WOOD-TV

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WOOD-TV
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Branding	WOOD-TV 8 (general) 24 Hour News 8 (newscasts)
Slogan	West Michigan's News Leader
Channels	Digital: 7 (VHF)
Subchannels	8.1 NBC 8.2 MyNetworkTV 8.3 Weather Radar
Translators	WOGC-CA 25 Holland
Owner	LIN TV Corporation (WOOD License Company, LLC)
First air date	August 15, 1949
Call letters’ meaning	WOOD furniture industry
Sister station(s)	WOTV WXSP-CA
Former callsigns	WLAV-TV (1949-1951) WOOD-TV (1951-1972) WOTV (1972-1992)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 7 (VHF, 1949-1953) 8 (VHF, 1953-2009)
Former affiliations	CBS (1949-1960) ABC (1949-1962) DuMont (1949-1955) all secondary
Transmitter Power	30 kW
Height	288 m
Facility ID	36838
Transmitter Coordinates	42°41′14″N 85°30′34″W / 42.68722°N 85.50944°W / 42.68722; -85.50944
Website	woodtv.com

WOOD-TV is the NBC-affiliated television station for Grand Rapids, Michigan. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 7 from a transmitter in northwestern Barry County near Middleville. Owned by the LIN TV Corporation, the station is sister to ABC affiliate WOTV and MyNetworkTV affiliate WXSP-CA. All three stations share studios on College Avenue Southeast in downtown Grand Rapids. Syndicated programming on WOOD-TV includes: Inside Edition, Access Hollywood, People's Court, and Judge Joe Brown.

In addition to its main signal, WOOD-TV operates WOGC-CA channel 25 that is licensed to Holland. That station has a transmitter east of Zeeland along I-196 on the tower of WJQK-FM. The FCC has issued a Class A digital television station construction permit to WOGC. This repeater was established around 2002 due to interference from WMVS, a PBS station in Milwaukee, whose digital broadcast is on on channel 8. The signals from that station and WOOD-TV regularly propagated across Lake Michigan, causing interference with each other; after June 12, 2009 the station's purpose became that of continuing to provide analog service to Holland with the WOOD/WMVS issues resolved.

[edit] Digital television

The station's digital signal is multiplexed. It never offered NBC Weather Plus.

[edit] History

The station first went on-the-air on August 15, 1949. It had the callsign WLAV-TV and broadcasted on channel 7. It was the fourth television station in Michigan and the first outside of Detroit. The original owner was Leonard Adrian Verslius who had signed on Grand Rapids' second radio station, WLAV-AM, in 1940. In 1951, Verslius sold the station to Grandwood Broadcasting, a subsidiary of the Bitner Group, for $1.37 million dollars. They were the owners of Grand Rapids' first radio station, WOOD-AM 1300. That station had applied for a television license back in 1948 but it came just after the FCC imposed a freeze on new television construction permits. In fact, WLAV had been one of the last construction permits issued before the freeze. Grandwood eventually tired of waiting and cut a deal with Verslius to buy the station. On October 19, WLAV changed its calls to WOOD-TV and began to broadcast from a new transmitter in northeastern Grand Rapids. On December 8, 1953, WOOD-TV moved from channel 7 to channel 8 and increased its power from 28,000 to 100,000 watts. The channel change was promoted as "Mark the date: We move to Channel Eight on December Eight". The move was to alleviate interference with WBKB-TV (now WLS-TV) in Chicago. In 1955, the station moved to its current facility in the Heritage Hill area of Grand Rapids.

Its studios replaced the Bissell mansion (of Bissell vacuum fame) and are across the street from the Voigt House Victorian Museum. Time-Life, Inc. bought WOOD-AM-TV in 1957. Channel 8 has been an NBC affiliate from the very beginning though it had a secondary CBS affiliation until WKZO-TV (now WWMT) in Kalamazoo expanded its signal to cover Grand Rapids. It also had secondary affiliations with ABC and DuMont. The ABC affiliation lasted until 1962 when WZZM-TV signed on. The DuMont affiliation ended in 1956 when that network ceased operations. The call letters became WOTV in 1972 when WOOD-AM was sold. Time-Life also sold most of its television stations to McGraw-Hill that year but held on to WOTV until 1983 when it was sold to LIN Broadcasting. In 1992, the station reclaimed its old call letters with WOOD radio's permission. Channel 8 then donated the WOTV calls to WUHQ, the ABC affiliate for the southern portion of the West Michigan market, with whom it had a local marketing agreement (LMA). In 1994, LIN Broadcasting spun off its television division into a separate company known as LIN TV but WOOD-TV was not included in the spin-off. Instead, the station became wholly owned by AT&T (which also owned 45 percent of LIN TV at the time) when that company absorbed the remainder of LIN Broadcasting in 1995; during AT&T ownership, LIN TV continued to manage both WOOD-TV and WOTV. LIN TV reacquired WOOD-TV and its LMA with WOTV in 1999 when AT&T sold off its stake in the company to Hicks, Muse, Furst, and Tate (now HM Capital). On August 14, WOOD-TV became the first station in West Michigan to broadcast a digital signal on VHF channel 7. LIN TV would purchase WOTV outright in 2001. On June 12, 2009 at 10 in the morning, their digital signal remained on channel 7 when the analog to digital conversion was completed. ^[1]

