WLUC-TV
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| WLUC-TV | |
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| Marquette, Michigan | |
| Branding | TV6 |
| Slogan | Upper Michigan's Source |
| Channels | |
| Translators | W07DB Marquette (city) W14CE Escanaba |
| Affiliations | NBC (secondary 1956-1969 and 1992-1995, sole affiliate since 1995) Universal Sports(DT-2) (to be Fox August 2009) |
| Owner | Barrington Broadcasting Company, LLC (Barrington Marquette License, LLC) |
| Founded | April 28, 1956[1] |
| Call letters’ meaning | LUCky Six; former sister station to Green Bay's WLUK |
| Former callsigns | WDMJ-TV (1956-1964) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 6 (1956-2009) |
| Former affiliations | CBS (1956-1992) ABC (secondary 1956-1992; primary 1992-1995) Fox (secondary, 1992-1995) |
| Transmitter Power | 63 kW |
| Height | 257 m |
| Facility ID | 21259 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | 46°20′12.6″N 87°50′56.7″W / 46.336833°N 87.849083°W |
| Website | uppermichiganssource.com |
WLUC-TV is the NBC affiliated station in Marquette, Michigan. It broadcasts on channel 6 (digital 35) from studios in the nearby city of Negaunee. Its transmitter is located in Ishpeming. WLUC broadcasts its signal from an antenna 299 meters (980 feet) in height. As of Aug. 11, 2006, the station is owned by Barrington Broadcasting of Barrington, Illinois, which bought the station as part of a multi-station deal from Montgomery, Alabama-based Raycom Media. Plans are in the the works to increase the height of TV6's transmitter tower in Republic to improve reception especially in outlying areas after the analog signal is turned off in June, 2009.
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[edit] History
It signed on as WDMJ-TV in 1956 as the Upper Peninsula's first television station. It carried programming from all three networks, but was a primary CBS affiliate. It was owned by the Daily Mining Journal along with WDMJ AM 1320. The studios were located on the top floor of the Mining Journal building on Washington Street in downtown Marquette.
In 1964, the station was sold to Post Corporation, the owners of WLUK-TV in Green Bay, who changed the calls to WLUC, to match its moniker at the time, "Lucky 6" (though some locals would say it meant "With Luck You "C" TV) . The station quickly outgrew its facilities in downtown Marquette. in 1959, the station moved into its current facilities on US-41 in Negaunee, near its original transmitter. WLUC first broadcast network programs in color in 1963 and with the purchase of color video tape equipment, WLUC began broadcasting all of its locally produced programs in color in 1969. WLUC moved its transmitter to Republic in 1980 and dismantled the original transmitter located in Negaunee.
WLUC has been affected several times by television shakeups in Green Bay since rival station WJMN-TV in Escanaba is a satellite of WFRV-TV in Green Bay. For example, it dropped NBC programming in 1969 when WJMN signed on. When CBS bought WFRV in 1992 and switched it from ABC, WLUC became a primary ABC affiliate with a secondary NBC affiliation. It became solely NBC in 1995 when WLUK and WGBA exchanged affiliations. As a result, it is one of the few stations in the country to have been an affiliate of all of the "Big Three" networks. It also carried some Fox programs in the early 1990s before WLUK switched to Fox and opened a low-power repeater in Marquette.
In late-2005, following Raycom's purchase of The Liberty Corporation, Raycom announced that WLUC would be sold, along with the other NBC affiliate serving the Upper Peninsula, WPBN-TV/WTOM-TV (7&4) in Traverse City/Sault Sainte Marie. The sale was necessary to help meet federal restrictions on station ownership.
On March 27, 2006, Raycom sold 12 of its stations, including WLUC, to Barrington Broadcasting. The FCC approved the deal in June 2006 and it became final August 11. WLUC joined WPBN, Saginaw's WEYI-TV and Toledo, Ohio's WNWO-TV as part of Barrington's family of stations serving Michigan.
WLUC is also seen on translators W14CE in Escanaba and W07DB in Marquette. The latter is for areas of Marquette that get a poor reception from WLUC's main Republic transmitter. It used to operate a network of translators serving communities including Calumet, Iron Mountain, L'Anse, Pewabic, and White Pine.
In July 2009, WLUC announced that they will begin carrying Fox programming on a full-time basis, beginning in August on DT2; the new subchannel, to be called Fox UP, will replace Universal Sports on DT2. The new subchannel will replace WZMQ (the former WMQF) as the local Fox affiliate, which is now a independent station that made the conversion to digital before the June 12th deadline. They will be carrying ThisTV and MyNetworkTV as their affiliates starting in August of '09.[2]
[edit] Analog-to-digital conversion
After the analog television shutdown scheduled for June 12th, 2009 [3], WLUC-TV remained on its current pre-transition channel number, 35, using PSIP to display WLUC-TV's virtual channel as 6.
[edit] Finland Calling
With 16% of the area's population of Finnish descent -- down from about 25% in the 1960s -- WLUC produces the only Finnish-language program in the United States, "Finland Calling" ("Suomi kutsuu" in Finnish). The station started the show March 27, 1962 at the suggestion of a local travel agent who sought to boost travel to Scandinavian countries. Since its beginning, the show has been hosted by Carl Pellonpaa, then a newsman at the station. Pellonpaa has retired from the station but still hosts the show. Early programs were produced live and featured books, photographs and Finnish music. Camera operators had to learn a few words of Finnish just to be able to follow the show. The one-hour weekly Sunday morning program regularly features Finnish visitors to the region including two Presidents of Finland, the Prime Minister of Finland, a number of Ambassadors, Consul Generals of Finland, members of the Finnish Parliament, numerous entertainers, choirs, teachers, students, and many, many others. Pellonpaa has hosted 22 tours to Finland and dozens of dances featuring Finnish music. In 1988 he was awarded the Order of the White Rose in 1988 from then President Mauno Koivisto for hosting the program and for the number of tourists that the program inspired to visit Finland.
[edit] The previous logo
WLUC used the same multicolored "6" logo for many years, probably as early as sometime in the early 1990's until September 2008. From about 1989 to about 1992 a similar metallic-looking "6" was used, with a rainbow slash underneath. The rainbow, while used with on-air promos and the news open, was never used on mic flags during this time. From the time TV6 went on the air in 1956, network logos, CBS/ABC, CBS/NBC, were always separate from the TV6 logo. That changed in 1992, when the ABC ball was lodged inside the "6". When WLUC switched to NBC primary in 1995 it simply replaced the ABC logo with the letters "NBC" rather than place NBC's peacock alongside the 6 (as many NBC affiliates do). From this point until abandoning the rainbow "6", unless one had a good eye, a stranger to the Marquette market may have accidentally thought WLUC is an ABC affiliate.
On September 8th, 2008 WLUC phased out its "multicolored" 6 Logo and went with the letters "TV 6" inside an oval tilted to the right; it also changed its longtime slogan from "Someplace Special" to "Upper Michigan's Source". This is the first new logo for TV6 since 1992.
[edit] External links
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WLUC
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WLUC-TV
- Northpine.com: WLUC screengrabs
[edit] References
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