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WXYZ-TV

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This article is about the television station WXYZ. For the former AM radio station WXYZ, see WXYZ-AM.

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WXYZ-TV, Channel 7 of Detroit Inc., "Channel 7" is the ABC affiliated television station in Detroit, Michigan, USA (DMA 11). It is owned by The E.W. Scripps Company and is the largest TV station the media conglomerate owns. WXYZ-TV is among the highest-rated ABC stations in the country. The station's operations and transmitter are located at Broadcast House on West 10 Mile Road in Southfield, Michigan. Its antenna transmits from its 1,001 feet (305 m) tower at 316kW/305m and its digital channel 41 also transmits from the same tower at 770kW/286m.

Its signal transmits to the Metro Detroit area and the Southeast Michigan counties of Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, Monroe, Livingston, Lenawee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Genesee, Ingham, and Shiawassee. It also covers neighboring Windsor, Ontario, Canada and the Southwest Ontario counties of Essex, Kent and Lambton. WXYZ-TV is on Detroit area cable systems such as Comcast and the DirecTV and Dish Network satellite providers. The station also serves several other parts of Canada as an ABC affiliate on the StarChoice satellite provider and on many cable systems.


History

WXYZ-TV began broadcasting on October 9, 1948 from its former studios in the Maccabees Building in Detroit, Michigan across Woodward Avenue from Detroit Institute of Arts. It was the third owned and operated (O&O) American Broadcasting Company (ABC) television station to begin operation and the second television station on the air in Detroit. It was created out of ABC-owned radio station WXYZ-AM (now WXYT-AM) which produced the popular radio programs The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet.


In the 1950s WXYZ-TV began creating a series of popular and innovative locally-produced programs some of which featured personalities from WXYZ-AM. In fact the television station’s success generated significant revenues large enough that it became instrumental in financially helping the then struggling ABC-TV network and other ABC ventures during the 1950s.


In 1960 WXYZ radio and television stations moved into new broadcast facilities at Broadcast House in Southfield, Michigan. The facility would house all of ABC’s Detroit operations with three TV production studios and its own free standing broadcast tower.


In the 1970s WXYZ-TV’s Action News with lead news anchor Bill Bonds was gaining viewers and became the highest-rated newscasts in Detroit. By 1978 WXYZ-TV would become the second most-watched television station in the United States.


In 1986 ABC sold WXYZ-TV to the Cincinnati based media conglomerate The E.W. Scripps Co. in order to comply with a divestiture decision by the Federal Communications Commission FCC. The FCC would allow ABC to merge with Capital Cities Communications if each company divested itself of a station.


A shift in affiliation in 1994 at Detroit CBS affiliate WJBK-TV to the Fox network prompted CBS to attempt to lure WXYZ-TV to drop its ABC affiliation in favor of CBS. ABC reached a deal with The E.W. Scripps Co., that would keep their affiliation with WXYZ-TV but would cause television stations in other cities to lose their ABC affiliation in favor of affiliating with Scripps-owned stations. CBS would end-up purchasing an independent Detroit station, WGPR-TV (now WWJ-TV).


In 2002 WXYZ-TV reached an agreement with Viacom, owner of Detroit UPN station WKBD-TV and CBS station WWJ-TV, where Viacom would shut-down its news department, cancel its newscasts on WWJ-TV and contract with WXYZ to produce WKBD's the 10PM newscast. Only a handful of Viacom news employees would be transferred to WXYZ. Viacom would also transfer the operations of its CBS News satellite news gathering service CBS Newspath to offices at WXYZ’s Broadcast House since WXYZ would also be allowed to use the resources of CBS News. The 10 PM newscast was cancelled in late 2004 and neither WKBD or WWJ-TV now air any local newscasts in Detroit.

Programming History

In the 1950s WXYZ-TV created a series of widely popular locally produced children’s programs. The most famous program Lunch with Soupy launched the career of comedian Soupy Sales (real name, Milton Supman). The program went on the air in 1953 and was such a success that ABC moved production to New York City and aired the show nationally. Other successful children’s shows to follow would include Wyxie's Wonderland hosted by Detroit comic Marv Welch, Ricky the Clown hosted by professional clown and magician Irv Romig and The Johnny Ginger show hosted by comic Johnny Ginger. The Auntie Dee Show hosted by Dee Parker was a popular children’s talent show. In 1974 WXYZ would launch and produce another successful children’s show, the nationally syndicated Hot Fudge.

Former WXYZ-TV General Manager John Pival is credited for launching several other popular programs in the 1950s and 1960s including the World Adventure Series with host George Pierrot would present film from "exotic" locations around the world. Pierrot was an author on world travel and speaker at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The Lady of Charm and later House O’ Charm with host Edythe Fern Melrose was a predecessor to today’s Martha Stewart. Prize Movie with popular host Rita Bell introduced feature films and held a viewer call-in contest to name the title of a song she played on the air. The cash prizes started at $7. Several music programs would also air including Club Polka. WXYZ disc jockey Ed McKenzie would bring his talents to TV with The Ed McKenzie Saturday Party with live musical performances from Chuck Berry and Louis Armstrong.

