on June 13, 2016, that it would sell WLFI-TV and four other stations to Heartland Media, through its USA Television MidAmerica Holdings joint venture with MSouth Equity Partners, for $115 million, to comply with FCC ownership caps following the merger. WLFI was one of the Lafayette area's two commercial network television broadcasters between its launch in 1953 and the 2016 launch of WPBI-LD, a Fox and NBC affiliate; the other station was WTTK (channel 29), a satellite station of WTTV that began broadcasting in 1988. Cable providers have long supplemented the area with stations from Indianapolis. Comcast Xfinity dropped the Indianapolis stations from its lineup on March 7, 2018, but resumed carriage of NBC affiliate WTHR and ABC affiliate WRTV two days later. Programming WLFI-TV carries the entire CBS network schedule; however, it airs the CBS Dream Team lineup in two blocks—with the first two hours airing on Saturday mornings (leading into the Saturday edition of CBS Mornings, which itself airs two hours later than most CBS stations that carry the broadcast) and the final hour airing on Sunday mornings. Syndicated programs broadcast by WLFI-TV include Dr. Phil, Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. News operation WLFI-TV presently broadcasts 22½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with four hours each weekday, 1½ hours on Saturdays and one hour on Sundays); unlike most CBS affiliates in the Eastern Time Zone, the station's early evening newscast at 5:00 p.m. runs only for a half-hour, with the station opting to run syndicated programs during the 5:30 p.m. half-hour. Even after cable systems began piping in Indianapolis stations in the 1970s, the station's newscasts have performed well in the ratings; its success was largely attributed to the longevity of most of its news staff, some of whom had been at the station for over 20 years, including former anchors Jeff Smith and Chris Morisse, sports anchor Larry Clisby and meteorologist Steve Scherer Steve Scherer - Purdue University. In September 2012, WLFI became the third television station in Central Indiana to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition; as part of the upgrade, the station unveiled a new graphics package (a modified version of the package used by CBS owned-and-operated station WBBM-TV in Chicago from when it upgraded its newscasts to high definition in 2008 until 2010) and a new set for its newscasts. Notable former on-air staff Jane King