page_title: WXYZ-TV
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: WXYZ-TV / Programming / News operation / History
caption_attribution_description: Bill Bonds prepares to interview students at Harrison High School, Farmington Hills, Michigan
context_page_description: WXYZ-TV, virtual channel 7, is an ABC-affiliated television station licensed to Detroit, Michigan, United States. The station is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, as part of a duopoly with MyNetworkTV affiliate WMYD. The two stations share studios at Broadcast House on 10 Mile Road in Southfield, where WXYZ-TV's transmitter is also located.
  On cable, the station is available on channel 17 on Comcast Xfinity's Detroit city system, channel 10 on Xfinity's South Oakland County system, channel 7 in other suburbs and outlying areas and on AT&T U-verse, and channel 8 on Cogeco's Windsor, Ontario, system.
context_section_description: WXYZ-TV's newscasts had long been dominant in the Detroit market's news ratings partly due to the popularity of longtime lead news anchor Bill Bonds. The station's news department started as a small operation, with short twice-a-weeknight updates anchored by previous staff announcer Lee McNew and longtime sportscaster Dave Diles. WXYZ would later gain credibility for its coverage of the 1967 Detroit race riots. In the 1970s, WXYZ-TV began an aggressive build-up of its news department by adopting many elements of the Eyewitness News format, such as the Cool Hand Luke music theme that was used by ABC's four other owned-and-operated television stations in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. However, it opted to title its newscasts Action News, since rival WJBK-TV was already using the Eyewitness News brand. Under the direction of general manager Jim Osborn and news director Phil Nye, the station would lure popular news personalities from rival stations, WJBK-TV and WDIV-TV (then known as WWJ-TV) to join its already well-known anchors Dave Diles and Bill Bonds. WXYZ-TV assembled Detroit's most popular news anchors and reporters for its news staff such as John Kelly, Jac LeGoff, Al Ackerman, Marilyn Turner, Jack McCarthy, Jerry Hodak, Don Lark and Doris Biscoe.
  By 1973, WXYZ-TV's newscasts became the highest-rated in Detroit for the first time ever, a lead it would maintain for almost four decades. Its success was linked to the serious, controversial, opinionated hard delivery of lead anchor Bill Bonds. ABC tried to apply Bonds' success in Detroit at KABC-TV in Los Angeles in the late 1960s and again in 1975 at New York City's WABC-TV; in both cases, he was unsuccessful and soon returned to WXYZ-TV. During the 1980s and 1990s, Bonds hosted the interview segment, Up Front, on WXYZ-TV's 5 p.m. newscast. During the interviews, Bonds confronted the Detroit area's public officials and newsmakers with hard-hitting and sometimes controversial questions. Bonds' hard-edge style was widely known in Detroit for both captivating viewers while repulsing others, leading Bonds to become the station's icon and its main star. In Ron Powers' book, The Newscasters, Powers called Bonds "one of the six most influential news anchors in the country." However, Bonds had public battles with alcoholism which are credited with his dismissal from the station in 1995. Bonds anchored newscasts and a late night talk-show called Bonds Tonight at WJBK-TV shortly afterwards and later hosted a radio show at WXYT. Bonds returned to WXYZ-TV in 1999 to present editorials during the newscasts but left the station after only a few months.
  WXYZ-TV's ratings dominance was challenged by WDIV-TV in the 1980s, due in part to a change of ownership and culture at WDIV and viewers looking for an alternative to Bonds' hard-hitting style of news presentation. The two stations continue to battle for ratings to this day. In recent years, the station's news coverage received several journalism honors including two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University awards, and the George Foster Peabody Award. WXYZ-TV's Action News was named the best television newscast in the U.S. by United Press International in 1989.
  In the 1990s, WXYZ-TV continued to expand its morning newscast, Action News This Morning to the eventual start time of 5 a.m. This newscast had originated in the form of short news updates that aired during Good Morning America. One of its longtime co-anchors was Erik Smith, who worked at Channel 7 off-and-on for over 40 years. During most of that time, Smith also reported on human-interest and entertainment stories. Smith also won acclaim for his award-winning series From the Heart which began in the late 1990s as a collection of heartwarming, historical and inspirational stories from around the Detroit area. Smith left the station in May 2010, due to a dispute with management, five days before his contract was set to expire.
  In 2001, WXYZ-TV debuted a 7 p.m. newscast, a move that occurred after the September 11 attacks when the station chose to move ABC's W
caption: Former Action News Anchor Bill Bonds prepares to interview students at Harrison High School in Farmington Hills, Michigan (1985 photo).
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