History
The station signed-on August 20, 1999 carrying programming from Bloomberg Television and Jewelry Television. It aired an analog signal on UHF channel 18 from a transmitter near Onondaga on the Ingham and Jackson County line. It became a UPN affiliate on October 16, 2000 and prior to this, programming from that network was seen on area cable systems from Detroit's WKBD. From 2002 until 2006, WHTV was housed at the studios of ABC affiliate WLAJ on South Pennsylvania Avenue in Lansing. It then relocated to the WLNS facility on East Saginaw Street.
As a UPN affiliate, WHTV carried the CBS Sports feed of the U.S. Open Tennis Championship while WLNS aired the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon on Labor Day. This station also occasionally carried Saturday NCAA football games from ABC when they conflicted with WLAJ's commitment to broadcast the ESPN Plus college football and basketball packages which later ended with the launch of the Big Ten Network for the 2007-2008 season. WHTV continues to air the U.S. Open Tennis Championship on Labor Day and, as a result of being in a twinstick with WLNS, may run CBS programming should the latter station preempt in the event of a local special or an emergency such as breaking news. On December 1, 2008, WHTV shut-off its analog signal and made the permanent switch to digital broadcasting. It was the first station in the Lansing market to go digital-only before the nationwide switch on June 12, 2009.
It has been announced that WLAJ will be sold from the Sinclair Broadcasting Group to Shield Media, LLC (owned by White Knight Broadcasting Vice President Sheldon Galloway). Shield then plans on entering into certain shared services and joint sales agreements with Young Broadcasting (owner of WLNS). Pending Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval, WLAJ will likely move from its separate studios into the WLNS facility in Lansing's Eastside. In effect, the move would reunite WHTV's intellectual unit with WLAJ since this station was once housed at the ABC outlet's studios. However, WLNS will continue to operate this station through a separate JSA from WLAJ.
WHTV currently has a construction permit to relocate its transmitter to a tower previously used by Detroit's Ion Television affiliate WPXD-TV. The site is located on M-52 in Lyndon Township. Essentially, the new transmitter will be located in the Detroit market but the station will continue to serve as a Lansing/Jackson market television outlet. The planned move date of its signal to the new antenna is scheduled to occur on November 1, 2012.
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