2025 Marks the 75th Anniversary of WJIM/WLNS-TV

The Mid-Michigan area was treated to a new television station on May 1, 1950. It was given the call letters WJIM-TV and was owned by Harold F. Gross. Gross had started WJIM-AM radio back in 1934, named after his son, Jim.

The well-related legend states that in the early 1930s, Gross won the radio license in a card game.

Ninety-one years later (2025), WJIM-AM remains the oldest continuously operated commercial radio station in Lansing,

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As for WJIM-TV, when it signed on in 1950, it carried programs from all four then-current networks, unheard of these days. The station aired shows from ABC, CBS, DuMont, and NBC.

ABC was dropped in 1958 when WJRT in Flint signed on.
All DuMont programs were gone when the network folded in 1956.
NBC shows were dropped once WILX began operating in 1959.

WJIM-TV was sold to Backe Communications in 1984. FCC rules stated there couldn’t be a radio and TV station with the same call letters in the same market, so WJIM-AM radio kept the letters while WJIM-TV was changed to WLNS. The new call letters took effect on July 16, 1984.

1986: WLNS (a slight abbreviation of LaNSing) was again sold: this time to Young Broadcasting.

The station, per FCC rules at the time (which prohibited TV and radio stations in the same market, but with different ownership, from sharing the same call letters) adopted its current call letters, WLNS-TV, on July 16, 1984. WJIM-AM-FM was sold to Liggett Communications the following year.

To this day, WLNS remains an exclusive CBS affiliate and is Michigan's second-oldest television station outside of Detroit. The oldest is WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids.

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