Here is a list of past and present employees of TV6 
Here is a slideshow of past and present TV6 logos 
Where are they now? A list of where past employees have moved on to. 

If you’ve ever watched television in Upper Michigan, here are eleven names you should know. Bob Luke, John Borgen, Jim Tomlin, Elroy Strand, Lou Chappell, Larry Busse, Tom Gagnon, Guy Spitsberg, James Kizer, Brad Van Sluyters, and Rob Jamros. Why? Because each of them was (or in Rob’s case is) the General Manager of TV6, and that means each in his time has had a powerful influence on the people of Upper Michigan. The decisions they made changed the way we lived and learned, shaped our buying habits, and opened our eyes to an entire world made available only through television. Today, TV6 is considered to be one of the best small market television stations in the nation. And every TV6 General Manager and every TV6 viewer owes a debt of gratitude to Frank Russell, the man responsible for putting Upper Michigan’s first television station on the air.

The year was 1956. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the President of the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ban on racially segregated schools, colleges and universities. Egypt seized the Suez Canal. Prince Rainier of Monaco married American film star Grace Kelly. And people in Upper Michigan were putting an antenna on their roof and paying as much as $139.95 to buy a 21-inch black and white Admiral television set complete with “top front tuning” so they could watch what was happening around the world on a brand new television station — WDJM-TV, Channel 6, Marquette.

WDMJ-TV was the brainchild of Frank Russell, a media mogul who owned the local newspaper, The Daily Mining Journal, and WDMJ-Radio in addition to newspapers and radio stations in Iron Mountain and Escanaba. Russell purchased the rights to Channel 6 from the Peninsula Broadcasting Company in mid 1955, and reportedly invested a half-million dollars in construction of the new television facility built especially for television on the top floor of the Mining Journal building in downtown Marquette.

In January of 1956, a story appeared in the paper about the TV station’s tower that was under construction on Signal Hill in Negaunee Township. On March 20, a full- length movie, “Forever and a Day,” was shown as part of the station’s test patterning. A story in the next day’s Mining Journal had quotes complimenting the quality of reception from viewers as far away as Iron Mountain, the Copper Country, Three Lakes, WI, Newberry, Manistique, and St. Ignace.

The first official day of broadcasting was Saturday, April 28, when formal dedication ceremonies were held at 7:00 P.M. on the program “Peninsula on Parade.” Program Manager Chuck Zwemer hosted the hour-long show. Mr. Russell announced “Viewers throughout the Upper Peninsula know by now that we have adopted as a motto and as a guide for service the phrase ‘With an Eye for Upper Michigan.” The “eye” tied in nicely with the station’s affiliation to the CBS television network. The mayors of fifteen Upper Michigan communities were on hand to offer their congratulations to Frank Russell and his management team consisting of Robert J. Luke (Station Manager), W.H. Treloar (Production and Promotions), James Luke (Sales Director), Wallace C. Johnson (Communications and Control), Charles Zwemer (Program and Studio Manager), and Paul Anick (Chief Engineer).

The Firestone store in Marquette ran an ad in the paper with 17-inch Firestone TV sets selling for $129.95.

TV6 began using its first video tape machine in the late 70’s.  It was a large piece of equipment that an engineer would have to manually cue to the correct spot on the reel-to-reel video tape. Eventually, the reel-to-reel machines were replaced by a video cartridge machine — a semi-automatic marvel that was pre-loaded with up to 22 tape cartridges and, at the push of a button, would load, cue, and play them in the proper order, whirring and clanking all the while. It was spectacular...when it worked. Now, commercials are produced on digital tapes or received by satellite, downloaded into computers and played on air directly from hard drives.

