WNLND

WNLND is the New Line Network owned-and-operated station licensed to and serving Detroit, Michigan. The station broadcasts on channel 6 and is owned by New Line Stations, a Time Warner company. WNLND maintains studio facilities located on Noecker Way and Reeck Road in Southgate, and it's transmitter on Lincoln Drive and Greenfield Road in Southfield.

WNLND, along with sister stations WNLCO in Cleveland and WNLMW in Milwaukee, does not produce an 11 PM Eastern newscast, instead simulcasting sister station WCNLN Chicago's 10 PM Central (11 PM Eastern) newscast immediately following WNLND's own 10 PM Eastern newscast.

Early successes and 80's decline
WNLND signed on at 2:50 PM on February 26, 1968, as the third of the then-newly-formed New Line Network's seven charter O&Os, after WNLNY New York and WCNLN Chicago. Originally, in addition to it's New Line programming, WLNLND also produced a significant amount of local programming that ranged from music and variety to daytime talk, sports, agriculture, current affairs and documentaries.

In 1970, WNLND also became the first station in Michigan to launch a 90-minute early evening newscast, from 5 to 6:30 PM. WNLND originally branded as WNLND, Channel 6, and in 1975 it began branding as Detroit's TV6. On September 1, 1975, WNLND opened it's current studio building on Noecker Way.

However, the unexpected extreme popularity of A Nightmare on Elm Street, released in 1984 by the Cinema division of the New Line company, resulted in New Line reallocating most of their funding from the Stations division into the Cinema division to jump start the resulting franchise. This funding crunch, in 1985, decimated all locally produced programs by WNLND and fellow New Line O&Os except for most news, even though WNLND was among the division's most successful stations. The 90-minute early evening newscast, by then known as TV6 Twilight Newscap, remained as well as late and weekend news programs, but the music (including Detroit Video Sounds, WNLND's answer to MTV), variety, and morning news programs were all canceled. In 1990, in order to fund the purchasing of a 52% stake in the television production company RHI Entertainment (now Sonar Entertainment), New Line closed down WNLND's news department, resulting in protests from Metro Detroit residents. A large rally of about 5,000+ people marched on Noecker Way in protest, at one point shutting down the southbound lanes of adjacent Interstate 75.

Only three reporters remained at WNLND, who produced stories for the early evening newscast on Chicago sister station WCNLN. First came Great Lakes Early Evening at 5:30 PM, which was followed by New Line Evening News, an out-of-market and Eastern Time Zone-specific renaming of Central Time-based WCNLN's newscast, Live at 5.

The Detroit Project
With an editorial and tech staff of about 32, New Line reinstated local news in pilot project form. New operating methods and new technologies were introduced. This meant videojournalists (cross-skilling) multi-skilling, and the use of non-linear editing technology (AVID newscutters and air-play for news item playback). The Detroit Committee was also formed. This group made up of managers and union reps oversaw the progress of the "project" and dealt with issues that arose on an almost weekly basis. The new methods of the operation paved way for some of the new language in the collective agreements reached when New Line was acquired by the Turner Broadcasting System in 1994 before being acquired by Warner Bros. in 1996.

Detroit was not only in the spotlight in New Line, but also eventually Turner Broadcasting and then Warner Bros., and was also of interest to many other broadcasters and union leaders across the United States. Two local news programs were produced when WNLND presented the half-hour Detroit at 5:30, anchored by Velma French, at 5:30 p.m. and a new 90-minute prime-time newscast, split into Detroit at 10 p.m. and Detroit at 11 p.m. (WNLND would continue to show the Chicago-based New Line Evening News at 6 p.m.)

In the mid-1990s, Turner Broadcasting and later Warner Bros. made significant investments into the New Line Network and it's O&Os.

