INDIANAPOLIS – September 24, 2020 – DuJuan McCoy, owner, president, and CEO of Circle City Broadcasting, and Ravi Kapur, owner of WRJK-TV, today announced an agreement to broadcast WISH-TV’s News 8 live in the Chicago, Illinois market (Nielsen DMA 3).
WRJK will carry more than 80 weekly hours of News 8 broadcasts in the Chicago and Northwest Indiana region. The expansion will bring WISH-TV’s News 8 to more than 800,000 Hoosiers in Jasper, Lake, LaPorte, Newton, and Porter counties – counties in which Indiana voters do not currently receive Indiana based news. Additional dayparts on WRJK will feature national news programming from Michigan-based NewsNet.
“WRJK is elated to partner with WISH-TV & NewsNet to provide Chicago;s only 24/7, over-the-air news channel,” said Kapur. “This is part of our longstanding commitment to underserved communities in the region.”
“NewsNet has been working with WRJK in to bring 24-hour news to Chicago since our launch in early 2019,” added Eric Wotila, owner of NewsNet. “We’re thrilled to be expanding our partnerships with both WRJK and WISH-TV to add regional news coverage to the existing national news programming available from Chicago’s NewsNet affiliate.”
WISH-TV is Indiana’s only single-source, statewide news network. With the addition of WRJK, WISH-TV’s News 8 will expand its reach to include more than 11.6 million viewers in the Indianapolis (DMA 25), Chicago (DMA 3), and South Bend/Elkhart (DMA 99) markets.
“This is a continuation of my goal to bring the quality and legacy of WISH-TV’s News 8 from the capital city of
Indianapolis to all television markets in the state of Indiana,” said McCoy, an Indianapolis native and graduate of Butler University. “There are still an estimated 405,000 Hoosiers that currently receive their local news from non-Indiana television stations including 16 counties in Southeast Indiana (Cincinnati and Louisville DMAs), and we are working toward closing that gap soon.”
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WISH-TV has set the standard for television excellence in Central Indiana since 1954. The station has been honored as “Television Station of the Year” by the Indiana Broadcasters Association, for its “Overall Excellence” by the Edward R. Murrow Awards, and as “Outstanding News Operation,” “Outstanding Weather Operation,” “Best Newscast,” and “Best Website” by the Indiana Associated Press Broadcast Association. WISH-TV offers viewers 77 hours per week of local news and local programming and provides around-the-clock information on its digital platforms. WISH-TV is locally owned and operated by Circle City Broadcasting, and is an affiliate of The CW network. The station serves more than one million households.