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WILX-TV (channel 10) is a
television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth's s ...
licensed to
Onondaga, Michigan Onondaga is an unincorporated community in the U.S. state of Michigan. The community is located within Onondaga Township in Ingham County. As an unincorporated community, Onondaga has no legally defined boundaries or population statistics of its ...
, United States, serving as the
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
affiliate for the
Lansing Lansing () is the capital city of the U.S. state of Michigan. The most populous city in Ingham County, parts of the city extend into Eaton County and north into Clinton County. It is the sixth-most populous city in Michigan with a popul ...
area. Owned by
Gray Media Gray Media, Inc., doing business as Gray Television, is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 statio ...
, the station maintains studios on American Road (near
I-96 Interstate 96 (I-96) is an east–west Interstate Highway that runs for approximately entirely within the Lower Peninsula of the US state of Michigan. The western terminus is at an interchange with US Highway 31 (US 31) and B ...
) in Lansing, and its transmitter is located in Onondaga. It is also rebroadcast on
WLNM-LD WLNM-LD (channel 29) is a low-power television station in Lansing, Michigan, United States. It is a translator of Onondaga-licensed NBC affiliate WILX-TV (channel 10) which is owned by Gray Media. WLNM-LD's transmitter is located on River Stree ...
(channel 29) in the immediate Lansing area. The second VHF frequency in south-central Michigan was assigned to Onondaga, almost halfway between Lansing and
Jackson Jackson may refer to: Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Queensland, a locality in the Maranoa Region * Jackson South, Queensland, a locality in the Maranoa Region * Jackson oil field in Durham, ...
, in 1954. This triggered a battle among five groups from Lansing and Jackson which sought the channel. Two of them had operated unsuccessful
UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...
stations in the Lansing area: Lansing Broadcasting, owner of radio station
WILS WILS (1320 AM broadcasting, AM) is a commercial radio, commercial radio station in Lansing, Michigan. It is owned by MacDonald Broadcasting and airs a talk radio radio format, format. It features a local news department and a mixture of local ...
and former owner of WILS-TV (channel 54), and
Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...
(MSU), owner of
WKAR-TV WKAR-TV (channel 23) is a PBS member television station licensed to East Lansing, Michigan, United States, serving central southern Michigan. The station is owned by Michigan State University (MSU) and operated as part of WKAR Public Media, alo ...
(channel 60). The two groups jointly presented the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
with a proposal, believed to be the first of its kind, to share time between a commercial station and an MSU-operated educational station. After several years of legal battles at the FCC and in Michigan court, channel 10 began broadcasting on this basis on March 15, 1959. The commercial station was WILX-TV, an NBC affiliate owned by the Television Corporation of Michigan, a group with close ties to WILS, with its main studio in Jackson. It leased the transmitter facility from MSU, which operated an educational station for 38 hours a week as WMSB. The arrangement lasted more than 13 years and was ended in 1972, when MSU built the present WKAR-TV on channel 23. Television Corporation of Michigan sold WILX-TV to A-T-O Communications, later Figgie Communications, in 1978, in the first of five sales in 25 years. The station, long an also-ran in market news ratings, made its first credible showing by poaching sportscaster Tim Staudt from long-dominant WJIM-TV (channel 6, now
WLNS-TV WLNS-TV (channel 6) is a television station in Lansing, Michigan, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which provides certain services to dual ABC/ CW+ affiliate WLAJ (channel 53) under a shared services agr ...
). WILX-TV pulled nearly even, though it continued to be hamstrung by the increasing split of station personnel and resources between Lansing and Jackson. After channel 6 poached two senior executives from channel 10 in 1986, the station's news ratings decreased during the ownership of Adams Communications and Brissette Broadcasting. Under those two companies, the station migrated all of its operations to Lansing in two phases between 1990 and 1993. WILX overtook WLNS for the first time in the final months of
Benedek Broadcasting Benedek Broadcasting was a television broadcasting company that owned and operated 22 network-affiliated television stations throughout the United States, all affiliated with major television networks, serving mainly small and medium-size markets. ...
ownership before Gray acquired the station in 2002. Its local newscasts have continued to be competitive in the market, regularly trading the ratings lead with WLNS.


