WOTV

WOTV

Battle Creek–Kalamazoo– Grand Rapids, Michigan United States
City	Battle Creek, Michigan
Channels	Digital: 17 (UHF) Virtual: 41
Branding	ABC 4 West Michigan; The CW West Michigan (on DT2)
Programming
Affiliations	41.1: ABC 41.2: The CW for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Nexstar Media Group (Nexstar Media Inc.)
Sister stations	WOOD-TV, WXSP-CD
History
First air date	July 24, 1971 (53 years ago) (1971-07-24)
Former call signs	WUHQ-TV (1971–1992)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 41 (UHF, 1971–2009) Digital: 20 (UHF, until 2019)
Former affiliations	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 / 42.570972; -85.469139
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.woodtv.com/abc4

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.