[edit] News operation

In an area first, the station purchased electronic news equipment in 1975. Five years later, the station became the first to broadcast live news from outside the studio. In 1983, the station introduced West Michigan's first news helicopter. The weekday Noon newscasts and weekend 6 P.M. newscasts were expanded to one-hour formats in 1995. As NBC decreased some of its programming during the 1990s, preemptions on WOOD-TV were noticeably reduced. Today, while clearing all other NBC programs, WOOD-TV still pre-empts the weekend edition of NBC Nightly News in favor of hour-long news coverage at 6. Carol Duvall of HGTV's Carol Duvall Show started her career at WOOD-TV. On October 21, 2007, WOOD-TV began producing a nightly 10 o'clock newscast on MyNetworkTV affiliate WXSP-CA. This competes with the 10 P.M. news that airs on Fox affiliate WXMI. WOOD-TV's weeknight 6 o'clock newscast is repeated at 7 on WXSP. WOOD-TV's meteorologists provide Local Weather Station updates on that station every morning from 5 to 6. It is the only surviving portion of the all-LWS schedule from the late-1990s. Meteorologist Terri DeBoer is seen during the week and Laura Velasquez is on the weekends.

Currently, WOTV simulcasts most of WOOD-TV's newscasts (outside of NBC pre-emptions and ABC programming conflicts) with some exceptions. This includes: on weekdays at 12:30 P.M. for paid programming, weekend mornings, and weekends at 6:30 P.M. for ABC's World News. Near the half-hour point of each newscast, the anchor teases stories that will air only on WOOD-TV. For the 2007 / 2008 television season, the weeknight 5 o'clock hour of simulcasted news on WOTV was replaced by TMZ on TV and Extra leaving only the 6 and 11 P.M shows. For the 2008 / 2009 season, the 5 o'clock hour has game shows Trivial Pursuit: America Plays and Family Feud. WOOD-TV has news partnerships with The Grand Rapids Press, Holland Sentinel, Kalamazoo Gazette, and the Muskegon Chronicle. Sports Overtime is a weekly half-hour sports broadcast that airs Sunday nights after the 11 o'clock news. Football Frenzy is a weekly program covering the Friday night high school football games as well as other sports news of the day. The 11 P.M. newscast is shortened to allow Football Frenzy to air during the regular newscast timeslot. To The Point is a weekly Sunday morning political talk show hosted by Rick Albin that airs at 10.

[edit] Slogans

• "We're the Best on TV-8" (late-1970s)
• "The Team to Watch" (early-1980s)
• "Come on Home to TV-8" (1988)
• "First. Best. Live." (mid-1990s to 1999)
• "West Michigan's News Leader" (current)

[edit] News team

Anchors

• Jennifer Moss - weekday mornings
• Brett Thomas - weekday mornings
• Rachael Ruiz - weekdays at Noon and reporter
• Brian Sterling - weeknights at 5, 5:30, 6, 10, and 11pm
• Susan Shaw - weeknights at 5, 5:30, and 10pm
• Suzanne Geha - weeknights at 6 and 11pm
• Marc Thompson - weekend mornings and reporter
• Emily Linnert - weekend evenings and reporter
  • producer

Storm Team 8

• Bill Steffen - Chief seen weeknights
• Terri DeBoer (AMS Seal of Approval) - weekday mornings
• Matt Kirkwood - weekdays at Noon
• Laura Velasquez - weekend mornings
• Kyle Underwood (AMS Seal of Approval) - weekend evenings

Sports

• Jack Doles - Director seen weeknights at 6, 10, and 11
• Jason Terzis - weekend evenings and reporter
  • Sports Overtime host
• Larry Figurski - reporter

Reporters

• Rick Albin - politics and To The Point host
• Eva Aguirre Cooper - Communications Director and "Connecting with Community" segment producer
• Henry Erb - investigative
• Tony Tagliavia - education
• Ken Kolker - investigative
• Leon Hendrix - can count to ten^[2]
• Joe LaFurgey
• Jessica Leffler
• Dee Morrison
• Anne Schieber
• Emily Zangaro

[edit] Former personalities

• Bill Allen
• Gary Bazner - deceased
• Dave Bolton
• Jane Brierley
• Roger Brown
• Lynn Carthane
• Patrick Center
• Eddie Chase
• Dick Cheverton
• Jim Childress
• Dray Clark
• Angie Crouch
• Jim Cummins
• Della DiPietro - a.k.a. Della Koach
• Todd Donoho
• Brad Edwards
• Don Elliott
• John Estabrook
• Dick Evans - deceased
• Curt Fonger
• Alan Gionet - now weekend anchor at KCNC in Denver
• Scott Harrison
• Derek Hayward
• Dennis Hodges
• Ron Howes - a.k.a. Ron Howard
• Craig James - retired in 2008
• Doris Jarrell
• Dave Jefferson
• Ed Kemp
• Jim Kipp
• Steve Kmetko
• Bruce Kopp - now weekday morning anchor at WTHR in Indianapolis
• Noreen Lauer
• Buck Matthews
• Dick McKay
• Matt McLogan
• Keith Monahan - now Chief Meteorologist at KIAH in Houston
• Larry Nienhaus
• Steve Osunsami
• Ernie Reno
• Andy Rent
• Warren Reynolds - deceased
• Rick Roberts - deceased
• Susan Samples
• Sally Scobey
• Janet Shamlian - now at NBC News
• Joe Sullivan
• John Stehr - now primary evening anchor at WTHR Indianapolis
• John Strickler
• Bill Struyk
• Alex Taylor
• Don Turner
• Nick Unger
• Tom Van Howe - retired but serves as a substitute anchor on WWMT while regular anchor Jeff McAtee serves in the military
• Ben Watson
• Linda White
• Rhona Williams
• Captain Woody
• Matt Winer - now at ESPN

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• WOOD-DT
• WOOD-DT wireless
• WOTV channel 20
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WOOD-TV
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WOGC-CA