owned by Raycom Media, the station has studios on Mount Auburn Road in Evansville. Syndicated programming on WFIE includes: Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, and America Now.
History
WFIE was granted a construction permit on June 10, 1953, and began broadcasting on November 15, 1953 on analog UHF channel 62. The station, Indiana's sixth, was originally co-owned by Jesse, Isadore, and Oscar Fine.
WFIE was the first station to be based in Evansville, while WEHT's studios, then as now, were located across the Ohio River in Henderson, Kentucky, though it is licensed to Evansville.
WFIE was originally a primary NBC outlet with secondary ABC (shared with WEHT) and DuMont affiliations. Both of those networks were dropped in August 1956 with the launch of WTVW (which took ABC) and the shutdown of DuMont. This left WFIE as a full-time NBC affiliate. It is the only station in the market to have never changed its primary affiliation; as such, WFIE, along with WISE-TV (which signed on six days after WFIE) in Fort Wayne, are the longest-tenured NBC affiliates in the state of Indiana. Also in 1956, WFIE became the area's first station to telecast color programming (by virtue of its NBC affiliation).