History
WFUM
The station first signed on the air on August 23, 1980, as WFUM under the ownership of the University of Michigan–Flint with coverage of the Crim race. [3] Initially promoted using its WFUM call letters, the station eventually began to brand itself as "Michigan Television". Prior to WFUM's sign-on, Flint had been one of the few areas of Michigan that was not served by an over-the-air PBS station. Most cable providers in the area (then as now) piped in WCMU-TV, WDCQ-TV in Bay City, WTVS in Detroit, WKAR-TV in East Lansing or WGTE-TV in Toledo.
In 2002, the University of Michigan moved all media assets including WFUM into Michigan Public Media, which reported to the main UM Ann Arbor campus. [4] In 2007, the station broadcast the Crim Festival of Races for the last time as its producer had retired the year before and costs were too high to produce. [3]
WFUM was the first PBS member station in Michigan and the first television station in the Flint/Tri-Cities market to broadcast exclusively in digital. The station discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 28, on November 19, 2008, and signed back on by November 24, 2008. [5] The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 52, [1] which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era UHF channel 28.
In 2008, the Michigan Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded the station nine regional Emmy awards for several programs. The programs included Childhood Places, Secret Spaces in which children's author Christopher Paul Curtis returns to his native Flint and a documentary about a Howell World War II Army Air Corps photo officer. [6]
Sale to CMU and call sign change to WCMZ-TV
On April 23, 2009, the University of Michigan announced plans to discontinue its operation of WFUM-TV. [6] On October 27, 2009, the Board of Trustees of Central Michigan University approved a proposal for CMU to acquire WFUM, for a maximum purchase price of $1 million. [7] While WFUM was transitioned into a satellite of WCMU-TV, CMU vowed to include Flint-area events and issues in its programming, as well as produce new programming that would originate from the region. [4] On January 15, 2010, WFUM-TV began repeating the CMU Public Television signal.
The station received WCMU programming via a microwave relay connection between WCMU's studios in Mount Pleasant to WFUM's transmitter, through relay facilities set up at Mott Community College. CMU originally hinted that the takeover of WFUM would begin in late November, [8] however, CMU took over operations of WFUM at 1:00 a.m. on January 15, 2010. [9] The Federal Communications Commission approved the transfer of the station's license on March 16, 2010. [10] CMU officially took over WFUM on May 18, 2010, [11] and the call letters were changed to WCMZ-TV. [12] The agreement gave CMU Public Television one of the largest footprints in the PBS system, with at least secondary coverage from Petoskey to northern Monroe County.
The station's former studios in the William L. White Building at the University of Michigan-Flint is now a newsroom and satellite studio for all-news NPR affiliate WFUM Radio.
FCC spectrum sale and closure
On February 8, 2017, Central Michigan University announced it would sell WCMZ-TV in the FCC spectrum auction for $14,163,505, citing the easy availability of surrounding PBS member stations over-the-air and on pay services, namely Delta College's WDCQ-TV and stations from Detroit (WTVS) and Lansing (WKAR). [13] [14] It was later announced that Spectrum, AT&T U-verse, DirecTV and Dish Network will continue to offer WCMU's programming in WCMZ's viewing area; Mount Pleasant is part of the Flint/Tri-Cities market. It is unknown to date if Comcast, which serves much of the Flint and Detroit metro areas, would follow suit. [15] WCMZ-TV closed on April 23, 2018, [2] and the license was canceled the next day. [16]
