WOOD-TV

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = WOOD-TV
city =
station_
station_slogan = We're Your Team !
station_branding = WOOD-TV 8
24 Hour News 8
analog = 8 (VHF)
digital = 7 (VHF)
other_chs = WOGC-CA 25 Holland
affiliations = NBC
MyNetworkTV (on DT2)
network =
founded =
airdate = August 15, 1949
location = Grand Rapids, Michigan
callsign_meaning = Wood Furniture Industry
former_callsigns = WLAV-TV (1949-1951)
WOOD-TV (1951-1972)
WOTV (1972-1992)
former_channel_numbers = 7 (1949-1953)
owner = LIN TV
licensee = WOOD License Company, LLC
sister_stations = WOTV
WXSP-CA
former_affiliations = CBS (1949-1960)
ABC (1949-1962)
DuMont (1949-1955)
all secondary
effective_radiated_power = 316 kW (analog)
30 kW (digital)
HAAT = 302 m (analog)
288 m (digital)
class =
facility_id = 36838
coordinates = coord|42|41|14.6|N|85|30|35|W|type:landmark_scale:2000
homepage = [http://www.woodtv.com/ woodtv.com]

WOOD-TV, channel 8, is the NBC-affiliated television station for Grand Rapids, Michigan. Its transmitter is located in northwestern Barry County near Middleville. Owned by LIN TV, WOOD-TV 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 signals, WOOD-TV operates one repeater, WOGC-CA on channel 25, that is licensed to Holland.

Its transmitter is located east of Zeeland along I-196. The station has a Class A digital television station construction permit. At one point, another repeater (W46DD on channel 46) in Muskegon existed. However, there is no longer an FCC record of this station. These repeaters were established around 2002 due to interference from the digital signal of WMVS, a PBS station in Milwaukee, which also broadcasts on channel 8. The signals from that station and WOOD-TV regularly propagate across Lake Michigan causing interference with each other.

Digital television

The station's digital signal is multiplexed. After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which is tentatively scheduled to take place on February 17, 2009, WOOD-TV will remain on its current pre-transition channel number, 7. However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers will display WOOD-TV's virtual channel as 8. Currently, the station does not offer NBC Weather Plus.

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. 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. 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, cut a deal with Verslius to buy the station. On October 19, WLAV received the WOOD-TV call sign 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.

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 1990, LIN Broadcasting transferred WOTV's license to its subsidiary, LCH Communications. In 1992, the station reclaimed its old call letters with WOOD radio's permission. Channel 8 then donated the WOTV calls to WUHQ with whom it had a local marketing agreement (LMA) with. 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. 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.

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 "" and "Family Feud". WOOD-TV has news partnerships with "The Grand Rapids Press", "Holland Sentinel", 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.

logans

*"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)

News team

+ denotes news personnel seen on WOTV

Anchors
*+ Jennifer Moss - weekday mornings
*+ Brett Thomas - weekday mornings
*Rachael Ruiz - weekdays at Noon and + reporter
*Brian Sterling - weeknights at 5, 5:30, and 10
*Susan Shaw - weeknights at 5, 5:30, and 10
*+ Larry Nienhaus - weeknights at 6 and 11
*+ Suzanne Geha - weeknights at 6 and 11
*Larry Figurski - weekend mornings
**+ Sunday 6 o'clock sports anchor and producer
**"Football Frenzy" co-host
**+ sports reporter and photographer
*+ Marc Thompson - weekend evenings at 6 and reporter
*+ Emily Linnert - weekends evenings at 6, 10, and 11
**reporter and producer

"Storm Team 8"
*+ Bill Steffen - Chief seen on 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 on weeknights at 6, 10, and 11
*Jason Terzis - weekends evenings and sports reporter

+ Reporters
*Rick Albin - politics and host of "To The Point"
*Eva Aguirre Cooper - Communications Director and "Connecting with Community" segment producer
*Patrick Center - consumer investigator
*Henry Erb - investigative
*Tony Tagliavia - education
*Leon Hendrix
*Joe LaFurgey
*Jessica Leffler
*Dee Morrison
*Anne Schieber
*Emily Zangaro

Former personalities

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

External links

* [http://www.woodtv.com/ WOOD-TV/DT]
* [http://www.wotv.com/ WOTV channel 41]
* [http://www.wxsp.tv/ WXSP-CA channel 15]
*TVQ|WOOD-TV
*TVQ|WOGC-CA