WFRV-TV

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WJMN-TV redirects here. For other uses, see WJMN.

WFRV-TV, digital channel 39 (PSIP channel 5), is a CBS affiliate based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The station is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation The station's studios are located in Green Bay, and its transmitter is in De Pere, Wisconsin.

WFRV operates a semi-satellite station, WJMN-TV digital channel 48 (PSIP channel 3) in Escanaba, Michigan. It serves the northwestern Upper Peninsula, including Marquette. Its transmitter is located in Masonville Township, Michigan.

Early history

The station began as WNAM-TV, channel 42 in Neenah on May 21, 1955 as a sister station to the radio station with the same calls. In the late 1950s it moved its license and studios to Green Bay, changed its frequency to channel 5 and adopted its present call letters, which stand for "Wisconsin's Fox River Valley" as known today as WFRV-TV. It started as an ABC affiliate before switching to NBC in 1959. As an NBC affiliate, it became the first station in Northeast Wisconsin to broadcast in color.

In 1958, WFRV-TV became an affiliate of the short-lived local Badger Television Network, a three-station television network in Wisconsin. The other two stations were WISN-TV (Milwaukee channel 12), and WKOW-TV (Madison channel 27). The Badger Network was launched in January 1958 and ceased operations on August 8 of that year.

Among the station's claims is that it was the first to cover a live lunar eclipse, in 1959, when a studio camera was wheeled into the parking lot and aimed at the moon. WNAM began broadcasting network programming in color in 1959. Local newscasts were broadcast in color starting in 1965.

The station changed affiliations again in 1983, when it became an ABC affiliate for the second time, with NBC going to WLUK-TV (Channel 11).

The station's original owners sold the station to the Norton family of Kentucky, owners of Louisville, Kentucky's WAVE, in the mid-1960s.

WJMN (Channel 3)

In 1969, a satellite station, WJMN-TV, began operation on Channel 3, bringing a second programming choice for the Upper Peninsula alongside WLUC-TV. WJMN airs Channel 5's entire schedule, except for UP-specific weather and news cut-ins, ads and differing promotions identifying the station as Channel 3, time-adjusted for the Eastern Time Zone, as well as some regional programming pertinent only to Michigan viewers, such as pre-season football and weekly shows from The Detroit Lions Television Network. The transmitter for WJMN is located in Masonville Township, 26 miles north of Escanaba and 4 miles south of the town of Trenary. WJMN's antenna is 1310 feet high, which made it the second tallest TV transmitter in the state of Michigan after WWTV in Cadillac upon its completion.

WJMN-TV is the result of an agreement between the Nortons and the FCC. In the days before cable and satellite distribution of terrestrial broadcast signals, the other Green Bay/Fox Cities stations located their transmitters on Scrays Hill, which is southwest of Green Bay in the Town of Glenmore. This is one of the highest points of land in the area. However, WFRV had its transmitter further south, a legacy of its original days in Neenah. Since antennas had to be turned to the southwest instead of the southeast to receive Channel 5, this put the station at a disadvantage, and the station asked the Commission to relocate their transmitter to Glenmore. Concerns for short-spacing of WMAQ-TV in Chicago also had to be addressed; every channel allocation in the Green Bay and Wausau markets is also shared by a Chicago television station.

As part of the agreement to transmit from Glenmore, it launched WJMN in Escanaba to serve Michigan's underserved Upper Peninsula, which at that time only had WLUC from Marquette (a then sister station to WLUK) as the only commercial station serving the western part of the UP. In turn, WJMN has affected WLUC's affiliation as well. Channel 6 dropped NBC in 1969 after WJMN's sign-on, and took ABC in 1992 with Channel 5/3's purchase by CBS. The station's current NBC affiliation resulted from WLUK switching to Fox in 1995.

WJMN-TV is not related to the Clear Channel-owned WJMN (FM) in Boston, Massachusetts. However, the radio station did receive permission from CBS in 1993 (pre-Telecommunications Act of 1996 before Clear Channel's rise) to use the WJMN call sign.

Channel 3's Detroit Lions coverage

WJMN-TV is an affiliate of the Detroit Lions Television Network, which airs pre-season games as well as the weekly syndicated show The Ford Lions Report during the regular season. However, WFRV is not part of the network since it is in the Green Bay Packers' television market (and the official station for the team; WJMN also airs Packers-related programming), and decisions as to Lions regular season home games against AFC opponents as part of the NFL on CBS contract airing on WJMN are made on a case by case basis, depending on how the Packers and Lions are scheduled. Also, since WJMN's normal coverage area is more than 75 miles from Ford Field, the NFL's local television blackout policy does not apply.