Allocation and construction of channel 10

In 1953, two companies—Sparton Broadcasting and the Jackson Broadcasting and Telecasting Corporation—requested that the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
(FCC) assign channel 10 to
Parma, Michigan Parma is a village in Jackson County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 780 at the 2020 census. The village is divided into three sections with boundaries in Parma Township and Sandstone Charter Township. History Parma was ...
, while a third—Triad Association—requested its assignment to the nearby community of
Onondaga Onondaga may refer to: Native American/First Nations * Onondaga people, a Native American/First Nations people and one of the five founding nations of the Iroquois League * Onondaga (village), Onondaga settlement and traditional Iroquois capit ...
, south of
Lansing Lansing () is the capital city of the U.S. state of Michigan. The most populous city in Ingham County, parts of the city extend into Eaton County and north into Clinton County. It is the sixth-most populous city in Michigan with a popul ...
. The commission made the assignment to Parma and Onondaga in January 1954, denying a competing bid to place channel 10 at Coldwater. The site was necessary to maintain proper spacing to other channel 10 stations at
Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...
;
Columbus, Ohio Columbus (, ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Ohio, most populous city of the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 United States census, 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the List of United States ...
; and
London, Ontario London is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River (Ontario), Thames River and N ...
. With the assignment in place, the FCC took applications for channel 10. Booth Radio and Television Stations (owner of Jackson radio station
WIBM WIBM (1450 AM) is a country music station in Jackson, Michigan owned by Jamie McKibbin, through licensee McKibbin Media Group, Inc. This company also owns news/talk WKHM AM 970 and hot AC WKHM-FM "K105.3". Current programming includes synd ...
), Triad, and Jackson Broadcasting and Telecasting (owner of Jackson radio station WKHM) all applied. The fourth bid came from the Television Corporation of Michigan (TCM), a firm with close ties to Lansing Broadcasting, owner of Lansing radio station
WILS WILS (1320 AM broadcasting, AM) is a commercial radio, commercial radio station in Lansing, Michigan. It is owned by MacDonald Broadcasting and airs a talk radio radio format, format. It features a local news department and a mixture of local ...
. At the time, WILS was operating WILS-TV (channel 54), an early
ultra high frequency Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...
(UHF) station. The fifth and final applicant for channel 10 was
Michigan State College Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the c ...
, which sought approval to build a commercial station. The college was already experienced in educational television. It owned the Lansing area's other UHF television station,
WKAR-TV WKAR-TV (channel 23) is a PBS member television station licensed to East Lansing, Michigan, United States, serving central southern Michigan. The station is owned by Michigan State University (MSU) and operated as part of WKAR Public Media, alo ...
(channel 60). In September 1954, TCM and Michigan State College combined their bids after the former company made a proposal for a shared-time operation, Under the new proposal, the college would build the facility and lease it to Television Corporation of Michigan. The two groups, each with separate licenses, would broadcast at different times each day; the Michigan State station would be on air 38 hours a week, only slightly less than WKAR-TV was operating. The proposal came at a time when both groups were disappointed by their UHF television stations in Lansing. WILS was selling channel 54, while Michigan State officials had discovered viewers were not buying the converters needed to view UHF stations at the rate they had hoped, crimping the effectiveness of channel 60. According to John Pomeroy, president of WILS and TCM, the Michigan State–TCM petition called for the station to broadcast with the maximum high-band VHF power of 316,000 watts from a tower. This would provide at least secondary coverage within of Parma–Onondaga, including Lansing proper. In 1955, Armand L. Hunter, the director of educational television at Michigan State College, noted that the existing operation of channel 60 did not justify the $300,000 annual expense to operate it. The college's entrance into the channel 10 proposal led to some concern by state legislators that Michigan State was entering into competition with private broadcasters; college officials stated that the station would not be built with tax dollars and that the university would recoup its investment in the form of lease payments to Television Corporation of Michigan. FCC hearings in the long-running case concluded in October 1956. Hearing examiner Annie Neal Huntting handed down her initial decision on March 7, 1957. It favored the joint bid of Michigan State (which had recently been elevated to university status) and the Television Corporation of Michigan. The losing applicants mounted nearly two years of appeals to the FCC and Michigan courts. The matter was heard by the commission in April 1958; Booth, Triad, and Jackson Broadcasting and Telecasting argued the proposed station would feature a "mish-mash" of cultural and commercial programs, citing the scheduling of programming on world philosophy next to ''
The Lone Ranger The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked former Texas Ranger who fought outlaws in the American Old West with his Native American friend Tonto. The character has been called an enduring icon of American culture. He first appeared in 1933 in a ...
''. In May 1958, the FCC denied the appeals and awarded a tentative
construction permit Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. House building permits, for example, are subject to bu ...
to Michigan State University for the construction of the channel 10 facility. With this tentative approval in hand, MSU shut down WKAR-TV on channel 60 the next month, with president John A. Hannah announcing the university would not return to the air until channel 10 was completed. MSU received formal FCC approval for channel 10 after a split commission decision on September 3. The university signaled it would be able to provide educational television programs in a much wider area from channel 10 than it had from channel 60. The companies initially planned to telecast under the call letters they had used on the UHF band—WILS-TV and WKAR-TV—but the FCC assigned them the call signs WFTV and WMSB, respectively. The WFTV designation was quickly changed to WILX-TV. The university swung into the process of taking bids for construction. Its progress was soon halted by continued appeals from the losers, this time in Michigan courts. Acting on a petition from the Jackson Broadcasting and Telecasting Corporation, a circuit judge in Jackson enjoined MSU from awarding construction contracts in late October. The Jackson firm's petition contended that the MSU plan to issue
revenue bond A revenue bond is a special type of municipal bond distinguished by its guarantee of repayment solely from revenues generated by a specified revenue-generating entity associated with the purpose of the bonds, rather than from a tax. Unlike gener ...
s to finance construction and pay them back with the proceeds from the lease to Television Corporation of Michigan violated the Michigan state constitution and a condition on legislative appropriations to the university. MSU emerged victorious when the circuit judge lifted his temporary restraining order, and the FCC denied last appeals made by Jackson Broadcasting and Telecasting. During construction, on January 9, 1959, a 28-year-old tower worker from
Decatur, Illinois Decatur ( ) is the largest city in Macon County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. The city was founded in 1829 and is situated along the Sangamon River and Lake Decatur in Central Illinois. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ...
, fell to his death when rigging gave way.


