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| - The station is one of the nation's earliest UHF television stations, signing on as WKNX-TV Channel 57 in April 1953. Originally co-owned with WKNX radio (AM 1210, now WNEM at AM 1250), it was a CBS affiliate with a secondary ABC affiliation; ABC was shared with DuMont affiliate WTAC-TV and later then-NBC affiliate WNEM-TV (now a sister station to the former WKNX radio) until 1958 when WJRT-TV began operations. In 1965, the station changed channel numbers from 57 to 25, and in 1972 the station relocated to its current studios. The move was so that channel 25 would serve Flint, Saginaw and Bay City, just like WNEM-TV and WJRT -- prior to 1972, Flint's official CBS affiliate was Lansing's WJIM-TV. At the same time, new owners Rust Craft Broadcasting changed the station's call letters to WEYI
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| abstract
| - The station is one of the nation's earliest UHF television stations, signing on as WKNX-TV Channel 57 in April 1953. Originally co-owned with WKNX radio (AM 1210, now WNEM at AM 1250), it was a CBS affiliate with a secondary ABC affiliation; ABC was shared with DuMont affiliate WTAC-TV and later then-NBC affiliate WNEM-TV (now a sister station to the former WKNX radio) until 1958 when WJRT-TV began operations. In 1965, the station changed channel numbers from 57 to 25, and in 1972 the station relocated to its current studios. The move was so that channel 25 would serve Flint, Saginaw and Bay City, just like WNEM-TV and WJRT -- prior to 1972, Flint's official CBS affiliate was Lansing's WJIM-TV. At the same time, new owners Rust Craft Broadcasting changed the station's call letters to WEYI to reflect the station's CBS affiliation. In 1979, Ziff-Davis acquired the Rust Craft stations through a merger. In 1983, WEYI along with then sister stations WROC-TV in Rochester, New York, WRDW-TV in Augusta, Georgia and WTOV-TV in Steubenville, Ohio were sold to Television Station Partners. On January 16, 1995, WEYI and WNEM-TV traded network affiliations, resulting in WEYI becoming an NBC station. This came as part of the affiliation deal between CBS and WNEM's owner Meredith Corporation (which also required KPHO-TV in Phoenix, Arizona to rejoin CBS after four decades without a network affiliation as a condition of keeping that network on KCTV in Kansas City, Missouri) which, in turn, was part of the larger U.S. television network affiliate switches of 1994 that also saw CBS' longtime affiliate in adjacent Detroit, WJBK, switch to Fox. The Flint-Saginaw market is the only known market where the CBS affiliation moved from a relatively weak UHF station to a higher-rated VHF station during this period. WEYI was also forced to take the NBC affiliation largely by default due to ABC's then-pending purchase of WJRT. In early-January 1996, Television Station Partners sold WEYI, WROC and WTOV to Smith Broadcasting (its other station, WRDW, went to what is today Gray Television). In 1997, the WEYI license was transferred to Smith Broadcasting subsidiary Sunrise Television, which later merged with the LIN TV Corporation in 2002. The Sunrise-LIN merger briefly made WEYI a sister station to fellow NBC affiliate WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids and ABC affiliate WOTV in Battle Creek. In May 2004, the station's current owners, Barrington Broadcasting, acquired the station. WEYI was Barrington's first station in Michigan; in March 2006, it was joined by Northern Michigan's WPBN & WTOM, Marquette's WLUC-TV and, to a degree, Toledo's WNWO-TV as part of Barrington's family of stations in Michigan, following Barrington's purchase of those stations from Raycom Media. In 2004, Barrington Broadcasting launched Mid-Michigan's WB (WBSF), a station affiliated with The WB Television Network available on cable and through WEYI's digital signal. The deal was made primarily because WKBD declined to carry Detroit Pistons basketball, switching instead to WMYD, which is not available on most mid-Michigan cable systems. WBSF is now the CW 46 and after the construction of a new tower in 2007, is available on all cable systems and by digital signal as well.
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