WXYZ-TV also had a series of popular morning shows starting with the Pat and Johnny Show with two WXYZ radio personalities, Pat Tobin and Johnny Slagle. Later in 1966 The Morning Show would debut as a morning variety program with host Bob Hynes. The most popular and successful WXYZ morning talk show would be Kelly & Company. The show was hosted by a married couple who were both former WXYZ news personalities, John Kelly (news anchor) and Marilyn Turner (weathercaster). The show would run at 9 AM weekdays from the late 1970s until 1995. It was primarily a talk show with featured guests and a studio audience. In 1984 Turner and Kelly would also host a short-lived afternoon program called Good Afternoon Detroit. The program was to be a pilot for other ABC owned stations in New York, Chicago and elsewhere to launch their own “Good Afternoon…” shows. The station also launched the career of Dennis Wholey who started his TV talk-show at WXYZ before going on to host PBS Late Night. In 1965 the Sunday morning public affairs show Spotlight on the News debuted with host and WXYZ news director Bill Fyffe. Later hosted by political reporter Jim Harrington the show continues to air today with WXYZ Editorial Director Chuck Stokes and has featured local and national public officials including US Presidents. Another public affairs show that aired Sunday nights from 1967 until 1981 was Haney’s People' with host Don Haney. In the 1970s WXYZ’s General Manager, Jeanne Findlater would be the first woman to hold that title at a large market television station.

Action News

Weekdays

  • Action News This Morning - 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM
  • Action News at Noon - 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
  • Action News at 5PM - 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM
  • Action News at 6PM - 6:00 PM to 6:30 PM
  • Action News at 7PM - 7:00 PM to 7:30 PM
  • Action News at 11 - 11:00 PM to 11:35 PM

Saturday

  • Action News at 6PM - 6:00 PM to 6:30 PM-
  • Action News at 11 - 11:00 PM to 11:30 PM

Sunday

  • Action News This Morning - 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM
  • Spotlight on the News - 11:30 AM to 12:00 PM
  • Action News at Noon - 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM
  • Action News at 6PM - 6:00 PM to 6:30 PM
  • Action News at 11 - 11:00 PM to 11:30 PM
  • Sports Update - 11:30 PM to 12:00 AM

Reporters and Anchors

  • Peggy Agar
  • Cheryl Chodun
  • Stephen Clark
  • Val Clark
  • Carolyn Clifford
  • Mary Conway
  • Kimberly Craig
  • Diana Lewis
  • Joe Mazan
  • Christy McDonald
  • Erin Nicole
  • Anu Prakash
  • Bill Proctor
  • Michael Rosenfield
  • Erik Smith
  • Robbie Timmons
  • Brandon Truttling
  • Frank Turner
  • Glenn Zimmerman

investagative reporters, The Investigators

consumer reporters

  • Bill Spencer
  • Joann Purtan

Weather

Sports

  • Don Shane
  • Tom Leyden
  • Vic Faust

Chopper 7

WXYZ-TV's news helicopter, Chopper 7 is a Bell JetRanger 206B and is leased and operated by McMahon Helicopters based at Medital Airport in Canton, Michigan. It is crewed by pilot-reporters Captain Dennis Neubacher, Captain Craig Smith and gyro-camera operator Brian Smith.

History

WXYZ-TV’s news department has had a long held dominance of TV news in Detroit partly due to the popularity of long time lead news anchor Bill Bonds. The station’s news department started as a small operation but would gain credibility for its coverage of the 1967 Detroit Riots. In the 1970s under the direction of General Manager Jim Osborn and news director Phil Nye WXYZ would aggressively start a build up of its news department. The station would adopt the Action News moniker, the “Cool Hand Luke” news music and other Eyewitness News elements that were being used to build up news departments at the four other ABC O&O television stations in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The station would also lure popular news personalities from its rival stations WJBK-TV and WDIV-TV (then WWJ-TV) to join its already well-known anchors Dave Diles and Bill Bonds who had returned from a stint as anchor at KABC-TV. WXYZ would assemble Detroit’s most popular news personalities such as John Kelly, Jac LeGoff, Al Ackerman, Marylin Turner, Jerry Hodak and Doris Biscoe. The station launched a promotional campaign to introduce its new anchor team; “Bonds, Kelly, Ackerman, Turner… We got who you wanted.”

By the mid 1970s WXYZ’s Channel 7 Action News would become the highest-rated newscast in Detroit. A dominance in ratings that would continue through to the present. Its success was linked to the serious, controversial, opinionated hard delivery of lead anchor Bill Bonds. ABC would try to apply Bonds’ success in Detroit at KABC-TV in Los Angeles in the late 1960s and again in 1975 at WABC-TV in New York. But Bonds would return after each time to lead WXYZ’s in the news ratings. During the 1980s and 1990s Bonds would host an interview segment of the 5 PM Action News titled Up Front. During the interviews Bonds would confront Detroit’s public officials and newsmakers with hard hinting and sometimes controversial questions. Bonds’ hard-edge style was widely known in Detroit for captivating viewers and repulsing others. Bonds would become the station's icon and its main star. He would be named one of the top six influential news anchors in America. However, Bonds had some public battles with alcoholism that is credited with his dismissal from the station in 1995. Bonds would go on to anchor newscasts and a late night talk-show at WJBK-TV and later host a radio show at WXYT-AM. Bonds returned to WXYZ-TV in 1999 to present editorials during the newscasts but left the station after several months to star in local TV and radio commercials.

