WJRT-TV

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WJRT-TV
Wjrt2007.png
Flint/Saginaw/Bay City, Michigan
Branding ABC 12 (general)
ABC 12 News (newscasts)
Slogan Your Trusted Source (news)
Your Weather Source (weather)
Channels Digital: 12 (VHF)
Subchannels (see article)
Affiliations ABC
Live Well Network (on DT2)
AccuWeather (on DT3)
Owner SJL Broadcasting, Inc.
(Flint License Subsidiary Corp.)
First air date October 12, 1958
Call letters' meaning Jewett Radio & Phonograph Co. (original owners) of radio station WJR, in Detroit owned by station's founders (with T added to stand for Television)
Former channel number(s) Analog:
12 (VHF, 1958-2009)
Digital:
36 (UHF, until 2009)
Transmitter power 30 kW
Height 286 metres (938 ft)
Facility ID 21735
Transmitter coordinates 43°13′49.5″N 84°3′31.7″W / 43.230417°N 84.058806°W / 43.230417; -84.058806
Website www.abc12.com

WJRT-TV, channel 12, (branded as ABC 12) is the ABC-affiliated station for the Flint/Tri-Cities television market, owned by SJL Broadcasting. Its studios are located in Flint, Michigan, with offices and a second newsroom for the Tri-Cities located in Saginaw. The station broadcasts with 30 kilowatts of power from a 286 metres (938 ft) high tower located on Burt Rd (near Bishop Rd) in Albee Township, Michigan. WJRT-TV is the only station in the Flint/Tri-Cities market that is headquartered in the city of Flint, and in turn tends to focus its local news stories on Flint and Genesee County, with a secondary emphasis on the Tri-Cities.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Ownership history

[edit] Goodwill

WJRT-TV is the only station in the market to have kept its original affiliation since sign-on. WJRT-TV was founded in 1958 by Goodwill Stations, the owner of WJR in Detroit at the time. That company won out over two other companies seeking to operate channel 12, the Trebit Corp. (which owned WFDF) and W.S. Butterfield Theatres, Inc. Channel 12 initially wanted to place its transmitter in Independence Township, Michigan. When it was learned that Independence Township was located in Oakland County, part of the Detroit television market, Goodwill settled on placing the tower in Albee Township; the transmitter remains there today. Once this was done, WJRT-TV went on the air on October 12, 1958, as an ABC network affiliate. WJRT-TV was the first Michigan television station outside of Detroit to go all-color in 1967.[1] Goodwill Stations took over the former WTAC-TV studios and offices after that station folded in 1954; WJRT remains there today.

[edit] Poole Broadcasting / Knight Ridder and first span under SJL Broadcasting

Goodwill Stations merged with Capital Cities Broadcasting (predecessor of Capital Cities Communications) in 1964, but WJRT-TV was spun off to Poole Broadcasting (owned by John Poole, a former Capital Cities stockholder) because the merged company was one VHF station over the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ownership limit of the time.[2] In April 1978, WJRT-TV along with the rest of Poole Broadcasting (which included WPRI-TV in Providence, Rhode Island and WTEN in Albany, New York) were sold to Knight Ridder. As soon as the acquisition of Poole Broadcasting was finalized, Knight Ridder made a corporate affiliation deal with ABC; however, WJRT-TV was already affiliated with ABC when Knight Ridder acquired the station. During the late 1980s, Knight Ridder decided to exit broadcasting by selling its stations to separate owners; as a result, WJRT-TV was sold to SJL Broadcast Management in 1989.

During the 1970s WJRT-TV became Mid Michigan's highest rated television station, helped by ABC's ratings improvements during the decade. During the late 1980s and into the 1990s, WJRT-TV was usually second to WNEM-TV.