The shared-time years

Channel 10 debuted on March 15, 1959. WMSB was the first station to greet viewers with a dedication program from its East Lansing studios, but high winds caused the microwave link to be unreliable and the picture to be described as "jumpy" by the ''
Jackson Citizen Patriot ''Jackson Citizen Patriot'' is a daily newspaper published in Jackson, Michigan. Since 2012, the ''Citizen Patriot'' has been published at AnnArbor.com printing facility in Ann Arbor Ann Arbor is a city in Washtenaw County, Michigan, Unit ...
''. Later that afternoon, after a 90-minute outage when wind knocked down a power line, WILX-TV made its debut from its studio in Jackson, inside the former coffee shop of the Hotel Hayes. The station was an
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
affiliate, with a schedule incorporating 30 network programs not previously seen in the Lansing area. It was reportedly the first shared-time operation between a commercial broadcaster and an educational broadcaster in the nation. In June, WILX opened its second local studio, in Battle Creek's Wolverine Tower. The final appeal by Jackson Broadcasting and Telecasting against the channel 10 arrangement was dismissed by the
Michigan Supreme Court The Michigan Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is Michigan's court of last resort and consists of seven justices. The Court is located in the Michigan Hall of Justice at 925 Ottawa Street in Lansing, the s ...
in 1960. WILX received FCC approval to build a new radio station in Jackson, which began broadcasting as WJCO (1510 AM) on January 19, 1963. The new radio station briefly shared channel 10's facility in the Hotel Hayes. That May, Television Corporation of Michigan broke ground on a studio complex on Springport Road in Blackman Township, to which WILX-TV moved that October. The original broadcasting schedule between the stations was modified in 1965 to permit WILX-TV to air ''
The Huntley-Brinkley Report ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...
'' while granting WMSB additional time on Sundays and Mondays. In 1968, Michigan State University and WMSB each experienced a change in leadership. Robert Page became the university station's new manager shortly before
Clifton R. Wharton Jr. Clifton Reginald Wharton Jr. (September 13, 1926 – November 16, 2024) was an American university president, corporate executive, and United States deputy secretary of state. In his multiple careers, he was an African-American pioneer. Earl ...
was named MSU's new president. By that time, circumstances in public broadcasting and UHF reception had changed. There was more programming available to public television stations in the wake of the
Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 () issued the congressional corporate charter for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a private nonprofit corporation funded by taxpayers to disburse grants to public broadcasters in the United St ...
, while the
All-Channel Receiver Act The All-Channel Receiver Act of 1962 (ACRA) (), commonly known as the All-Channels Act, was passed by the United States Congress in 1961, to allow the Federal Communications Commission to require that all television set manufacturers must incl ...
meant that all new TV sets could receive UHF stations. WMSB, barred from most evening broadcasting in its shared-time arrangement, could not reach a family audience; its early evening window, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., attracted few viewers against newscasts on competing stations. Page began to lobby Wharton and the MSU administration for a full-time public television station. The university filed for channel 23 in East Lansing in November 1970, and the FCC approved in 1971 after the university received a federal grant. MSU agreed to sell the Onondaga transmitting facility to Television Corporation of Michigan for $1.7 million, funding the university would use for capital improvements to its television facilities. On September 10, 1972, WMSB and the revived
