Флинт қаласының WJRT телеарнасы тарихы

ABC affiliate in Flint, Michigan

WJRT TV (channel 12) is a television station licensed to Flint, Michigan, United States, serving as the ABC affiliate for northeastern Michigan. Owned by Allen Media Broadcasting, the station maintains studios on Lapeer Road in Flint, with offices and a second newsroom for the Tri Cities in Saginaw. Its transmitter is located on Burt Road in Albee Township, Michigan.

In May 1952, Goodwill Stations, owner of WJR radio in Detroit, announced the intent of applying for four station licenses which would operate as a regional network: channel 50 in Detroit, channel 11 in Toledo, Ohio, channel 12 in Flint and channel 5 in Bay City. TV outlets would eventually appear on all four of these channels in these cities, but only one was actually founded by Goodwill Stations: WJRT TV, in 1958. Goodwill won out over two other companies seeking to operate channel 12: the Trebit Corporation (which owned WFDF), and W. S. Butterfield Theatres, Inc. WPAG TV, airing on Channel 20 in Ann Arbor, also considered moving to Channel 12, but Goodwill already held the construction permit for WJRT. WPAG TV initially wanted to place its transmitter in Independence Township, Michigan; however, since Independence Township was located in Oakland County, part of the Detroit television market, Goodwill instead placed the tower in St. Charles Township in southwestern Saginaw County, where the transmitter remains today. WJRT TV went on the air on October 12, 1958, at 5 p. m., as an ABC network affiliate. As part of the winning bid for the license, the station had to produce several hours of original local programming each day for ten years. At the time the station had to fill 55 hours of programming outside of the network shows. This stipulation led to the creation of original shows, including Mr. Magic and Folkswingers. Goodwill Stations took over the former WTAC TV studios and offices at 2302 Lapeer Road in Flint, after that station folded in 1954; WJRT remains there today.

Goodwill Stations merged with Capital Cities Broadcasting in 1964, but WJRT TV was spun off to Poole Broadcasting (owned by John Poole, a former Capital Cities stockholder) because the merged company was one VHF station over the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ownership limit of the time. The station was the first Michigan television station outside of Detroit to go all color in 1967 on Labor Day which saw the launch of its Bozo show. As a result, the station was sold to SJL Broadcast Management in 1989. NBC was rumored to be courting SJL about either purchasing WJRT and WTVG, their existing affiliate in Toledo, Ohio, or securing a long term affiliation deal for both stations. As a result, Capital Cities/ABC agreed to purchase both WJRT and WTVG for $155 million in October 1994, effectively preserving their affiliation in Flint and gaining a VHF affiliate in Toledo. Former CBS affiliate WEYI TV took the NBC affiliation dropped by WNEM. Soon after ABC purchased WJRT, the station returned to the top of the Mid Michigan ratings for prime time, where it remains today. Because Capital Cities spun the station off decades earlier, WJRT TV was the only ABC station not part of the Capital Cities/ABC merger in 1986. Longtime ABC affiliates KTRK TV in Houston and WPVI TV in Philadelphia were part of the merger. When ABC acquired WJRT in 1995, it was reunited with its namesake radio station, WJR. In June 2008, the station received a construction permit for post transition digital facilities.

On November 3, 2010, Broadcasting & Cable magazine announced that SJL Broadcasting, now owned by the principal owners of Lilly Broadcasting, made an agreement with Disney to buy back WJRT and WTVG, the two smallest stations in ABC's O&O portfolio. Both stations would retain their affiliations with ABC. SJL teamed up with a new private equity partner, Bain Capital, whose affiliated offshoot Sankaty Advisors provided the capital for the purchases (which amounted to $13.2 million on WJRT's end of the $30 million deal). The sale was completed on April 1, 2011.

On July 24, 2014, SJL announced that it would sell WJRT and WTVG again, this time to Gray Television, for $128 million—a value higher than that of their original sale to ABC. Gray also owns Lansing's NBC affiliate WILX TV. The sale was completed on September 15 and funded mostly by loans. On May 3, 2021, Gray announced it would acquire the Local Media stations of Meredith Corporation for $2.7 billion. As Meredith was the owner of WNEM TV and both stations rank among the top four in terms of total viewers, Gray intended to keep WNEM and sell WJRT to a third party. On July 14, Gray announced it would sell WJRT to Allen Media Group, a subsidiary of Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios, which had also acquired several Quincy Media stations through Gray. The sale was completed on September 23, effectively separating it from WTVG after 30 years as sister stations.