WPTA identified itself as "Roanoke–Fort Wayne" on-air until the license was officially transferred to Fort Wayne sometime in the 1970s. This was possible because the FCC had by this time allowed a station to have its main studio in a different location from its city of license. Under Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules at that time, the Fort Wayne market was deemed too small to support three full-power stations, so Tarzian's application listed WPTA's city of license as the small town of Roanoke, located just across the Allen– Huntington county line approximately 14 miles (23 km) to the southwest of its studios and transmitter in Fort Wayne. Upon its launch, channel 21 took all ABC programming from NBC affiliate WKJG-TV (channel 33, now WISE-TV) and CBS affiliate WANE-TV (channel 15). The WPTA call letters come from the long tradition of other Tarzian stations that base the call letters upon the initials of family members of company management-in this case, Tarzian's children, Patricia and Thomas. It was founded by Sarkes Tarzian, an Indianapolis engineer whose company owned Bloomington's WTTV and several other stations in Indiana. The station first signed on the air on September 28, 1957. WPTA is popularly known within the Fort Wayne metropolitan area by its longtime on-air brand, 21 Alive, which the station has used from 1978 to 2016 and since 2022. The two stations share studios on Butler Road in Northwest Fort Wayne, where WPTA's transmitter is also located. It is owned by Gray Television alongside CW+ affiliate WISE-TV (channel 33). WPTA (channel 21) is a television station in Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States, affiliated with ABC, NBC, and MyNetworkTV.
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