WLUC-TV

WLUC-TV (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Marquette, Michigan, United States, serving the Central and Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan as an affiliate of NBC and Fox. Owned by Gray Media, the station has studios on US 41/M-28 in Negaunee Township, and its transmitter is located on South Helen Lake Road in Republic Township southeast of unincorporated Republic.

WLUC is relayed on translator station W14EM-D channel 14 (also mapped to virtual channel 6) from the top of the Landmark Inn in Marquette in order to extend its primary signal; the translator is used for areas of Marquette that get a poor reception from the station's main transmitter.

Channel 6 signed on April 28, 1956, as WDMJ-TV, the Upper Peninsula's first television station. The station carried programming from all three networks offered at that time, but was a primary CBS affiliate. WDMJ-TV was owned by the Daily Mining Journal along with WDMJ radio (1320 AM). Its studios were on the top floor of the Mining Journal building on Washington Street in Downtown Marquette. The station quickly outgrew its facilities. In 1959, the station moved into its current studios in Negaunee Township. In 1964, it was sold to Post Corporation, owners of WLUK-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin, who changed the calls to WLUC-TV to match its moniker at the time "Lucky 6". WLUC first aired network programs in color in 1963, and with the purchase of color video tape equipment, it began broadcasting all locally produced programs in color in 1969. The station moved its transmitter to southeast of Republic in 1980 and dismantled the original one near its current studios in Negaunee.

WLUC has been affected several times by television shakeups in Green Bay, since rival station WJMN-TV (channel 3) in Escanaba was formerly a semi-satellite of Green Bay-based WFRV-TV. For example, it dropped NBC programming in 1969 when WJMN signed on. In 1983, when WJMN-TV (along with parent station WFRV-TV) switched from NBC to ABC, WLUC took a secondary NBC affiliation. When CBS bought WFRV in 1992 and switched it from ABC, WLUC became a primary ABC station with secondary NBC affiliation. It became solely NBC in 1995 when WLUK and WGBA-TV exchanged affiliations. As a result, it is one of the few stations in the country to have been with all of the big three networks. WLUC also carried some Fox programs in the early 1990s before WLUK switched to the network.

In late 2005 following Raycom's purchase of the Liberty Corporation, the company announced WLUC would be sold along with fellow NBC station WPBN-TV and full-time satellite WTOM-TV serving the Northern Lower and Eastern Upper Peninsula. The sale was necessary to help meet Federal Communications Commission (FCC) restrictions on station ownership. On March 27, 2006, Raycom sold 12 of its stations (including WLUC) to Barrington Broadcasting. The FCC approved the deal in June 2006 and the purchase closed August 11. WLUC joined WPBN/WTOM, Saginaw's WEYI-TV, and Toledo's WNWO-TV as part of Barrington's family of stations in and around Michigan.

Like many other Barrington-owned stations (including WTOM), WLUC operates a rather low-power (83 kW) UHF signal which has a much smaller coverage footprint than its former analog station. Its over-the-air digital signal covers less than half of the designated market area (DMA). Therefore, WLUC relies on cable as well as satellite carriers DirecTV and Dish Network to distribute programming to the entire area.

In August 2012, WLUC and Fox UP became the official affiliates of the Green Bay Packers Television Network for the Marquette–Escanaba market, taking over for WJMN, which lost the rights to team programming as the last contract ended, which was included as a part of WFRV's official station status in the Green Bay market. The station carries preseason games on the "state network" (as the Packers Television Network has been traditionally called), along with the team's Tuesday night coach's show and other official team programming.

On February 28, 2013, Barrington Broadcasting announced the sale of its entire group, including WLUC, to Sinclair Broadcast Group. The sale was completed on November 25. After 30 years of separate ownership, WLUC and WLUK in Green Bay were briefly reunited as sister stations on December 19, 2014, when Sinclair purchased WLUK and WCWF as part of required sales of stations by LIN Media in order to merge with Media General, which already owned Green Bay's WBAY-TV.