Later History and WFRV Today

Orion Broadcasting, the Nortons' company, merged with Cosmos Broadcasting (a subsidiary of The Liberty Corporation) in 1981. A few years later, WFRV/WJMN were sold to the Murphy and McNally families, owners of WCCO-AM-TV in Minneapolis-St. Paul. CBS then acquired all four stations in 1992 when the families sold the stations. New FCC rules had allowed networks to own more stations, so CBS decided to keep WFRV/WJMN and convert them to CBS stations, which in 2005 were in the No. 69 market nationally. With this move, it swapped affiliations with the area's longtime CBS affiliate,WBAY-TV (Channel 2). The move also made WFRV/WJMN among the few stations in the U.S. to have been an affiliate of all of the "Big Three" television networks - ABC, NBC and CBS.

The station no longer follows the CBS Mandate branding due to its breaking off from CBS Corporation, although their graphics remain the same. Previously, the graphics used on its newscasts were green and gold, as a connection to the Green Bay Packers. On July 10, 2006, it unveiled a blue and yellow graphic scheme as well as new sets to coincide with the return of former anchor Tammy Elliott. In the summer of 2007, the station slowly transitioned from branding as CBS 5 and CBS 3, and began to go back to identifying as Channel 5 and Channel 3 as they had done previously before 2003.

In 2002, the stations became the first in the Green Bay market to broadcast digitally. In September 2008, the station became the first Green Bay/UP operation to upgrade their master control to allow the stations to air and record high definition programming from the network and syndication; the station currently carries Oprah, Ellen, and Entertainment Tonight in HD, and a character generator that allows the station to place 16:9 weather and news crawls over their programming.

On February 13, 2007, CBS Corporation announced that they would sell WFRV and WJMN to Liberty Media for $170 million.

The sale was completed on April 18, 2007, [1], however the station's site continued to be maintained by CBS Television Stations Digital Media Group until May 14, 2007, when Liberty launched a redesigned website for the station powered by Inergize Digital Media (then a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, now a division of Newport Television). The site also incorporates an expanded page for WJMN, focused on UP-specific weather and news; previously the page had only contained the Michigan Associated Press wire service section and weather, and was not highlighted on the CBSTVSDMG version of the site.

WFRV transitioned to a digital-only schedule during a Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson commercial break around midnight on February 17, 2009, then aired a loop of nightlight programming until March 3, 2009, when analog service was completely discontinued.

WJMN continued to broadcast in analog until June 12, 2009, due to it serving a more rural area.

Channel 5 News Team

News Anchors

Fox Cities studios

• Erin Davisson
• Tammy Elliott
• Lisa Malak
• Tom Zalaski
• Chelly Boutott
• Paul Evansen
• Wendy Kuschel

Reporters

• Mike Austin - Ag Reporter (also with WTAQ radio)
• Hilary Golston
• Olga Halaburda
• Terry Kovarik
• Angenette Levy
• Donald Robinson
• Jenna Sachs
• Millaine Wells

Storm Team 5 Weather

• Tom Mahoney - Chief Meteorologist
• Dave Miller
• Dana Tyler
• Justin Steinbrinck
• Rebecca Schuld

Sports

• Larry McCarren, sports director, Packers Radio Network color commentator and former Green Bay Packers center
• Burke Griffin
• Ryan Popkey
• Nick Goddard

Past Personalities

• Lance Allan (now sports anchor at WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee and seen locally on WGBA-TV).
• Jim Cline (now a reporter at WGGB in Springfield, Massachusetts)
• Jay Johnson (anchor 1982–1987, went to WLUK TV to 1996; elected to represent the 8th District in the U.S. House from 1997-1999, and US Mint Director from 2000-2001)
• Glen Loyd (now spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection)
• Tom Milbourn (anchor; now works for WLUK)
• Don Noe (meteorologist, late 1970s; originator of animated weather maps; recently retired from WPLG in Miami, Florida)[2][3]
• Kris Schuller (now with WISDot)
• Mary Smits (later an Anchor at WBAY-TV, now retired)
• Rob Stafford (later at Dateline NBC and now a weekend anchor at WMAQ-TV)

News/Station Presentation

Newscast Titles

• CBS 5 News / CBS 3 News (2003-2007)
• Channel 5 News / Channel 3 News (2007-present)

Station Slogans

• (Where) The News Starts with You (2007-present)

References

• "Channel 5 hits Big 5-0". Green Bay News-Chronicle article. Retrieved November 12 2005. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)

External links

• WFRV Website
• WJMN Page on WFRV.com
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