[edit] As an ABC owned and operated station

In 1994, New World Communications signed an affiliation deal with Fox Broadcasting Company, resulting in most of New World's stations switching affiliation to Fox. Among the stations due to switch was WJBK-TV in Detroit, a longtime CBS affiliate. To avoid being consigned to UHF in what was then the ninth-largest market, CBS heavily wooed Detroit's longtime ABC affiliate (and former O&O), WXYZ-TV. WXYZ-TV's owner, E.W. Scripps Company, then told ABC that unless it agreed to affiliate with Scripps-owned stations in four smaller markets, it would switch WXYZ-TV to CBS.[3] As a contingency, ABC approached SJL about buying WJRT-TV and sister station WTVG in Toledo, Ohio. WJRT provides city-grade coverage to parts of Oakland and Macomb counties. The deal closed on August 29, 1995.

Soon after ABC purchased WJRT, the station returned to the top of the Mid-Michigan ratings for primetime, where it remains today. Because Capital Cities spun the station off decades earlier, WJRT-TV was the only ABC station not part of the Capital Cities/ABC merger in 1986. Longtime ABC affiliates KTRK-TV in Houston and WPVI-TV in Philadelphia were part of the merger.

Ironically, when ABC acquired WJRT-TV in 1995, it was reunited with its namesake radio station, WJR. WJR's owner, Capital Cities, had merged with ABC in 1986. And in 2002, WFDF (now a Detroit station), which unsuccessfully sought a channel 12 license in the 1950s, would also become a sister to WJRT-TV when ABC bought the station. However, this reunion was partially broken up, as ABC sold WJR, along with other ABC Radio properties, to Citadel Broadcasting in January, 2006.

[edit] Sale back to SJL Broadcasting

On November 3, 2010, Broadcasting & Cable magazine announced that SJL Broadcasting, now owned by the principal owners of Lilly Broadcasting, made an agreement with Disney to buy back WJRT and WTVG, the two smallest stations in ABC's O&O portfolio. SJL teamed up with a new private equity partner, Bain Capital, whose affiliated offshoot Sankaty Advisors provided the capital for the purchases (which amounted to $13.2 million on WJRT's end of the $30 million deal). Both stations are expected to retain their affiliations with ABC.[4] The sale was completed on April 1, 2011.[5] Unfortunately, both ABC12's news director Jim Bleicher and General Manager Tom Bryson either retired or left the station after the sale was announced.[6] Furthermore, on April 6, 2011, less than a week after SJL taking over control of WJRT, they unceremoniously terminated longtime weekend anchor Joel Feick and removed longtime weeknight anchor Bill Harris from the newsdesk.[7] Harris would later return to WJRT on May 3, 2011, reporting from a homeland security training conference in Grand Rapids for the station's evening newscast.[8] Feick was later hired by competitor WEYI-TV as weekday morning news anchor. [9]

For nearly five months after SJL took ownership of the stations, the web sites of both WTVG and WJRT remained in the format of other ABC-owned stations until late August when WorldNow took over operations of the sites. WJRT's WorldNow site however, resembles the previous ABC O&O design.

On December 28, 2011 Bill Harris, WJRT news anchor for 34 years, announced he had resigned from the station;[10] on January 4, 2012, it was announced that Harris will anchor the 6PM newscast on WEYI-TV, beginning January 30.[11]

[edit] Digital programming

Channel Video Aspect Programming
12.1 720p 16:9 Main WJRT-TV programming / ABC
12.2 480i 4:3 Live Well Network
12.3 ABC12's 24 Hour Weather Channel

ABC12 Plus is WJRT-TV's second digital subchannel. It shows extra programming, such as programming from the Live Well Network, rebroadcasts of ABC12 News, WJRT's local public affairs show Newsmakers, local specials and movies. All programming in this subchannel is shown in 480i standard definition.

ABC12's third digital subchannel is its 24-hour weather channel. It features live Doppler weather radar 24 hours a day, interlaced with extended local weather forecasts from the ABC12 weather team, as well as national forecasts from The Local AccuWeather Channel.

