| Traverse City | |
|---|---|
| Branding | Northern Michigan CW |
| Slogan | Northern Michigan's Home of The CW |
| Affiliations | The CW (via The CW Plus) |
| Owner | Tucker Broadcasting of Traverse City, Inc. (operated through SSA by Barrington Broadcasting) |
| Founded | 1998 |
| Call letters' meaning | The WB TraVerse City (previous affiliation) |
| Sister station(s) | WGTU/WGTQ WPBN-TV/WTOM-TV |
| Former callsigns | WGTU-DT2 |
| Former affiliations | The WB (via The WB 100+ 1995-2006) |
"WBVC" is the cable TV only CW-affiliated television station for the Northern Lower and Eastern Upper Peninsulas of Michigan. The call sign is fictional as it is a cable-only station. It is part of The CW Plus, a special CW feed that broadcasts on cable and/or over-the-air on a digital signal. WBVC can be seen exclusively on Charter channel 61. The station is operated by ABC affiliate WGTU and full-time satellite WGTQ that is owned by Tucker Broadcasting of Traverse City but operated through a shared services agreement (SSA) by Barrington Broadcasting (owner of NBC affiliate WPBN-TV and full-time satellite WTOM-TV).
Known on-air as Northern Michigan CW, it is operated out of WPBN's studios on M-72 west of Traverse City. Like all affiliates in the Eastern Time Zone, the station airs the nationally syndicated morning show The Daily Buzz on weekday mornings from 6 to 9. Except for local commercials and station identifications, it broadcasts the national CW Plus feed and there is no website for the channel.
The station began in 1998 as a WB affiliate. It was part of The WB 100+ which was a similar operation to the current CW Plus service. WBVC was identified on-air as "Northern Michigan's WB 61" and the call sign was used in a fictional manner because it only aired on cable. WGTU provided promotional and advertising services for this station which was based at that channel's studios on East Front Street in Downtown Traverse City. On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that the networks would end broadcasting and merge.
The new combined network would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of corporate parents CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. UPN aired in a delayed arrangement on Fox affiliates WFQX-TV/WFUP. On July 25, a new logo for WBVC appeared on WGTU's website. At that time, there were no announcements posted about its future as a CW affiliate. However, that changed a few weeks before the new network started. The CW began broadcasting on September 18. On that date, WBVC became known on-air as "Northern Michigan CW" and WFQX dropped its secondary affiliation with UPN. After the station was added to a new second digital subchannel of WGTU, it began to use the WGTU-DT2 call sign in an official manner.
On September 19, 2007, there was an application filed to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by Max Media to sell WGTU to Tucker Broadcasting for $10 million. After approval in April 2008, Tucker entered into a shared service agreement with Barrington Broadcasting that resulted in WPBN operating WGTU and the CW subchannel. According to the FCC filing, WPBN sells advertising time and provides other programming for WGTU. After that channel renovated its studios over the summer, the operations of WGTU and the CW subchannel moved to that location. A result of WGTU being in an operation agreement with WPBN is the ability to transmit a digital signal from both ABC and NBC at each of the digital transmitter locations in Cheboygan, Kalkaska, and Gatesville. It was at this point that the CW subchannel was dropped from WGTU's digital signal in favor of NBC from WPBN. It resumed using the fictitious WBVC call letters. Although on cable, the station has the infamous poor on-air quality that WGTU has suffered from over the years.
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