WXYZ’s ratings dominance would be challenged by Detroit NBC affiliate WDIV-TV in the 1980s. The two stations continue a head to head battle for ratings to this day. In recent years WXYZ-TV has been awarded with several high journalism honors including the DuPont and Columbia Journalism awards. At one time WXYZ’s Action News was also named the best TV newscast in the U.S. by United Press International and recently was awarded as the top television station in U.S. for outstanding community service.

In the mid 1990s WXYZ continued to expand its morning newscast, Action News This Morning to the present start time of 5 AM. Its anchor Erik Smith was recently commended by The E.W. Scripps Co. for his 40 years at WXYZ-TV. In 2001 WXYZ expanded to a 7 PM newscast. The move was spurred after the September 11th terrorist attacks when the station moved ABC’s World News Tonight ahead a half-hour to 6:30 PM. Action News at 7 PM became a forum for interviewing guests and newsmakers on daily issues and became a ratings success in key demographics. The station also recently expanded its Action News at Noon broadcast to one hour. Action News continues its success with long-time anchors Diana Lewis, Robbie Timmons, meteorologist Jerry Hodak, sportscaster Don Shane, anchor Frank Turner who became a successful replacement to Bill Bonds and recent addition anchor Stephen Clark formerly form WCBS-TV and CBS News. In 2006 WXYZ also boasts the most veteran general assignment reporters in Detroit TV with Cheryl Chodun, Bill Proctor, Mary Conway and Val Clark who all have at least 20 years with the station.

WXYZ-TV’s Special Projects department is home to the station’s investigative and consumer reporters and producers. It recently gained notoriety with Chief Investigative reporter Steve Wilson and his stories of financial mismanagement at the Kmart Corporation and confrontations with elected officials in the City of Detroit.


Former notable WXYZ news staffers

  • Bill Bonds ( Lead anchor from the 1960s to 1995)
  • Doris Biscoe (former long time news anchor and host of Learn to Read)
  • Jac LeGoff, (former anchor who anchored at four TV newsrooms in Detroit and Windsor)
  • Leon McNew (WXYZ-TV’s first news anchor)
  • Dave Diles (Longtime sports anchor, went on to anchor at ABC Sports)
  • Vince Wade (Investigative Reporter)
  • Jim Harrington (Longtime political reporter and host of Spotlight on the News)
  • Larry Adler (Former sports anchor)
  • John Kelly (News anchor, host of Kelly & Company)
  • Barney Morris (News anchor, went on to KABC-TV)
  • Lad Carelton (Early reporter and photographer)
  • Ven Marshal (veteran reporter, formerly at WXYZ-AM)
  • Jerry Stanecki (consumer and Investigative reporter, known as the News Hawk)
  • Al Ackerman (Sports anchor, returned to WDIV-TV)
  • Marilyn Turner (weathercaster, host of Kelly & Company)
  • Rob Kress (former weathercaster)
  • Ken Thomas (News anchor, went on to WJBK-TV)
  • Mike Kalush (former news photographer)
  • John Fuller (former news photographer, author of a how-to home video book)
  • Dick Femmel (WXYZ’s first news director)
  • Phil Nye (former news director, went on to manage other ABC stations )
  • Bill Fyffe (former news director, host of Spotlight on the News)
  • Walter Kraft (former news director)
  • Alan Upchurch (former news director)
  • Bill Carey (former news director, now General Manager of WFTS-TV)
  • Chris Hansen (former reporter, now investigate reporter for NBC News)
  • Mike Huckman (former reporter, now reporter at CNBC)
  • Shelly Smith (former investigative reporter, NBC News correspondent)
  • Chris Lawrence (former reporter, now CNN correspondent)
  • Guy Gordon (former anchor, now at WDIV-TV)
  • Steve Garagiola (former sports anchor, now at WDIV-TV)
  • Greg Neubacher (former producer, went on to CNBC Europe)

Management

Vice President and General Manager

  • Grace Gilchrist

Sales Manager

  • Mike Murri

Program Director

  • Marla Drutz

News Director

  • Andrea Parquet-Taylor

Slogans

  • 1984-90: "Stand Up and Tell'em You're From Detroit" (based on Frank Gari's "Turn To..." series)/"Made in Detroit" (for local shows)
  • 1984-2002: "7 Stands For News"
  • 1996-98: "The Spirit of Detroit"
  • 2002-present: "On Your Side"

Trivia

  • WXYZ-TV was the home of the syndicated kids show "Hot Fudge" and was also the home for the award-winning "Learn To Read" series, which can still be seen on many PBS stations.
  • With 21 vehicles WXYZ-TV has the largest fleet of ENG, SNG and DSNG trucks in the Detroit market and all of Michigan.

See also

References

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