WPTA (channel 21) is a television station in Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States, affiliated with ABC, NBC, and MyNetworkTV.

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.

In 1957, the station aired a spin-off of American Bandstand called Teen Dance and the afternoon kids show Popeye and the Rascals.

On May 12, 1983, Gannett sold WPTA (along with WLKY in Louisville, Kentucky) to Pulitzer Publishing for an undisclosed amount after it purchased WLVI in Boston from Field Communications and WTCN-TV (now KARE) in Minneapolis from Metromedia.

[2] On March 9, 2005, after Granite bought NBC affiliate WISE-TV, it sold WPTA to the Malara Broadcast Group for $45.3 million.

A local marketing agreement (LMA) was established whereby Granite would provide operational services to WPTA and Malara's other new station KDLH in Duluth, Minnesota.

Additionally, Fort Wayne has only six full-power stations (only four of which are licensed as commercial outlets), which at the time were too few to legally allow duopolies in any case.

After emerging from bankruptcy in the summer of 2007, Granite stock was taken over by the privately owned hedge fund Silver Point Capital of Greenwich, Connecticut.

According to the same article, Granite planned to sell its properties to other parties and many of its stations laid off employees or cut salaries up to 20 percent.

WPTA decided to create a new second digital subchannel to simulcast "WBFW" and offer access to CW programming for over-the-air viewers.

On September 28, 2007, WPTA unveiled a 3D version of its "21 Alive" logo to commemorate the station's 50th anniversary, in conjunction with ABC's new image campaign but did not fully switch to it until August 4, 2008.

On February 11, 2014, Quincy Media agreed to purchase WPTA from the Malara Broadcast Group as part of a deal to purchase Granite Broadcasting's stations in four markets (the other stations were KBJR-TV in Superior, Wisconsin, and its satellite KRII in Chisholm, Minnesota, WEEK-TV in Peoria, Illinois, and WBNG-TV in Binghamton, New York).

[3] In November 2014, the deal was reworked to remove SagamoreHill from the transaction, with Quincy acquiring WISE, and WPTA remaining with Malara.

[4] In July 2015, the deal was reworked yet again; it reverted to its previous structure, with Quincy and SagamoreHill acquiring WPTA and WISE respectively.

During that time, Wes Sims and Harry Gallagher served as co-anchors with meteorologist Bill Eisenhood and sports anchor Tom Campbell.

In November 2005, after several months of using the "Alive" news brand on both stations, WPTA debuted a new set in its second studio formerly used to tape public-affairs programs such as Impact.

This was most easily attributed to continued viewer resentment towards WPTA and Granite for the elimination of WISE-TV's news department and arguably its identity and history.

Part of the plan to win back viewers included new technology such as text messaging, an improved website with more online video, and upgrading weather equipment to a VIPIR system.

With the September 2006 change to MyNetworkTV on WISE-DT2 and the addition of The CW on WPTA's second digital subchannel, the show (known as Indiana's NewsCenter Prime News) became part of those channel's schedules through a simulcast.

In September 2009, Granite began producing a pre-recorded weeknight prime time newscast at 10 p.m. on sister MyNetworkTV affiliate WMYD in Detroit, replacing a similar production by the Independent News Network The broadcast featured news anchor Melissa Long, chief meteorologist Curtis Smith, sports director Dean Pantazi, and a group of Detroit-based reporters.

[14] This plan was effectively maintained after the decision to transfer WISE-TV's NBC affiliation to WPTA-DT2, for which Quincy will produce a separate news product from that of the main channel.

Construction on an addition to the WPTA studios commenced in the spring of 2016, and Quincy subsequently posted job listings for news personnel.

This includes two studio spaces with matching control rooms at opposing ends of a larger newsroom shared by the WPTA-ABC and WPTA-NBC news teams.

Built by the FX Group, WPTA's new set was rolled out to Quincy stations WREX, KBJR-TV, KWWL, WEEK-TV and WKOW later in the year.

Late that month, two anchors from South Bend sister station WSJV were transferred to WPTA for its impending newscasts on the NBC subchannel.

In September, amid further changes to WPTA's anchor teams, former WSJV reporter Alexis Gray began as evening co-anchor and Leach returned to the station as chief meteorologist.

With the relaunch of a full slate of newscasts on WPTA-DT2 on November 21, 2016, a total of 50+1⁄2 hours per week of news content aired on WPTA channels 21.1 and 21.2.

[21] The station was again nominated for the News Excellence Emmy and won the award in the categories of Evening Newscast and Investigative Reporting (series).

[35] On October 17, 2022, following Gray's acquisition of the station, WPTA-DT2 began simulcasting the main subchannel's morning newscasts in place of producing its own.