Early years
In January 1983, Flint Family Television, a group of partners from the Denver area, filed to build a television station on Flint's unused channel 66.[2] The three other applications for the channel that followed included bids by F&S Comm/News, the owners of WFSL in Lansing; a group based in Grand Rapids; and a Knoxville, Tennessee, attorney.[3] The latter two applicants withdrew, not wanting to go through the time and expense of a comparative hearing,[4] and F&S Comm/News settled with Flint Family Television and withdrew its application in November.[5]
Construction of channel 66 began in late 1984. It set up its studio facility in a building that housed a roller rink in a shopping center on Ballenger Highway in Flint.[6] The tower, at Chesaning, was a joint venture with another station going on the air at the same time, the Christian-oriented WAQP (channel 49).[7] However, it was not complete when WSMH began airing its first program tests on January 13, 1985, due to bad weather and a recent ice storm. As a result, channel 66's first transmissions were at 3 percent of the authorized power level.[8] It was the area's first commercial television station since WJRT began in 1958,[9] a general-entertainment independent station with a lineup of movies, syndicated shows, and cartoons.
The tower construction problems grew into a full-fledged dispute with WAQP after WSMH made its first broadcast. WSMH sued WAQP owner Tri-State Christian TV, claiming that the latter's employees were preventing completion of the tower. WSMH alleged that an employee of Tri-State had claimed to a tower rigger that, were anyone to try to complete the tower, he would cut the wires supporting workers above the 700 ft level.[10] WSMH left the air on February 12 after a fire damaged the transmitter power supply.[11] Eventually, WSMH acquiesced to Tri-State Christian TV's demands,[12] settled the dispute, and remained off the air while the facility was completed.[13] On April 8, WSMH returned to the air at its full power.[14]
Despite going on the air, the late start caused the station to miss two months of advertising revenue.[15] In June, the station named its second general manager, and program distributor Viacom pulled its programming from WSMH over a contract dispute.[16] By August, there were rumors the station was to be sold,[17] and in April 1986, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the sale of WSMH to Gerald J. Robinson, a Cincinnati businessman who owned WYZZ-TV in Bloomington, Illinois.[18] The former owners went on to sue Media Management Company, a Chicago-based firm that had provided management services to channel 66 at its start, for breach of contract that it claimed caused undue losses.[19] WSMH affiliated with Fox at the network's launch in October 1986.[20]
Sinclair acquisition and News Central
Having made channel 66 a competitor in the Flint television market, Robinson's Kenko Corp. sold WYZZ and WSMH to Sinclair Broadcast Group in s $34 million transaction in 1996.[21] Six years later, Sinclair used WSMH as the test bed for a new newscast concept. On October 29, 2002, WSMH began producing a nightly 10 p.m. newscast.[22] It was the first newscast to use the News Central format. Weeknight anchor Jim Kiertzner moved over from WNEM-TV[23] and presented the local news (emphasizing Saginaw County from WSMH,[24] while national news, weather, and sports aired from News Central headquarters in Hunt Valley, Maryland (a suburb of Baltimore).[25]
Mid-Michigan expansion
Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired Barrington Broadcasting, owner of Mid-Michigan NBC affiliate WEYI-TV (channel 25).[28] Under then-existing FCC rules, Sinclair could not own more than one license in the market. As part of the sale, Sinclair transferred the license assets of WEYI to Howard Stirk Holdings (owned by political commentator Armstrong Williams) and of WEYI's sister station, WBSF (channel 46), to Cunningham Broadcasting. WSMH took over the operations of both WEYI and WBSF through local marketing agreements when the deal was completed[29] on November 25, 2013.[30]
With WEYI-TV now co-owned, Sinclair discontinued the news share agreement with WNEM-TV and transferred production duties for the Fox66 News at 10 to the WEYI newsroom. The move led to the addition of 18 new news staffers.[31]
