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|---|---|
| City | Battle Creek, Michigan |
| Channels | |
| Branding | ABC 4 West Michigan; The CW West Michigan (on DT2) |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| WOOD-TV, WXSP-CD | |
| History | |
First air date | July 24, 1971 |
Former call signs | WUHQ-TV (1971–1992) |
Former channel number(s) |
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| UPN (secondary, 1995–1999) | |
Call sign meaning | Former call letters of WOOD-TV (1972–1992) |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 10212 |
| ERP | 325 kW |
| HAAT | 327.8 m (1,075 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 42°34′15.5″N 85°28′8.9″W / 42.570972°N 85.469139°W |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WOTV (channel 41) is a television station licensed to Battle Creek, Michigan, United States, serving West Michigan as an affiliate of ABC and The CW. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Grand Rapids–licensed NBC affiliate WOOD-TV (channel 8) and Class A MyNetworkTV affiliate WXSP-CD (channel 15). The stations share studios on College Avenue Southeast in Grand Rapids, while WOTV's transmitter is located on South Norris Road in Orangeville Township. WOTV brands itself as ABC 4 West Michigan, based on its channel 4 position on most area cable systems.
Channel 41's existence in Battle Creek is owed to the northerly location of the transmitter of Grand Rapids-based WZZM (channel 13), which signed on in 1962 as a late insertion into the market. Because WZZM's transmitter is north of Grand Rapids in Grant, its signal does not reach Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, or other areas in the southern portion of the market. A group of local businessmen known as Channel 41, Inc., won the construction permit for channel 41 in 1970 after a predecessor unsuccessfully tried to sell out to WZZM; WUHQ-TV signed on in 1971 from studios in the former headquarters building of Fort Custer and has been an ABC affiliate since it began, creating a rare split affiliation. The station's attempts at local news programming were low-rated and inconsistent, with many changes in timing and strategy.
After WZZM's owners could not close on an FCC-approved merger with Channel 41, Inc., in 1991, the company brokered the station's air time to channel 8, which began producing Battle Creek–Kalamazoo news inserts for air on the station. When channel 8 reclaimed the WOOD-TV call letters in 1992, WUHQ-TV became WOTV. The news inserts grew into a separate news operation that continued to exist until it was shut down in 2003, two years after WOOD-TV's then-owner, LIN Television, acquired the station outright. Since then, WOTV has offered ABC programming, a separate slate of syndicated programs, and WOOD-TV's local newscasts. Even though it attracts a fraction of the viewers of WZZM, it continues to provide better signal coverage in the market's southern tier.
- ^ "Facility Technical Data for WOTV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.