Joining, leaving and rejoining Fox
WFFT became a charter affiliate of Fox at the network's launch on October 9, 1986, and was branded as "Super 55 Fox" in the early to mid 1990s; the station was carried on cable providers in the southeastern portion of the South Bend market during that time, as that region lacked a Fox affiliate until WSJV affiliated with network in October 1995. The station moved away from local productions in the mid-1990s. WFFT's programming—apart from the required Fox schedule—was centered around syndicated fare including daytime talk and court shows, and reruns of network sitcoms. After the launch of UPN on January 16, 1995, WFFT began carrying the fledgling network through a secondary affiliation. The network's programming eventually moved to CBS affiliate WANE-TV (channel 15) full-time on a new second digital subchannel by the mid-2000s; when UPN and rival netlet The WB were shut down to form a combined network in 2006, WPTA gained the resulting CW+ affiliation for its own subchannel. WFFT changed its on-air branding from "Fox 55" to "Fox Fort Wayne" on January 1, 2008, to reflect its various cable channel positions in the market.
Fox announced on June 20, 2011, that it would end its affiliation with WFFT and sister station KSFX-TV (now KOZL-TV) in Springfield, Missouri; its Fort Wayne affiliation moved to MyNetworkTV affiliate WISE-DT2 on August 1. Nexstar had earlier lost the Fox affiliation for WTVW in Evansville, Indiana, following a dispute with the network over retransmission consent fees that it wanted its stations to pay to the network.[5][6] WFFT, along with WXIN in Indianapolis, had been the longest-tenured Fox affiliates in Indiana (Nexstar later voluntarily disaffiliated another Indiana station, WFXW—now WAWV-TV—in Terre Haute, from Fox in favor of switching the station's affiliation back to ABC, the network it was affiliated with until 1995).
On July 25, 2011, Nexstar Broadcasting filed an antitrust lawsuit against Granite Broadcasting, claiming that the company tried to monopolize advertising sales through its shared services agreement with WPTA (owned by Malara Broadcast Group) and the five network affiliations shared between WPTA and WISE-TV (WPTA carries ABC on its primary channel and The CW on a second digital subchannel, while WISE-TV carries NBC on its primary channel as Fox and MyNetworkTV shared that station's second digital subchannel). Nexstar sought a judgment to force either WPTA-TV or WISE-TV to give up at least one of the three Big Four affiliations they had[7] (the impetus of the lawsuit became ironic as Nexstar, which itself maintains outsourcing agreements with stations it does not own outright in most of the markets where it does own a TV outlet, later created a virtual quadropoly composed of four network-affiliated stations in Little Rock, Arkansas, through its 2012 acquisition of 15 stations from Newport Television).[8]
WFFT reverted to independent status on August 1, 2011, which made Fort Wayne one of the only television markets in the United States with all three legacy broadcast networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) with primary affiliations, and all three current post-1986 networks (Fox, The CW and MyNetworkTV) carried as digital multicast channels in a market with four commercial full-power stations. As an independent, the station filled its prime time schedule with a mix of entertainment newsmagazines and sitcoms on weeknights, a two-hour "Saturday Crimetime" block of police procedural series on Saturdays and family movies on Sundays.[9] On February 6, 2013, as part of a settlement of Nexstar's lawsuit against Granite, the company announced that the Fox affiliation would return to WFFT; the switch was effectively reversed on March 1, 2013, making WFFT the only former Fox affiliate owned or managed by Nexstar that was affected by the 2011 dispute with Fox to rejoin the network.[10][11][12] The first Fox program to air on WFFT when it rejoined the network was an episode of Kitchen Nightmares.
Nexstar announced on June 13, 2016, that it would sell WFFT-TV and four other stations to Heartland Media, through its USA Television MidAmerica Holdings joint venture with MSouth Equity Partners, for $115 million. The sale was required as part of Nexstar's planned merger with Media General to comply with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ownership caps; Media General was the owner of rival WANE-TV.[13] In early March 2018, the station removed the "Local" branding originated during its Nexstar ownership and independent period, returning to the previous "Fox 55" branding.
On October 1, 2019, Allen Media Group agreed to purchase 11 stations, including WFFT-TV, from Heartland Media for $290 million. The sale was approved by the FCC on November 22, 2019, and was completed on February 11, 2020.[14]
On June 1, 2025, amid financial woes and rising debt, Allen Media Group announced that it would explore "strategic options" for the company, such as a sale of its television stations (including WFFT).[15][16] On August 8, 2025, it was announced that AMG would sell 10 of its stations, including WFFT, to Gray Media for $171 million; in the Fort Wayne market, this would create a triopoly with WPTA and WISE.[17]