WKAR-TV WKAR-TV (channel 23) is a PBS member television station licensed to East Lansing, Michigan, United States, serving central southern Michigan. The station is owned by Michigan State University (MSU) and operated as part of WKAR Public Media, alo ...
broadcast ''23 This Way'', a special celebrating the opening of the new educational station.


A-T-O and Adams ownership

Television Corporation of Michigan opted to sell its broadcast properties to separate buyers in 1978. WILX-TV was sold for $12 million to A-T-O Communications, a Los Angeles–based subsidiary of A-T-O Inc. in
Willoughby, Ohio Willoughby is a city in Lake County, Ohio, United States, along the Chagrin River. The population was 23,959 at the time of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. A suburb of Cleveland, it is part of the Greater Cleveland, Cleveland metropol ...
. The subsidiary had been formed the year prior and given $30 million to buy broadcast stations. A-T-O renamed itself Figgie International in 1981 because of confusion with French company ATO Chimie and the
Alpha Tau Omega Alpha Tau Omega (), commonly known as ATO, is an American social Fraternities and sororities, fraternity founded at the Virginia Military Institute in 1865 by Otis Allan Glazebrook. The fraternity has around 250 active and inactive chapters an ...
fraternity, and A-T-O Communications became Figgie Communications. Figgie never acquired any other broadcast stations, and it sold the station in 1983 to Stephen Adams of
Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
. In approving the transaction, the FCC rejected petitions from the Jackson city council and new Lansing independent station WFSL. The petitions concerned the relocation of the station's primary facilities from Jackson to Lansing. A clause in the sale agreement to Adams stipulated that the company build a new studio and office building in Lansing within two years. By that time, the station had long sought to move its operations to Lansing; most of its news staff was already based there. The studio project did not come to fruition at that time. Under A-T-O and Adams, WILX made its first move toward being competitive in the Mid-Michigan television market, long dominated by WJIM-TV (channel 6). While most of its news and sales staffers were based mostly in Lansing, its main studio was still in Jackson, away; the station ran three to four shuttles a day between the two cities. Mike Hughes of the ''
Lansing State Journal The ''Lansing State Journal'' is a daily newspaper published in Lansing, Michigan, owned by Gannett. It is the sole daily newspaper published in Greater Lansing. History The paper was started as the ''Lansing Republican'' on April 28, 1855, ...
'' described it as "the second station in a one-station town". In the late 1970s, channel 10 hired sportscaster Tim Staudt away from channel 6. Suddenly, WJIM-TV went from dominating WILX-TV three-to-one in the ratings to being nearly even. The station then hired a second WJIM-TV employee, newsman Howard Lancour, to serve as lead anchor and news director. Lancour, considered too old, was dismissed in 1983; by this time, its ratings were just narrowly behind WJIM. The station's competitive stretch waned after channel 6 was sold and renamed
WLNS-TV WLNS-TV (channel 6) is a television station in Lansing, Michigan, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which provides certain services to dual ABC/ CW+ affiliate WLAJ (channel 53) under a shared services agr ...
. Channel 6's new owners hired away general manager Ronald Kwasnick and general sales manager Thomas Hartman in 1986. While WILX posted its best total-day ratings shortly after their departure, using the programming purchased by Kwasnick, WLNS rebounded in ratings and maintained a solid lead in sales. Meanwhile, WILX fell off while WLNS entered into a "plush period" with high ratings for its newscasts.


