The new construction permit, initially held by Indianapolis Television—a consortium of shopping mall and Indiana Pacers co-owner Melvin Simon, his brother Fred, and Gerald Kraft—took the call letters WSMK and was initially planned as a subscription television operation, but the expansion of cable TV made such operation impractical by 1983. That year, 80 percent of the stock in the company was sold to locally based Anacomp, Inc.; Melvin retained 10 percent, while his other brother, Herbert Simon, bought a 10 percent stake. The $800,000 acquisition produced capital to be invested in the construction of the station. Anacomp was headed by Ron Palamara, while one of the vice presidents in Anacomp was Chris Duffy, who had been the general manager at WTHR for five years before joining Anacomp in 1981. Their names and that of Simon formed the basis for the station's new call sign of WPDS-TV.