WTLJ

WTLJ

Muskegon/Grand Rapids, Michigan
City of license	Muskegon
Branding	TCT 54
Channels	Digital: 24 (UHF)
Subchannels	(see article)
Affiliations	TCT
Owner	Tri-State Christian Television, Inc. (TCT of Michigan, Inc.)
First air date	November 1986
Call letters' meaning	Witnessing The Love of Jesus -or- We Trust and Love Jesus
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 54 (1986-2009)
Transmitter power	280 kW (digital)
Height	281 m (digital)
Facility ID	67781
Transmitter coordinates	42°57′25″N 85°54′7″W
Website	www.tct-net.org

WTLJ is a television station broadcasting in the Grand Rapids, Michigan metropolitan area on WTLJ channel 54 (digital 24) in Muskegon and Grand Rapids, and W26BX-D channel 26 (originally W24BO channel 24) in Kalamazoo. It is an owned and operated affiliate of Tri-State Christian Television.

The station identification shows that it is licensed to Muskegon and Grand Rapids, with the translator licensed to Kalamazoo.

Its offices and transmitter are located in Allendale Charter Township, of Ottawa County, just southwest of Grand Valley State University.

WTLJ broadcasts its own live programs in its studio in Allendale. The programs are called Ask The Pastor and Down Home.

The director of WTLJ as of January 2005 is Victor VanDeVenter.

History

Before the original WMKG-TV 54 went on the air, channel 54 in Michigan was assigned to Lansing. It was occupied by DuMont affiliate WILS, which later became WTOM-TV (calls now used on channel 4 in Cheboygan), and was on the air from 1953 until 1956. Channel 54 was then reassigned to Muskegon. [1] [2] WMKG-TV 54, a full-power station, broadcast in the late 1960s from the Occidental Hotel in downtown Muskegon. That station, which had no network affiliation and relied heavily on live, local programming, had left the air by the mid-1970s.

In the early-1980s, WTLJ originally had the call letters WMKT with the intention of focusing on the Muskegon and Holland areas. That station was never built. (Muskegon has its own station, WMKG-CA, which fulfills this purpose.)

In November 1986, Miami Valley Christian Television of Springfield, Ohio launched WTLJ, as a Christian channel, which remains to this day. The station would eventually be sold to its present-owners, Tri-State Christian Television.

History of its Kalamazoo repeater, W26BX-D, is unknown, other than the fact that the move from channel 24 to 26 was approved in December 1998, and the move was actually made in January 2002 to facilitate WTLJ's eventual digital channel 24.

The station was receivable in analog on the western shore of Lake Michigan in the Wisconsin cities of Sheboygan and Milwaukee because of Channel 54's transmitter being close to the Lake Michigan shore, although TCT does not explicitly market to those cities or have any cable coverage. With the termination on March 4, 2009 of the analog channel 24 signal of Milwaukee's WCGV, the station's digital signal is also easily picked up in Wisconsin.

Digital television

Channel	Programming
54.1	WTLJ/TCT programming in 480i SD
54.2	TCT HD, a 1080i channel featuring an all-HD programming schedule different from TCT's main grid
54.3	TCT Family, a 480i channel mainly featuring public domain sitcoms and films and Christian children's programming
54.4	La Fuente (Spanish religious programming)

Interesting Information

WTLJ has collaborated with the Ottawa County Department of Corrections. This collaboration has led to the station taking in probationers to give them the opportunity to complete court ordered mandatory community service.^{[citation needed]}

References

• WTLJ-TV Channel 54 Muskegon. Michigan's Radio & TV Broadcast Guide.

External links

• TCT Network
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WTLJ
  • Query the FCC's TV station database for W26BX-D
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WTLJ-TV