WOOD-TV

WOOD-TV, virtual channel 8 (VHF digital channel 7), is an NBC-affiliated television station located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States. The station is owned by Media General, and is a sister station to ABC affiliate WOTV (channel 41) and Class A MyNetworkTV affiliate WXSP-CD (channel 15). All three stations share studios on College Avenue Southeast in the Heritage Hill section of Grand Rapids, WOOD-TV's transmitter is located in Middleville near the Barry and Allegan County line.

In addition to its main signal, WOOD-TV operates Class A digital translator WOGC-CD on UHF channel 25 licensed to Holland with a transmitter in Zeeland along I-196 on the tower of FM radio station WJQK. There is also a digital repeater on channel 46 licensed to Muskegon with a transmitter in the Wolf Lake section of Egelston Township.

History

The station signed on the air on August 15, 1949 as WLAV-TV, originally broadcasting on VHF channel 7; it was the fourth television station in Michigan and the first located outside of Detroit. The station was originally owned by Grand Rapids businessman Leonard Adrian Versluis, who in 1940 had also signed-on Grand Rapids' second radio station, WLAV (1340 AM, now WJRW). In 1951, Versluis sold the television station to Grandwood Broadcasting for $1.37 million. The Bitner Group subsidiary was also owner of WOOD, the first radio station in Grand Rapids.