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WLAJ
Lansing / Jackson, Michigan
Branding	ABC 3
Channels	Analog: 53 (UHF) Digital: 51 (UHF)
Affiliations	ABC The CW (on DT2)
Owner	Freedom Communications
Founded	October 13, 1990
Call letters meaning	We're Lansing And Jackson
Website	www.wlaj.com www.LansingsCW5.com

WLAJ is the ABC television affiliate serving the Lansing/Jackson, Michigan market of the United States. It broadcasts its analog signal on UHF channel 53, and its digital signal on UHF channel 51. The station's 981-foot transmitter is located in Tompkins Township, Michigan in the northern part of Jackson County.

WLAJ's digital signal also carries CW affiliate WBL.

WLAJ began broadcasting on October 13, 1990 Their studios (a former appliance store) are located at 5815 S. Pennsylvania Road in Lansing. The station was originally owned by Joel Ferguson, former owner of WFSL-TV (now WSYM-TV). Before 1990, Lansing had been one of the biggest markets in the country without a full-time ABC affiliate. WJRT-TV in Flint served as the default ABC affiliate for the market from its 1958 sign-on until WLAJ debuted. Other parts of the market received ABC from WUHQ-TV in Battle Creek and WXYZ-TV in Detroit. As a condition to the station receiving ABC affiliation, the transmitter had to be located so that there is a minimum of overlap between the WJRT and WLAJ signals.

Ferguson eventually sold a 50% stake of the station to Granite Broadcasting Corporation. Granite had the option of buying out the rest of the station, which it exercised 6 months later after a brief court battle when the owners of the transmitter site tried to stop the sale from taking place.

The station was sold to its current owner, Freedom Broadcasting of Michigan, in 1999. In 2005, the station's master control operations were moved to sister station WWMT in Kalamazoo, leaving behind a skeleton crew of six people, out of what began with 80 staffers in Lansing.

WLAJ launched its first newscast, called "53 Newsbeat", a month after it began operations. However, after 15 months, station management decided to pull the plug on the broadcast, and replaced it with a simulcast of Action News from Detroit's WXYZ-TV, a decision that ABC was not pleased about and voiced their displeasure, along with a brief local sports show at 6:15pm. Due to low ratings, this in turn was eventually replaced by syndicated programming.

In 1997, WLAJ re-started their own news department after several years of rumors. Originally a traditionally formatted newscast, the station found itself with a fraction of the viewers of the established newscasts at WLNS and WILX.

The new 6 and 11 o'clock newscasts were branded "ABC 53 News Now" with anchor Joe Parker (the morning and noon anchor at Kalamazoo sister station WWMT -- now going by real name Joe Pagliarulo, Sports with Shaun Broyls (later to be replaced by Steve Bunin, currently an anchor at ESPN) and Weather was for a while ,beamed in via satellite from National Weather Network (now known as WeatherVision)out of Mississippi,but that was dropped when Kirk Montgomery took over as Weather forecaster.

Granite sold the station to Freedom Communications in 1999. The ownership change brought with it soon thereafter a management change. Mike King was brought in as General Manager from sales manager at WWMT. He was very good friends with Chris Cornelius -- the GM at WILX, the NBC in Lansing, and was just biding his time before skipping across the street to work for his friend. The newscasts remained branded as "ABC53 News Now" -- the slightly-quirky hard news format which won dozens of awards including Best Newscast from the Associated Press. Once King left to the cross-city rival, a new direction was brought in by a GM with a vision.

WLAJ's previous logo used until September 2007.

Jim Wareham tossed out the format and refocused the newscast in its current form of "ABC 53 News Express." 10 minutes of News/Weather and Sports followed by a nightly TV talk show with the movers and shakers in Michigan's capital. From Ted Nugent to Dr. and Mrs. Messenger finally breaking their silence on the nationally reported story of the death of their son, the format was new, different and a local version of what many cable news outlets are doing now daily. Though doing well at the outset, Pagliarulo left in 2002 to be the main anchor at Freedom's WRGB in Albany, New York, he is now talk radio host for WOAI AM in San Antonio,TX. Darcy Sullivan took over the anchoring and interviewing duties of "News Express" and remained in that role until September 2007. Even with all the changes that have occurred, WLAJ has still yet to have made significant increases in viewership.

On September 24th, 2007, major changes happened at WLAJ: Suzanne Page from Detroit's WDIV replaced Darcy Sullivan as producer and anchor, and Cathy Younkin from Grand Rapids' WWMT replaced Jim Fordyce as the News Director. The station also replaced the News Express format for their 6 and 11pm newscasts and adopted a more traditional format. WLAJ also was re-branded as ABC 3 (since most cable providers carry WLAJ on Channel 3), and also tried to use a virtual set but complications led to renewing the old set and adding a new backdrop. The new set consists of a brick backdrop and 14 TV's set to different channels in a black and sliver casing. The change was to be drastic and change the format of the news without spending any extra money. WLAJ also produces a 10pm newscast that airs on WLAJ-DT2, the station's CW sub-channel. The changes include a new logo -- like WOTV's "ABC 4" logo, WLAJ's "ABC 3" logo features the number "53", but emphasizes its cable slot, "3", more than its UHF channel, 53.

• wlaj.com
• LansingsCW5.com
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WLAJ