[edit] Analog to digital conversion

 This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2011)

WJRT-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 12, on June 12, 2009,[12] as part of the DTV transition in the United States. The station had been broadcasting its pre-transition digital signal over UHF channel 36, but returned to channel 12 for its post-transition operations. [13][14] After the transition, certain viewers[who?] had difficulty receiving their signal.[citation needed] So on October 14, 2009, WJRT filed an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to increase the power level from 18.2 kW to 30 kW.[15] The increase was approved, and the boost was completed on April 21, 2010.[16]

[edit] News operation

Question book-new.svg
 This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2010)

WJRT-TV broadcasts a total of 37 hours of local news per week (with six hours on weekdays, and three hours each on weekends), producing far more local content than any other station in the market.[specify]

WJRT-TV began producing its newscasts in 16:9 widescreen standard definition on October 26, 2009, during its First at 4 newscast making them the first station in the Flint/Tri-Cities market to do so.

On September 7, 2010, WJRT-TV expanded its weekday morning newscast to begin airing at 4:30 a.m.

Per WJRT-TV's Facebook page,[unreliable source?] on October 23, 2011, the station began producing their local newscasts in high definition,[citation needed] the first in the Flint/Tri-Cities market to do so.

[edit] Newscast lineup

Weekdays

  • ABC 12 News at 4:30 AM - 4:30-5:00 a.m.
  • ABC 12 News at 5 AM - 5:00-6:00 a.m.
  • ABC 12 News at 6 AM - 6:00-7:00 a.m.
  • ABC 12 News at Noon - 12:00-12:30 p.m.
  • ABC 12 News First at Four - 4:00-5:00 p.m.
  • ABC 12 News at 5 - 5:00-6:00 p.m.
  • ABC 12 News at 6 - 6:00-6:30 p.m.
  • ABC 12 News at 11:00 - 11:00-11:35 p.m.

Saturday

  • ABC 12 Weekend: Saturday Morning - 6:00-8:00 a.m.
  • ABC 12 News at 6 - 6:00-6:30 p.m.
  • ABC 12 News at 11 - 11:00-11:30 p.m.

Sunday

  • ABC 12 Weekend: Sunday Morning - 7:00-8:00 a.m.
  • ABC 12 Weekend: Sunday Morning - 9:00-10:00 a.m.
  • ABC 12 News at 6 - 6:00-6:30 p.m.
  • ABC 12 News at 11 - 11:00-11:30 p.m.

[edit] News/station presentation

[edit] Newscast titles

  • Eyewitness News (1970`s)
  • Area 12 News (1960s-1970s)
  • Channel 12 News (1970s-early 1980s)
  • TV-12 News (early 1980s-1987)
  • 12 News (general)/12 News Nightwatch (11 p.m. newscast; 1987–1994)
  • NewsChannel 12 (1994–1997)
  • ABC 12 News (1997–present)

[edit] Station slogans

  • You're in 12 Country! (mid-late 1970s; used during period station used Al Ham's "Home Country")
  • Hello, Mid-Michigan (1982–1986; used during period station used Frank Gari's "Hello News")
  • Where News Comes First (1990–1997)
  • What It Takes, Wherever News Breaks (1997–2002)
  • Your Trusted Source for News (2002–2010)
  • Your Safest Place in Bad Weather (2002–2010; weather slogan)
  • Your Trusted Source (2010–present)
  • Your Weather Source (2010–present; weather slogan)
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[edit] Trivia

