WLAJ (channel 53) is a television station in Lansing, Michigan, United States, affiliated with ABC and The CW Plus. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Nexstar Media Group, owner of CBS affiliate WLNS-TV (channel 6), for the provision of certain services. WLAJ and WLNS-TV share studios on East Saginaw Street in Lansing's Eastside section; through a channel sharing agreement, the stations transmit using WLAJ's spectrum from a tower on Van Atta Road in Okemos, Michigan. There is no separate website for WLAJ; instead, it is integrated with that of sister station WLNS-TV.
History
WLAJ began broadcasting on October 13, 1990, operating from a converted appliance store. The station was originally owned by Joel Ferguson, the founding owner of the market's first independent station, WFSL-TV (now Fox affiliate WSYM-TV). Ferguson had used the proceeds from the sale of WFSL to launch WLAJ.
Prior to its sign-on in 1990, Lansing had been one of the biggest markets in the United States without a full-time ABC affiliate, even though it had been large enough to support three full network affiliates since at least the 1960s. However, only two VHF licenses were assigned to the city—channels 6 and 10, occupied by CBS affiliate WLNS and NBC affiliate WILX-TV. UHF was not considered viable even after the FCC mandated all-channel tuning in 1964. Although Lansing is a fairly compact market geographically, it is sandwiched between Detroit to the east, Flint–Saginaw–Bay City to the north, Toledo to the south, and Grand Rapids–Kalamazoo–Battle Creek to the west. Therefore, it was not likely there would have been room to drop in a third VHF allocation. By the 1980s, cable and satellite had gained enough penetration in Mid-Michigan to make a UHF "Big Three" affiliate viable.
Before WLAJ signed on, WJRT-TV in Flint had served as the default ABC outlet for the area from its 1958 sign-on until WLAJ debuted. WFSL had briefly carried a few ABC programs in an abortive attempt to become Lansing's ABC affiliate. Other parts of the market received ABC from WUHQ-TV (now WOTV) in Battle Creek and WXYZ-TV in Detroit. As a condition of WLAJ receiving an ABC affiliation, its transmitter had to be located so there was minimum overlap with WJRT.
Ferguson eventually sold a half-stake in WLAJ to Granite Broadcasting in 1996. Granite had the option of buying out the rest of WLAJ, which it exercised six months later after a brief court battle when the owners of the transmitter site tried to stop the sale from taking place. The station was sold to Freedom Communications in 1999. In 2005, a company-wide consolidation of operations at its stations resulted in the move of WLAJ's master control and most other internal operations to the studios of sister station WWMT in Kalamazoo. This left a skeleton crew of six people out of what began with eighty staffers in Lansing. Additionally, WWMT's president and general manager, James Lutton, took over the same capacity at WLAJ after the departure of Ross Reardon.
On September 24, 2007, WLAJ was re-branded as "ABC 3" since most Lansing-area cable providers carry it on channel 3. The logo introduced at that time featured the number "53" but emphasized its cable slot ("3") more than the over-the-air channel, with the "5" in negative space. WOTV used a similar logo at the time. On April 7, 2008, a new image makeover including a new logo, similar to WWMT's, but with the hidden "5" like the previous logo was launched. It eventually dropped the hidden "5". WLAJ was unusual for airing The Oprah Winfrey Show at 5 p.m. instead of her traditional 4 p.m. timeslot. The series ended on May 25, 2011, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show replaced Oprah on WLAJ.
WLAJ also aired ESPN Plus' Big Ten college football coverage until the launch of the Big Ten Network. While most ABC affiliates in Michigan saw their college football coverage reduced primarily to the network's games, WLAJ and WLAJ-DT2 have in recent years become the Lansing affiliate of the Central Michigan University Chippewas and the Western Michigan University Broncos. Today, whenever a football game involving either CMU or WMU kicks off at noon, the game airs on WLAJ as a lead-in to ABC's college football coverage. All other CMU and WMU football games air on WLAJ-DT2.