Major changes have also taken place in the number of personnel required to produce our on-air product and in the support staff. What was once a small three person News Department shooting stories on black and white film has become the largest department at TV6, with twenty five employees who utilize state-of-the-art digital cameras and editing systems to get their stories on the air. Our news anchors, meteorologists and sports announcers are more recognizable to viewers than many of today’s movie stars.  Steve Asplund, Karl Bohnak, Greg Trick, Elizabeth Peterson, and Mike Ludlum are  household names in the U.P.  Don Ryan, a former TV6 Operations Manager and Station Manager hosts “The Ryan Report,” a program that provides a weekly forum for in- depth interviews with newsmakers. The station’s fleet of sixteen vehicles includes two live trucks, capable of covering breaking news events from almost anywhere in our coverage area. To maintain our position as Upper Michigan’s Source,  we provide over 16 hours of local news coverage each week, and we have news bureaus with live capabilities in Escanaba, Iron Mountain, and Houghton.  We are also the source for Upper Michigan’s on line news, weather and sports information, with the TV6 Web site receiving over a million page views a month.

Commercial and video production has kept pace with changing technologies. Today, digital cameras download their product into non-linear editing stations, supported by three-dimensional computer-generated graphics; a far cry from the Polaroid pictures, camera cards, slides, and press type of the ‘50s. The result of these new technologies is award winning commercials, promotional announcements and long- form videos.

Almost as soon as TV6 went on the air, the need for a larger facility became apparent. Even though thousands of dollars had been invested to build an outstanding facility on the top floor of the Mining Journal Building, it was just too small. In 1959, the station moved from downtown Marquette to its present location on the old Airport Road between Negaunee and Marquette. By 1978, another expansion was required to house the additional equipment and employees filling the station. The offices and studio were expanded to its present size, and new studio cameras and switching equipment were put on line a year later. Fewer than 20 employees were needed when the station signed on the air in 1956; many of WDMJ Radio’s personnel did double duty at WDMJ-TV. Radio was the training ground for both network and local stations. Today, TV6 employs eighty workers, most of whom either have college degrees or are working to obtain them. The "weather man” has been replaced by three professional meteorologists.

Since the beginning, owners and management have been aware of the power of television and the importance of using that power for the common good. For over 19 years, TV6 has aired weekly editorials on subjects that are of concern to Upper Michigan. Telethons on TV6 have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to help worthy organizations. For decades, the March of Dimes Telethon was a major event starring live talent from across the Upper Peninsula (can you remember Bill Liephart’s incredible shirt-ripping rendition of “Cry?”). Many Green Bay Packers appeared as guest hosts. Later, TV6 hosted the Easter Seals Telethon and still presents the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon for Muscular Dystrophy. In the fall of 1982, in an effort to help hard-pressed food pantries in the U.P. replenish their stocks in time for the holiday season, Ed Kearney (our News Director at the time) suggested a canathon. From that first TV6 Canathon to date, over two million pounds of food have been collected to “help feed a hungry neighbor” through this annual event.

Some of the earliest programming featured a local band, “Ray Adamini and his Hiawatha Ramblers,” “The Double 0 Ranch” (sponsored by Our Own Bakeries), and local news shows. Later the station added “Darby O’Six,” a children’s show hosted by Roy Peterson, an NMU student from Ishpeming, “At Home with Ingrid,” a popular cooking show featuring Michigan State Extension Service’s Ingrid Bartelli, and 1962 saw the start of the only Finnish language program in the United States, “Suomi Kutsuu” (Finland Calling). For his work on the program, host Carl Pellonpaa was named a Knight of the Order of the Lion — White Rose, Finland’s highest civilian honor. “First Monday,” Upper Michigan Today,” “Upper Michigan Tonight” and “Cooking with Curto” were other viewer favorites, and “Discovering” with Buck LeVasseur has been a Monday evening family viewing habit for over 25 years.