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.michiguide.com/dials/tv/wjrt.html
  2. ^ "John Poole, 76, Dies; A Broadcasting Chief". The New York Times. April 18, 1989. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE2D91431F93BA25757C0A96F948260. 
  3. ^ Counterstrike: CBS targets Scripps; will bid for television networks affiliated with Scripps Howard Broadcasting, Broadcasting & Cable (via HighBeam Research), June 6, 1994.
  4. ^ Broadcasting & Cable: "EXCLUSIVE: Disney to Sell Two Stations", November 3, 2010.
  5. ^ Exclusive: New GMs For Former ABC O&Os in Flint, Toledo Broadcasting & Cable March 31, 2011
  6. ^ Bleicher departs WJRT after ownership change Michigan Media Center April 5, 2011
  7. ^ Exodus continues: Harris and Feick depart WJRT Michigan Media Center April 6, 2011
  8. ^ Flint Journal: "ABC 12's Bill Harris to return to telecast this afternoon", May 3, 2011.
  9. ^ Changing stations: Joel Feick returns to television on NBC25 The Flint Journal via MLive.com October 3, 2011
  10. ^ Longtime Channel 12 anchorman Bill Harris says he won't continue work for station; in talks with WNEM and WEYI The Flint Journal via MLive.com December 28, 2011
  11. ^ TV Spy: "Longtime WJRT Anchor Bill Harris Joins Rival WEYI", January 4, 2012.
  12. ^ http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf
  13. ^ http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=WJRT
  14. ^ FCC.gov - Appendix B: All Full Power Television Stations by DMA, Indicating Those Terminating Analog Service on or before February 17, 2009
  15. ^ https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=101335141&formid=301&fac_num=21735
  16. ^ ABC12 has increased its digital power ABC12.com April 21, 2010

[edit] External links

Broadcast television in the Mid-Michigan region, including Flint, Saginaw, Bay City and Midland
Local stations

WNEM (5.1 CBS, 5.2 MNTV) · WJRT (12.1 ABC, 12.2 LW, 12.3 AccuWX) · WEYI (25.1 NBC, 25.2 WBSF/CW) · WHNE-LD (26.1 RTV/A1, 26.2 JTV, 26.3 A1, 26.4 Tuff TV, 26.5 "Classic") · W46CR / W42DI 42 (3ABN) · WBSF (46.1 CW, 46.2 WEYI/NBC) · WAQP (49.1 TCT, 49.2 TCT HD, 49.3 TCT Family, 49.4 La Fuente) · WXON-LP 54 (Ind) · WSMH (66.1 Fox, 66.2 TheCoolTV, 66.3 The Country Network)
Public television

WCMU-TV / WCMZ-TV (14.1/28.1 PBS (HD), 14.2/28.2 PBS (SD), 14.3/28.3 Create)  · WDCQ (19.1 PBS, 19.2 MHz Worldview, 19.3 Create, 19.4 PBS Kids)
Cable channels
Adjacent locals
Reception may vary by location and some stations may only be viewable with cable television

Detroit, MI/Windsor, ON: WJBK (2.1 Fox) · WDIV (4.1 NBC, 4.2 This TV)  · WXYZ (7.1 ABC, 7.2 Live Well) · CBET (9.1 CBC) · WMYD (20.1 MNTV HD, 20.2 MNTV) · WPXD (31.1 ION, 31.2 qubo, 31.3 ION Life) · WKBD (50.1 CW)
Lansing: WLNS (6.1 CBS) · WKAR (23.1 PBS HD, 23.2 PBS, 19.3 Create, 19.4 PBS World) · WSYM (47.1 Fox HD, 47.2 Fox)
Grand Rapids: WOOD (8.1 NBC, 8.2 WXSP/MNTV, 8.3 WX) · WZZM (13.1 ABC, 13.2 AccuWX)
Other areas: CBMT 6 (CBC; Montreal) · WWTV (9.1 CBS, 9.2 WFQX/Fox; Cadillac) · WBKB (11.1 CBS, 11.2 Fox/MNTV; Alpena)
Defunct stations
ABC Network Affiliates in the state of Michigan

WXYZ 7 Detroit • WBUP 10 Ishpeming/Marquette • WJRT 12 Flint • WZZM 13 Grand Rapids • WGTU 29/WPBN 7.2 1 Traverse City • WGTQ 8/WTOM 4.2 1 Sault Ste. Marie / Cheboygan • WOTV 41 Battle Creek • WLAJ 53 Lansing
1 WGTU's signal is rebroadcasted on WGTQ; WPBN's signal is rebroadcasted on WTOM; both WPBN and WTOM carry WGTU's programming on a digital subchannel.
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