Sale of studio
On September 8, 2014, it was announced that due to a financial crisis at New World, Time Warner would be selling its Noecker Way studio complex to a Toledo, Ohio-based developer for $1,425,000. New Line will continue its operations at the complex, leasing 13,000 square feet of the 32,000 square-foot complex from the developer on a ten-year lease. While employees would relocate out of areas not leased by Time Warner, the transition is not expected to be noticed by viewers and listeners.

Analog-to-digital conversion
WNLND shut down its analog signal at 11:58 a.m. on June 12, 2009, the federally-mandated date for transitions from analog to digital transmissions for full-power United States television stations, and flash-cut its digital signal into operation on VHF channel 6 three minutes later at 12:01 p.m.

News operation
WNLND presently broadcasts 31 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (28 hours on weekdays, 90 minutes on weekends). On October 2, 2000, evening news programming on WNLND and other New Line Network O&Os were reduced to a half-hour each early evening, and late newscasts were canceled. On this same date, WNLND's newscasts were now referred to under the New Line News 6 banner, in line with New Line Stations' new standardization plan. With the introduction of New Line Live (which began at WLNLND before it went national), New Line's new hybrid hour-long early evening newscast at 6 p.m. made its debut. National news segments originated from the studios of Los Angeles sister station KNLNL and were anchored by Daryl Bell, with the Detroit segment broadcast from the WNLND studios presented by Faye Byrd.

Velma French would move to Chicago to anchor the Chicago segment there; she would later move to New York to co-anchor with Colin Barrett on New Line Network's morning newscast, New Line Sunrise. As a result of the early evening news change, New Line's local news operations faced some layoffs – especially WNLND, which terminated ten of its 29 news staffers. Prior to the 2006 format change, New Line Live was last locally anchored by Megan Mitchell with Doyle Watson from a state-of-the-art news set inside the WNLND newsroom.

On January 9, 2006, under New Line's ambitious O&O programming expansion initiative (which indirectly resulted in the Cinema division's cessation to exist as a separate entity and folding into Warner Bros.), New Line Live was cut to a half-hour at 6:30 PM.

On November 30, 2006, New Line announced plans to discontinue New Line Live in February 2007, in favor of hour-long early evening local newscasts on its stations. While sister stations WBNLN Boston decided to name its new early evening newscast New England Twilight and KNLNL Los Angeles kept the New Line Live title, WNLND retained the New Line News 6 at Six brand rather than returning to its original New Line News 6 Twilight Newscap title. Megan Mitchell would continue as lead anchor, with Darnell Jordan on sports and Viola Hubbard reporting on weather and traffic.

In September 2009, most New Line stations began to carry a 120-minute block of local news from 5 to 7 p.m. Eastern Time each weeknight; however, WNLND opted to keep its 90-minute newscast, New Line News 6 at 5/5:30/6 (depending on time) from 5 to 6:30 p.m. In addition to the main prime-time 10 p.m. newscast, New Line News 6 at 10, WNLND introduced a half-hour 11 p.m. newscast, New Line News 6 Late Night, immediately following the 10 p.m. newscast on October 26, 2009. On July 3, 2012, Mitchell announced that she would take a leave of absence for a year, as she was adopting a baby girl.

On September 2, 2013, WNLND finally followed the lead of it's sister stations by expanding its early evening newscast as well to 120 minutes from 5 to 7 p.m., while it discontinued its 11 p.m. newscast in turn (due to competition from WZZD, WDET and WGID); this differed from most New Line O&Os in other markets where stations carry both a 120-minute early and 90-minute late evening newscast; in lieu of its own 11 p.m. newscast, WNLND simulcasts the 10 p.m. Central newscast from WCNLN instead following WNLND's own hour-long 10 p.m. Eastern newscast (the WCNLN simulcasts at 10 p.m. Central are also done at sisters WNLCO Cleveland and WNLMW Milwaukee, who also discontinued their 11 p.m. Eastern newscasts on the same date). Lola Hines, who previously worked the breaking news desk on New Line Sunrise, became anchor of the expanded newscast; she replaced Margaret Nichols (who became anchor during Mitchell's maternity leave) as anchor.