WLNS
The stress of the decade-long licensing dispute led Gross to end his half-century in the broadcasting business. He sold WJIM-TV to Backe Communications in July 13, 1984.[4] 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.[10] WJIM-AM-FM was sold to Liggett Broadcasting in 1993, netting Gross a handsome return on his original investment.[11] Backe's ownership of the station was short-lived; in March 1986, WLNS was sold to Young Broadcasting for $72 million.[12]
In May 1994, Detroit CBS affiliate WJBK announced that it would switch its affiliation to Fox as part of a deal between the network and New World Communications.[13] CBS heavily pursued WXYZ-TV as a replacement affiliate, but the E. W. Scripps Company renewed the station's affiliation with ABC one month later in exchange for switching the affiliations of three of its sister stations—KNXV-TV in Phoenix, WFTS-TV in Tampa and WMAR-TV in Baltimore—to the network.[14] WDIV was not an option as that station was still in a long-term contract with NBC at the time, while WKBD-TV (which was about to lose Fox), WADL, and WXON were not interested in affiliating with CBS. With just weeks to go before WJBK was due to join Fox, CBS still had yet to find a new affiliate in Detroit. Facing the prospect of having to pipe in WLNS-TV, Flint affiliate WNEM-TV, and Toledo affiliate WTOL for cable subscribers, CBS agreed to purchase independent station WGPR-TV (now WWJ-TV), which became an affiliate of the network on December 11, 1994. WLNS-TV served as the default CBS affiliate for the western portion of the Detroit market until WWJ-TV built a new transmitter in 1999.
WLNS-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 6, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 59 to UHF channel 36, using virtual channel 6.
Young filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in early-2009.[15] The company was subsequently taken over by its secured lenders and outsourced most of its operations to Gray Television. WLNS-TV was not part of the management agreement because Gray already owned WILX. Young merged with Media General in November 2013.[16]
Following the other Young stations that launched The Country Network in late November 2010, WLNS-TV added that network to its .2 subchannel in the first quarter of 2011.[17] On January 30, 2012, WLNS-TV changed its 6.2 affiliation to the Live Well Network along with 7 other Young stations.[18]
Media General added GetTV to 20 of its stations' subchannels, including WLNS-TV, in a roll out that started on February 1, 2016.[19] Media General merged with Nexstar in January 2017.[20]
