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WOOD-TV, virtual channel 8 (VHF digital channel 7), is an NBC-affiliated television station located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States. The station is owned by Media General, and is a sister station to ABC affiliate WOTV (channel 41) and Class A MyNetworkTV affiliate WXSP-CD (channel 15). All three stations share studios on College Avenue Southeast in the Heritage Hill section of Grand Rapids, WOOD-TV's transmitter is located in Middleville near the Barry and Allegan County line. In addition to its main signal, WOOD-TV operates Class A digital translator WOGC-CD on UHF channel 25 licensed to Holland with a transmitter in Zeeland along I-196 on the tower of FM radio station WJQK. There is also a digital repeater on channel 46 licensed to Muskegon with a transmitter in the Wolf Lake section of Egelston Township. ==History== The station signed on the air on August 15, 1949 as WLAV-TV, originally broadcasting on VHF channel 7; it was the fourth television station in Michigan and the first located outside of Detroit. The station was originally owned by Grand Rapids businessman Leonard Adrian Versluis, who in 1940 had also signed-on Grand Rapids' second radio station, WLAV (1340 AM, now WJRW). In 1951, Versluis sold the television station to Grandwood Broadcasting for $1.37 million. The Bitner Group subsidiary was also owner of WOOD, the first radio station in Grand Rapids. Grandwood had originally applied for its television license back in 1948, but the application just barely made a deadline prior to the Federal Communications Commission's freeze on new television construction permits. In fact, the application for WLAV-TV had been one of the last construction permits issued before the freeze. Grandwood eventually grew tired of waiting and cut a deal with Versluis to buy the station. On October 19, WLAV changed its call letters to WOOD-TV to match its radio sister and began airing from a new transmitter in northeastern Grand Rapids. Due to potential interference from clear-channel Chicago powerhouse WLS-TV as a result of the flat land in the Great Lakes region, the station moved from VHF channel 7 to channel 8 and increased its transmitter power from 28,000 to 100,000 watts on December 8, 1953. The channel change was promoted as "Mark the date: We move to Channel Eight on December Eight". In 1955, it moved to its current facilities in the Heritage Hill section of Grand Rapids, where its new studios replaced the Bissell mansion (of Bissell vacuum fame) and are across the street from the Voigt House Victorian Museum. The combined enterprise was then sold to Time-Life, Inc. in 1957. WOOD-TV has been an NBC affiliate from the very beginning, although it had a secondary affiliation with CBS until WKZO-TV (channel 3, now WWMT) in Kalamazoo expanded its signal to cover the greater Grand Rapids/Tri-Cities area. It also had secondary affiliations with ABC and DuMont; however, the DuMont affiliation would end in 1956 when that network ceased operations, and the ABC affiliation was terminated in 1962 when WZZM-TV (channel 13) began operations. The station's call letters were changed to WOTV in 1972 when WOOD-AM was sold. Time-Life also sold most of its television stations to McGraw-Hill that year (initially intending to include WOTV in the deal, though it was retained), but held on to WOTV until 1983 when it was sold to LIN Broadcasting. In 1992, the station reclaimed its old WOOD-TV call letters with WOOD-AM's permission. The station then donated the WOTV calls to WUHQ, the ABC affiliate for the southern portion of the Southwestern Michigan market with whom it had recently signed a local marketing agreement (LMA). In 1994, LIN Broadcasting spun off its television division into a separate company known as LIN TV Corporation, but WOOD-TV was not included in the transaction. Instead, the station became wholly owned by AT&T (which also owned a 45 percent interest in LIN TV at the time), when that company absorbed the remainder of LIN Broadcasting in 1995; however, 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). LIN TV eventually purchased WOTV outright in 2001. On March 21, 2014, it was announced that Media General would acquire LIN. The deal closed on December 19, bringing WOOD, along with WOTV and WXSP-CD, under common ownership with CBS affiliate WLNS-TV in Lansing. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「WOOD-TV」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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