WOOD TV8

WOOD-TV (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for West Michigan. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Battle Creek–licensed ABC affiliate WOTV (channel 41) and Class A MyNetworkTV affiliate WXSP-CD (channel 15). The stations share studios on College Avenue Southeast in Grand Rapids, while WOOD-TV's transmitter is located southwest of Middleville. In addition to its main signal, WOOD-TV operates Class A digital translator WOGC-CD (UHF channel 25), licensed to Holland with a transmitter in Zeeland. There is also a digital repeater on channel 34, also licensed to Grand Rapids, 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 (1300 AM), the first radio station in Grand Rapids. Grandwood had originally applied for its television license back in 1948, but the application just barely made a deadline prior to the Federal Communications Commission's freeze on new television construction permits. In fact, the application for WLAV-TV had been one of the last construction permits issued before the freeze. Grandwood eventually grew tired of waiting and cut a deal with Versluis to buy the station. On October 19, WLAV-TV changed its call letters to WOOD-TV to match its radio sister and began airing from a new transmitter in northeastern Grand Rapids.