WPTA first signed on the air on September 28, 1957. It was founded by Sarkes Tarzian, an Indianapolis engineer whose company owned Bloomington's WTTV and several other stations in Indiana. The WPTA call letters come from the long tradition of other Tarzian stations, including once former sister station WPTH, that base the call letters upon the initials of family members of company management. 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).
1961–1969
SVG NEEDED
1969–1971
SVG NEEDED
1971–1973
SVG NEEDED
1973–1978
SVG NEEDED
On April 4, 1973, Tarzian sold the station to Combined Communications for $3.6 million. Under new management, WPTA purchased new cameras and a more modern switcher. On June 7, 1979, Combined merged with the Gannett Company.
1978–1986
On July 3, 1978, WPTA replaced its Eyewitness News format for its newscasts with the "Alive" (as "21 Alive") format, originating from a studio doubling as the station's newsroom; WXIA-TV in Atlanta is another former Combined station that currently uses the "Alive" brand, though it abandoned the open newsroom concept in the early 1980s.
On May 12, 1983, Gannett sold WPTA (along with WLKY in Louisville, Kentucky) to Pulitzer Publishing for an undisclosed amount after it purchased WLVI-TV in Boston from Field Communications and WTCN-TV (now KARE) in Minneapolis from Metromedia. This was because the WLVI-TV and WTCN purchases put Gannett with two stations over the Federal Communications Commission's seven-station ownership limit for television stations that was in effect at the time. The station was sold again to Granite Broadcasting on September 25, 1989, for $22.15 million.
1986–1995
BETTER LOGO NEEDED
1996–1997
SVG NEEDED
1997–2016
1997–2005 (primary); 2005–2008 (secondary)
1997–2005
SVG NEEDED
2005–2008
SVG NEEDED
2008–2013
2013–2016
SVG NEEDED
2016–present
2016–2022
In a YouTube post on October 19, 2016, WPTA announced it would re-brand as "ABC 21" on November 7. With the rebranding, WPTA retired the "Alive" brand after 38 years.
2022–present
2022–2024
On October 12, 2022, the station posted a fall promo video to its Facebook page; it shows a revised logo without the ABC logo, and "ALIVE" where the station's call sign currently sits, teasing a brand revert in time for the November sweeps. On October 17, 2022, the station returned to the "21Alive" brand ahead of a planned reconsolidation of its news product across all of its subchannels.
