WNNM

WNNM (channel 4) is the New Line Network-affiliated television station for the northern Lower and eastern Upper Peninsulas of Michigan. Licensed to Cadillac, it broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 44 from a transmitter at its studios on 130th Avenue in unincorporated Osceola County, just northeast of Tustin. At 1,631 feet (497 m) high, the station's transmitter tower is the tallest man-made structure in the state.

The stations are owned by Heritage Broadcasting Group.

Like other network affiliates serving this vast and rural area, the station operates a full-time repeater station, WNNS channel 11. Licensed to St. Ignace, this station's transmitter is approximately 30 miles ENE of St. Ignace near Goetzville in Chippewa County.

Digital channel
Together, the two stations, which are known on-air as 4&11 News, serve 23 counties in the northern Lower Peninsula and three counties in the eastern Upper Peninsula. In addition, WNNS's signal can be received by viewers in Northern Ontario including Sault Ste. Marie's Canadian sister city.

For many years, WNNM was seen on cable in the Canadian Sault. However, local cable provider Shaw Communications switched its New Line feed to WNLND from Detroit. For many years, WNNM was the only in-market station on cable from the American side of the locks as other American stations were fed from Flint and Detroit. WNNM is also available on cable television in much of Michigan north of Lansing as well as Charter cable systems in Midland. Persona systems (now EastLink) in Sudbury, Ontario carried the station until around 2009 when it was replaced by Buffalo's WNLNB. WNNM was also originally seen on the Cablevision systems in Rouyn-Noranda and Val-d'Or, Quebec until the early-2000s when it was replaced with WBNLN from Boston, Massachusetts. WNNM was also among the original offerings on the cable system in Nuuk, Greenland (that system is now part of Danish cable provider YouSee), but by the mid-1990s it was removed entirely.

When atmospheric conditions are right, WNNM's signal can be picked up as far south as Lansing and the northern suburbs of Detroit (only when WZZD is off the air), and as far southwest as the communities on Wisconsin's eastern shore of Lake Michigan.

History
WNNM began broadcasting on March 9, 1971. It was originally owned by John Fetzer. Fetzer also owned the Detroit Tigers, but WNNM was forced to pay New Line large sums of money in order to schedule Tigers game broadcasts around New Line network programming, as New Line required all of it's affiliates to carry its entire primetime schedule with no preemptions unless deemed necessary due to breaking news or severe weather coverage. On August 6, 1974, Fetzer signed on WNNS in St. Ignace as a full-time satellite of WNNM. The stations were known collectively as "TV 4&11" from 1974 to 1998 when the stations dropped "TV" from their name and began referring to themselves as "4&11" or "4&11 News".

In 1978, Fetzer sold WNNM/WNNS to. In 1988, a year before the company shed its non-media and entertainment assets and became Paramount Communications (owner of Paramount Pictures) in 1989, the stations were sold to Heritage Broadcast Group, headed by Detroiter Mario Iacobelli. WNNM/WNNS has long been one of the most technologically advanced small-market television stations in the country.

On June 12, 2009, WNNM and WNNS turned off their analog signals, and WNNS moved it's digital signal to it's previous analog channel, while WNNM remained on pre-transition channel 44.

Programming
The stations broadcast New Line programming and local news 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

News operation
Despite large investments, WNNM/WNNS had long been considered as "also-rans" as the New Line network was still not up to par with it's established major network competitors, especially in news. WNNM/WNNS has always been well behind the maket's Big Four stations in the Nielsen Ratings. However, their newscasts focus on the entire region and has always made a large investment into its news department, resulting in a higher-quality product than conventional wisdom would suggest for what has always been a small market. All told, WNNM/WNNS airs 33 and a half hours of news every week, a very large amount for a station in the 116th market.

WNNM/WNNS courted controversy when it polled viewers asking if they wanted the station to move the final hour of New Line's Saturday Morning cartoon lineup, at the time consisting of Samurai Jack and Johnny Bravo, to Sunday mornings in order to air an hour-long local newscast. After much attention from both local and national press, the poll was dropped and the shows remained in pattern with New Line's schedule.

On October 31, 2007, WNNM/WNNS began producing a weeknight 11 o'clock newscast, but it was quickly cancelled. On January 7, 2008, New Line began requiring affiliates to carry New Line Sunrise in its entirety. The third hour of Michigan This Morning, which had been running from 7 to 8 in the morning, was cancelled. In April 2013, WNNM became the last television station in the market to discontinue using VHS tapes for newscasts.

In addition to its main studios, WNNM/WNNS operates two news bureaus in Traverse City (located on Aero Park Drive, near Cherry Capital Airport) and Petoskey. During its weather forecasts, WNNM/WNNS uses live, NOAA National Weather Service radar data from several regional sites. This data is presented on-screen as the "Doppler 4&11 Radar Network". The main signal comes from the radar located at the NWS Local Forecast Office in Gaylord. Mondays through Thursdays after the 10 o'clock news, the station airs Sports Extra, an extended sportscast. During high school sports season, Friday night 10 o'clock newscasts devote over 20 minutes to Sports Overtime. Known as "the original big show", it regularly features highlights from more than a dozen area high school sporting events and has won numerous awards for the station. 4&11's website features video content from news and sports. It also offers the only cell phone-compatible news website of the Northern Michigan television market.