Although TV6 was a primary CBS network affiliate, the lack of other network stations in the area opened opportunities to provide programming from NBC and ABC. Viewers could watch the entire CBS lineup that included such classics as “The Lucy Show,” “Gunsmoke,” and “Route 66,” plus shows such as NBC’s “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color” (shown originally on TV6 in black and white) and ABC’s “The Flintstones” and the “Fight of the Week” to name a few. The best shows from all three networks were on TV6, although many of the NBC and ABC shows were sent on tape from the networks for delayed broadcasting. (For a two-week listing of our current program schedule, go to wluctv6.com and click on What’s on TV6.)

Since that auspicious beginning in 1956, TV6 has seen many changes. In 1960, Russell sold the station to M & M Broadcasting (Morgan Murphy) who also owned WLUK-TV in Green Bay, WI. In keeping with the “luck” theme, WDM)-TV became WLUC-TV. In 1962, M & M sold the stations to Post Corporation of Appleton, WI, the owners of the Appleton Post Crescent newspaper. In 1984, TV6 was acquired, along with other Post Corp. stations, by George Gillette, who held them for three years before selling to Federal Broadcasting Co. After ten years, Federal was bought out by Raycom Media in 1997. In  2006, the year that marked the station’s 50th anniversary,  Barrington Broadcasting Inc acquired TV6 from Raycom Media.

While there have been several changes in ownership, management, and networks, the greatest transformation has taken place in technology. In 1956, everything was in black and white. In 1963, TV6 began transmitting programs in color from the networks. By 1965, color film for commercials could be shot for local clients, although it had to be sent to Chicago for processing. It took up to two weeks to get it back. Color video tape equipment was added in 1968, and in 1969 viewers were finally able to watch local shows in color. Network and syndicated programs were put on film or video tape and then delivered to the station by mail, by bus, or off the air by a line of microwave towers that stretched from Green Bay. Now TV6 programming is received directly from satellites. TV6 has entered the digital age.
In the early years, many local commercials were done “live” in our studio. Hours were spent creating sets and practicing camera moves to get ready for just thirty seconds in the spotlight. Of course, in spite of all the preparation there was always the possibility that something could go wrong, and it often did, leading to some hilarious (and sometimes embarrassing) results. For example, there was the time a beer commercial required a shot of a glass of beer being poured with a perfect head of foam on it. By the end of the practice session the man in charge of removing the foam was, in the words of a fellow worker, “totally looped!”   Fortunately (or unfortunately!) those days are long gone.

On June 1, 1980, TV6 began what is arguably the longest running and best promotional campaign in broadcast history. At a time when the Upper Peninsula was experiencing high unemployment and low morale, the Someplace Special campaign was just the spark needed for our citizens to remember all the good things about living in Upper Michigan. Viewers sent in their favorite photos of U.P. places, people, and things that were used in promotional announcements. T-shirts, sweatshirts, coffee mugs, and license plates bearing the Someplace Special rainbow were sold in the TV6 Rainbow Room. B-52 bombers from K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base (then part of the Strategic Air Command) had the rainbow logo painted on their noses before they were sent to international air shows. In 1982, the Someplace Special campaign was awarded The Broadcast Promotion Association’s highest honor, the BPA Gold Medallion, for Best Special Project. For over 25 years the Someplace Special rainbow logo has been seen all over the world, as “Yoopers” continue to show their pride in our area.

The last 50 years on TV6 have been wonderful to watch (pun intended). When we celebrated our golden anniversary in 2006, we had begun telecasting from a new digital transmitter. Our signal is now seen on high definition television receivers, and our continuing effort to lead Upper Michigan into the “digital future” include a transition to DTV in February of 2009, an effort to make our signal available to satellite  viewers, and a website that is rich in local content. 

The success of TV6 has much to do with the dedication and leadership of the eleven General Managers mentioned at the start of this story, backed up by a team of veteran Department Heads, and a remarkably talented TV6 staff. But none of it would have been possible without our loyal advertisers and viewers. For over 50 years, you have been the reason we sign on each morning, and why we work hard to bring you high quality local news, sports, and weather, plus the best syndicated and network programs.

To all of you we say “Thank you for making TV6 Upper Michigan’s Source”