WACR-TV

WACR-TV, virtual channel 17 (UHF digital channel 52), is a Fox-affiliated television station licensed to Crystalville, Indiana, United States. The station is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group.

As a Fox affiliate
On July 29, 1994, Burnham Broadcasting sold WACR-TV to SF Broadcasting – a joint venture of Savoy Communications and the Fox Broadcasting Company, then a division of News Corporation – for $38 million; the company later sold four of its other five stations (WLUK-TV in Green Bay, KHON-TV in Honolulu, WVUE in New Orleans and WALA-TV in Mobile) for $229 million on August 25 (a sixth Burnham station, KBAK-TV in Bakersfield, California, was excluded from the deal and was instead spun off to Westwind Communications, a new company that was formed by several former Burnham executives). As a result of the deal, SF Broadcasting announced that the four stations would become Fox affiliates; both Savoy and Fox shared ownership with Fox originally choosing to hold voting stock, ultimately opting not to retain it prior to the closure of the sale of the stations. The purchase was challenged by NBC, which filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on September 23, 1994, alleging that News Corporation had improperly set up a shell corporation to circumvent FCC limits on the amount of monetary capital that a foreign company is allowed to invest in an American television station in order to gain control of WACR. NBC later withdrew its petition against the acquisition on February 17, 1995. The FCC approved the WACR purchase on April 27, 1995.