My Farewell to Northern Michigan
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- Duration: 1:18
- Published: 2009-08-20
- Uploaded: 2010-08-27
- Author: BRKtvMI
Last night on WFQX-TV June 19, 2009
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WFQX-TV is the Fox Network-affiliated television station for the northern Lower and eastern Upper Peninsulas of Michigan. Licensed to Cadillac, the station broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 32 from a transmitter southeast of Cadillac. As with other network affiliates in this vast rural area, the station operates a full-time satellite, WFUP channel 45. Licensed to Vanderbilt, this station's transmitter is on Hudson Lookout near Thumb Lake in southeastern Charlevoix County. Unlike other network affiliates in northern Michigan, the WFQX and WFUP combination is not known on-air as "FOX 32&45". The stations are simply referred to as FOX 32. Aside from legal identification, there is no on-air mention that WFUP exists.
WFQX is owned by Cadillac Telecasting Company but is operated through a shared services agreement (SSA) by Heritage Broadcasting Group (owner of CBS affiliate WWTV and its full time satellite, WWUP). The station has studios on South 45 Road southeast of Cadillac along U.S. 131. It broadcasts 24 hours each day, although overnights are filled with home shopping and other paid programming. It also airs a large number of infomercials and religious paid programs such as Believer's Voice of Victory, Walking By Faith, and The 700 Club (which moved from ABC affiliates WGTU/WGTQ in Fall 2008). Syndicated programming includes: TMZ on TV, Seinfeld, The Office, and America's Funniest Home Videos.
WFQX and PBS affiliate WCMU-TV are the only stations in the northern Michigan market that offer analog translator stations. At one point in time, there had been one located on channel 31 in Alpena but it was shut down and WFUP now serves the area. There was also a translator station on channel 40 in Traverse City. That signal was shut down with the addition of W54CR channel 54. It has a transmitter west of the city along M-72. Two translators that served the eastern Upper Peninsula were replaced with digital signals located on new second digital subchannels of WWTV and WWUP.
By the mid-1990s, the station moved into permanent studios southeast of Cadillac. On January 11, 1993, Gary Knapp launched WGKU-TV in Vanderbilt as a full-time satellite of WGKI. That station's signal reached the Gaylord and Petoskey areas. When Detroit station WJBK switched its affiliation to FOX in 1994, WGKI started using that station's resources. The move also disallowed rival WKBD from distributing Detroit Red Wings and Tigers games to WGKI. Knapp made a station promo explaining the situation between the three stations. When the Fox affiliation switch in Detroit was made, WGKI replaced WKBD on cable systems in central Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. This was done so viewers without a local Fox station would maintain access to the network's programming. As a consequence, WGKI also expanded into parts of the Flint, Lansing, Grand Rapids, and Detroit markets via cable carriage. As a result, some cable viewers (especially in Bay City, Saginaw, and Michigan's thumb area) found out that most of WGKI's programming, especially those from Fox programs, were being blacked out by request of the local affiliate.
Soon after, many cable systems outside northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula dropped WGKI and/or brought back WKBD. On January 15, 1995, WGKI became a secondary affiliate of the new UPN network. It aired the network's shows outside of prime time. In 1999, WGKI increased its ERP from 219 kW to 774 kW significantly increasing its coverage area. In 2000, Knapp retired and sold his stations to Rockfleet Broadcasting for $12 million. Part of the deal called for channels 33 and 45 to change their call letters. Channel 33 became WFQX and channel 45 became WFVX. The latter station later became WFUP. The WFVX calls were moved to a former sister station, WFVX-LP, based in Bangor, Maine.
On February 10, 2007, WFQX upgraded its digital signal (located east of Kalkaska) to begin broadcasting all Fox programming in high definition for over-the-air viewers. Until that point, the station broadcast a low-power digital and HDTV signal near its studios in Cadillac. It was also, and continues to be, offered on Charter digital cable channel 783. On May 10, it was announced that Rockfleet Broadcasting was planning to sell WFQX to Cadillac Telecasting.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the sale in late October. After this approval, Cadillac entered into a shared services agreement (SSA) with Heritage Broadcasting Group (owner of WWTV). It had been announced with the switch to digital broadcasting (then scheduled for February 17, 2009), WFUP would shut down. However, channel 45 had an application to perform a flash-cut to digital-only broadcasting which happened on June 12. At one point, this station operated a digital signal on UHF channel 59 that broadcasted from its tower on Hudson Lookout.
WFQX has an FCC-issued construction permit to air a digital signal on UHF channel 32 using the previous analog channel 33 equipment and tower.
On August 4, 2009 after the conclusion of Michigan this Morning at 9am, WFQX switched its longtime moniker "Fox 33" to "Fox 32", adding the logo to match Fox O&O; stations. The station also moved its WFQX digital signal from channel 47 to channel 32, with its PSIP also being adjusted to match the new signal. (The WFUP signal remains the same.)
The station is an affiliate of the Detroit Lions Television Network which airs pre-season games and the weekly syndicated show The Ford Lions Report during the regular season. Also, because it is outside of the Detroit Lions' blackout area, it airs all regular season NFL on FOX Lions games.
On January 8, 2007, WJBK (Detroit's Fox owned-and-operated affiliate), started simulcasting parts of its weekday morning news on WFQX. Running from 6 to 8 on the station, the program was known as Michigan's Fox News Morning and featured updated weather forecasts from AccuWeather. The simulcast was possible because of a cooperative arrangement between the two stations that offered northern Michigan businesses local advertising opportunities in the Detroit market. On February 5, WFQX began to simulcast the second half of WJBK's weeknight 10 o'clock news from 10:30 until 11. After the sale of channel 33 to the Cadillac Telecasting Company, the station's news department was shut down.
Starting on October 31, WWTV began producing the weeknight 10 o'clock newscast, and the WJBK simulcast was dropped. On January 7, 2008, there was a significant expansion of local news on WFQX. The station now airs a two hour long extension of WWTV's weekday morning news "Michigan this Morning" at 7. Also launched on the same date was a weeknight 7 o'clock newscast on WFQX. On January 14, the WJBK morning news simulcast was dropped. There are no weekend local newscasts on WFQX. All news programs are produced at WWTV's studios on 130th Avenue northeast of Tustin.
Fox 32 News at 7 and 10
(Weeknights 7 to 7:30 and 10 to 10:30)
WFQX features additional news personnel from WWTV. See that article for a complete listing.
Meteorologists
Sports
Reporters
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