Brissette and Benedek ownership

Adams Communications purchased the television station holdings of Wesray Capital Group in 1988, but the deal left Adams highly leveraged and ill-prepared to confront declines in the value of broadcast properties, prompting it to default on $283 million of debt in 1991. Brissette Broadcasting was formed the next year when Paul Brissette, who had been the vice president of Adams Communications's television stations division, bought out the business for $257 million. The financial and ownership changes at Adams coincided with a key move for WILX-TV. In 1990, the station built a studio and office on American Road in south Lansing, replacing an earlier office site on Pennsylvania Avenue. After an uncertain period in which Brissette put the station on the market and let key syndicated programs ''
Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead g ...
'' and '' Wheel of Fortune'' go, the station dropped its 5:30 p.m. newscast, and union troubles emerged, WILX-TV was taken off the market in 1993, and Brissette instead invested in expanding the American Road facility to serve as the station's only studio and reunite the staff split between Lansing and Jackson. The company hired away WLNS's general manager and made sports anchor Staudt the news director in addition to his anchoring duties. Brissette also hired anchors from larger markets to present the new, Lansing-based newscasts. Roger McCoy had been an anchor for
WKBD-TV WKBD-TV (channel 50), branded as CW Detroit 50, is a television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside WWJ-TV (channel 62), a CBS owned-and-operated station. ...
in Detroit, but the station was demoting him; Liz Talbot had been left without a job after
WVTV WVTV (channels 18 and 24) is a television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with The CW and owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. The station's studios are located on Calumet Road in the Park Place office park near the I-41 ...
in
Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...
shut down its news department. In 1995, the station reinstated its 5:30 p.m. news program and added a noon newscast. Brissette's group of stations was acquired by
Benedek Broadcasting Benedek Broadcasting was a television broadcasting company that owned and operated 22 network-affiliated television stations throughout the United States, all affiliated with major television networks, serving mainly small and medium-size markets. ...
in 1996. Under Benedek, the station's newscasts continued to rate in second place behind WLNS-TV. In 1998, citing an uncertain economy, general manager David Cornelius scrapped the noon newscast and converted several full-time staffers to part-time in an effort to cut costs; one official with the
United Auto Workers The United Auto Workers (UAW), fully named International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico) and sou ...
local that represented employees believed the cuts amounted to a
union-busting Union busting is a range of activities undertaken to disrupt or weaken the power of trade unions or their attempts to grow their membership in a workplace. Union busting tactics can refer to both legal and illegal activities, and can range anywhe ...
effort.


