Saturday, December 14, 2024

WLUK 70: Forward thinking

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Continued from last week

WLUK became a FOX affiliate in August 1995 and became “home station” for the Green Bay Packers.

“FOX picked up the NFL contract in 1994, then we switched to FOX in 1995,” said WLUK News Director Juli Buehler, who was one of only two female news directors in the state when she took the position in 1995.

“Since then, we’ve had three different owners,” added WLUK Vice President and General Manager Jay Zollar, who came to work for the station in 1995.
“That was 25 years ago. Since then, we’ve had three different owners — Emmis owned it when they hired me, then LIN bought the station from Emmis and then Sinclair bought the station from LIN.

“Which is also kind of unique; a number of general managers don’t necessarily make it through those kind of ownership changes. But, we have a good thing going here. The owners have liked what they’ve seen here and the growth here.”

Zollar said that the “local community connection” is what makes WLUK unique.

“I would say, we have very high-profile programming. So, you know, we have Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, and we have Green Bay Packers for the most part, and we have NASCAR and World Series and Major League Baseball. So we have great, great programming, but we also have very strong news. Good Day Wisconsin is terrific — four-and-a-half hours of news in the morning connects us to the community. Then we have a five o’clock news hour, and then a 9-10:30. So, I would say that is both our high profile programming and our local community connection and our community service. We are probably premier at providing community service like the Best of Class, Golden Apple, Community Cares — we have numerous things that we do in the community and connect with everyone,” Zollar added.

“We’ve been very fortunate to have some of the most amazing journalists in Wisconsin and talented from, back in the 80s all the way through to current time; journalists who are respected, who get tips. I work with amazing people, and and the photographers we have. We just did a drone special that we teamed up with the Creative Services Department and put it together. And, you know, that’s all photography work, and then Creative Services marries it all together with anchors and comments and things like that, introductions. But I will tell you that. I’d say most of the people here to have a lot of longevity. So a lot of local flavor,” Buehler said.

“I think the mix of longevity and people that bring in fresh ideas as well. You know, we get a lot of people, a lot of talented journalists, that are starting their careers here and they bring fresh ideas, fresh perspectives. So, nobody ever gets stuck in a group-think mentality or this is the way that we’ve always done it. I think there’s always an interest in trying new and different things, learning,” said WLUK Creative Services Director Dan Spangler.

That forward thinking is reflected in the addition of the FOX Fieldhouse across from Lambeau Field in 2015, for a view from Lambeau’s “backyard,” as well as full-featured iOS and Android applications and a number of other mediums/platforms designed to take the station into the future.

Many thanks to Dan Spangler, Jay Zollar and Juli Buehler of WLUK and Tom Hutchison for their assistance with this article.

WLUK, Zollar, LIN, FOX affiliate, NFL contract, creative services department

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