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| City | Onondaga, Michigan |
| Channels | |
| Branding | WILX 10; News 10 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
First air date | March 15, 1959 |
Former channel number(s) |
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Call sign meaning | Derived from WILS radio; Ingham County, Lansing, X (Roman numeral for 10) |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 6863 |
| ERP | 30 kW |
| HAAT | 298.5 m (979 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 42°26′33″N 84°34′21″W / 42.44250°N 84.57250°W |
| Translator(s) | WLNM-LD 29.1 Lansing |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WILX-TV (channel 10) is a television station licensed to Onondaga, Michigan, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for the Lansing area. Owned by Gray Television, the station maintains studios on American Road (near I-96) in Lansing, and its transmitter is located in Onondaga. It is also rebroadcast on WLNM-LD (channel 29) in the immediate Lansing area.
The second VHF frequency in south-central Michigan was assigned to Onondaga, almost halfway between Lansing and Jackson, in 1954. This triggered a battle among five groups from Lansing and Jackson which sought the channel. Two of them had operated unsuccessful UHF stations in the Lansing area: Lansing Broadcasting, owner of radio station WILS and former owner of WILS-TV (channel 54), and Michigan State University (MSU), owner of WKAR-TV (channel 60). The two groups jointly presented the Federal Communications Commission with a proposal, believed to be the first of its kind, to share time between a commercial station and an MSU-operated educational station. After several years of legal battles at the FCC and in Michigan court, channel 10 began broadcasting on this basis on March 15, 1959. The commercial station was WILX-TV, an NBC affiliate owned by the Television Corporation of Michigan, a group with close ties to WILS, with its main studio in Jackson. It leased the transmitter facility from MSU, which operated an educational station for 38 hours a week as WMSB. The arrangement lasted more than 13 years and was ended in 1972, when MSU built the present WKAR-TV on channel 23.
Television Corporation of Michigan sold WILX-TV to A-T-O Communications, later Figgie Communications, in 1978, in the first of five sales in 25 years. The station, long an also-ran in market news ratings, made its first credible showing by poaching sportscaster Tim Staudt from long-dominant WJIM-TV (channel 6, now WLNS-TV). WILX-TV pulled nearly even, though it continued to be hamstrung by the increasing split of station personnel and resources between Lansing and Jackson. After channel 6 poached two senior executives from channel 10 in 1986, the station's news ratings decreased during the ownership of Adams Communications and Brissette Broadcasting. Under those two companies, the station migrated all of its operations to Lansing in two phases between 1990 and 1993.
WILX overtook WLNS for the first time in the final months of Benedek Broadcasting ownership before Gray acquired the station in 2002. Its local newscasts have continued to be competitive in the market, regularly trading the ratings lead with WLNS.
- ^ "Facility Technical Data for WILX-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.