WBXI-CD

This article is about the Class A TV station in Indianapolis. For the WBXI that is now WBNG-DT2, see WBNG-TV.

WBXI-CD

Indianapolis, Indiana United States
Channels	Digital: 36 (UHF) Virtual: 47
Branding	WBXI-CD Indianapolis
Programming
Affiliations	47.1: Start TV for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	CBS News and Stations (CBS Mass Media Corporation)
History
Founded	August 23, 1989 (1989-08-23)
First air date	1990 (1990)
Former call signs	W47AZ (1990–2001) WBXI-CA (2001–2015)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 47 (UHF, 1990–2015) Digital: 47 (UHF, 2015–2019)
Former affiliations	The Box (1990–2001) MTV2 (2001–2004 and 2004–2007) UPN (via WNDY-TV, 2004) MTV Tres (2007–2014) Local Weather (2014–2017) Decades (2018)
Call sign meaning	The Box Indianapolis (former affiliation)
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	70416
Class	CD
ERP	15 kW
HAAT	268.6 m (881 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	39°53′39.2″N 86°12′20.5″W
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	wbxica.cbslocal.com

WBXI-CD (channel 47) is a low-power, Class A television station in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, broadcasting programming from the digital multicast network Start TV. Owned and operated by the CBS News and Stations group, the station has a transmitter on Walnut Drive in northwestern Indianapolis.

History

The station first signed on the air in 1990 as W47AZ. Originally serving as an affiliate of the viewer-request music video network The Box, the station changed its call letters to WBXI-CA in 2001; that year, the station switched to MTV2 following that network's acquisition by Viacom, which acquired WBXI-CA. For a few months in 2004, channel 47 served as a repeater of then-sister station and UPN affiliate WNDY-TV (channel 23, now a MyNetworkTV affiliate); this ended when Viacom's Television Stations Group (now CBS News and Stations) subsidiary sold WNDY-TV to the LIN TV Corporation, owners of then-CBS (now CW) affiliate WISH-TV (channel 8), in February 2005.

Unexpectedly, Viacom retained ownership of WBXI-CA, before spinning it off to CBS Corporation in December of that year, following CBS' split from the former company; Viacom retained ownership of the MTV Networks; however, the station maintained its MTV2 affiliation.

In 2007, the station switched to MTV2's Spanish-language sister network MTV Tr3s. This would end in 2014 upon the expiration of its last carriage contract, when WBXI would switch to continuous weather information.

On January 1, 2018, WBXI began carrying programming from CBS/Weigel Broadcasting's Decades, with a local hour of the weather loop remaining weekdays at 7:00 a.m. On September 3, 2018, WBXI-CD launched CBS/Weigel's new network Start TV, dropping Decades. Decades shifted over to WSDI-LD2. The station transitioned to ViacomCBS ownership in December 2019.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of WBXI-CD

Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
47.1	1080i	16:9	StartTV	Start TV
47.2	480i		Catchy	Catchy Comedy
47.3			Story	Story Television
47.4			Movies!	Movies!
47.5	720p		TCT	Tri-State Christian Television

Analog-to-digital conversion

WBXI-CA maintained a construction permit to shut down its analog signal and flash cut its digital signal into operation on UHF channel 47 on September 1, 2015. The station turned on its digital signal on August 21, 2015, and ceased operations of its analog signal on September 1, 2015, the mandatory date for Class A stations to cease operations.