Circle City Broadcasting has struck an agreement with two of the largest streaming cable television alternatives in the market to bring its flagship channel to their platforms by the end of the year, The Desk has learned.
On Monday, executives confirmed WISH-TV (Channel 8, the CW Network) will be offered on Google-owned YouTube TV and Disney’s Hulu with Live TV by the end of the year. Financial terms of the distribution agreement were not disclosed.
Circle City has owned WISH-TV since it was spun out of Nexstar Media Group in 2018 as part of the larger broadcaster’s deal to acquire Tribune Media. At the time, Tribune owned Cleveland’s Fox affiliate WXIN (Channel 59) and operated CBS affiliate WTTV (Channel 4), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prohibited one company from owning more than two stations in a single TV market.
WISH served as the CBS affiliate for Indianapolis until 2014, when the affiliation moved to WTTV as part of a sizable shake-up in the local TV market. WISH has operated as the local CW Network affiliate since 2015, but has not been offered on YouTube TV or Hulu with Live TV. Instead, Indianapolis-area subscribers of both services have been offered a national feed of CW Network programming, which is operated by Nexstar.
The addition of WISH means every major commercial television station in the Indianapolis market will have a presence on YouTube TV, and most will be offered on Hulu with Live TV. On its own, WISH-TV produces 85 hours of local television news each week, and airs the most local news — 14 hours — during the weekday.