Gray ownership

In the early 2000s, financial problems developed at Benedek. The
early 2000s recession The early 2000s recession was a major decline in economic activity which mainly occurred in developed countries. The recession affected the European Union during 2000 and 2001 and the United States from March to November 2001. The United King ...
reduced ad sales and caused the company to be unable to pay interest on a set of bonds issued in 1996, prompting a filing for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, w ...
. Most of Benedek's stations, including WILX, were sold to Gray Communications Systems—today's Gray Television—of
Albany, Georgia Albany ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. Located on the Flint River, it is the county seat of Dougherty County, Georgia, Dougherty County, and is the sole incorporated city in that county. Located in Southwest Geo ...
. Just before Benedek's bankruptcy, WILX surpassed WLNS for first in local news in the February 2002 Nielsen ratings, which were affected by NBC's coverage of the
2002 Winter Olympics The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002 (; Gosiute dialect, Gosiute Shoshoni: ''Tit'-so-pi 2002''; ; Shoshoni language, Shoshoni: ''Soónkahni 2002''), were an international wi ...
. Three months later, the station followed that up with a solid performance even without the Olympics: the station won in the morning newscast as well as at 6 and 11 p.m. After Gray, the news department expanded by taking over news production duties for Fox affiliate
WSYM-TV WSYM-TV (channel 47) is a television station in Lansing, Michigan, United States, affiliated with Fox and MyNetworkTV. Owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, the station has studios on West Saint Joseph Street (along I-496) in downtown Lansing, an ...
, which disbanded its own independent newsroom in 2004. The relationship with WSYM-TV lasted more than 16 years until new owner The E. W. Scripps Company opted to reestablish its own news operation for the station in 2021. Under Gray ownership, WILX has added several newscasts and other local programs. A midday lifestyle show, ''Studio 10'', debuted in 2020; it went on hiatus in 2022 before returning the next year. A 4 p.m. news hour also returned in 2023. In 2020, Gray acquired
WLNM-LD WLNM-LD (channel 29) is a low-power television station in Lansing, Michigan, United States. It is a translator of Onondaga-licensed NBC affiliate WILX-TV (channel 10) which is owned by Gray Media. WLNM-LD's transmitter is located on River Stree ...
(channel 27), a low-power TV station in Lansing, from
Tri-State Christian Television Tri-State Christian Television, Inc., trade name, doing business as TCT Network and TCT Ministries (formerly Total Christian Television), is a religious broadcasting, religious television network in the United States. The network was founded in M ...
for $175,000; the deal included a five-year free lease for the Christian broadcaster to continue programming one of its subchannels. The low-power station serves mainly to improve WILX's reception in the few areas of the market without cable or satellite that lost access to the main WILX signal after the digital transition. In June 2024, WLNM moved to a new tower facility to improve reception.


Notable former on-air staff

*
Jim Brandstatter Jim Brandstatter (born ) is an American former sportscaster. He served as a radio announcer for the Michigan Wolverines football team from 1979 to 2021, and for the Detroit Lions from 1987 to 2017. Brandstatter is also a sports television show h ...
– sportscaster, 1975–1977 * Ahmed Fareed – sports anchor, 2004–2005 *
Chris Hansen Christopher Edward Hansen (born September 13, 1959) is an American television presenter, journalist, and YouTube personality. During his tenure as a correspondent for ''Dateline NBC'', he hosted the program's segment ''To Catch a Predator'' (20 ...
– reporter, 1981–1982 * Matt Morrison – sports anchor, 1990–1994 *
Dan Ponce Dan Ponce (born December 7, 1976, in Denver, Colorado) is an American television journalist for WGN-TV, radio talk show host on WLS/890 and founder of the a cappella group Straight No Chaser. Career and background Ponce's TV career began in 20 ...
– anchor/reporter, until 2006


Technical information


Subchannels

The station's signal is
multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource— ...
:


Analog-to-digital conversion

WILX-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 10, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition
UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...
channel 57, which was among the high-band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era VHF channel 10.


Notes


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilx-Tv 1959 establishments in Michigan Antenna TV affiliates Gray Media Heroes & Icons affiliates Ion Television affiliates MeTV affiliates NBC affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1959 ILX-TV True Crime Network affiliates