WJMY (TV)

WJMY-TV

Company type	Independent television station
Industry	Broadcasting
Founded	1962
Defunct	1963
Headquarters	Allen Park , United States
Area served	Detroit, Michigan

WJMY-TV operated as an independent television station on channel 20 serving Detroit, Michigan, with its license registered to Allen Park. Contrary to earlier assumptions that it merely displayed a test pattern in 1968, investigations have shown that WJMY broadcasted for slightly more than eight months, from October 7, 1962, until June 10, 1963. It was the second channel 20 station in southeastern Michigan, following the earlier WPAG-TV during the 1950s.

Following its shutdown, United Broadcasting Company purchased WJMY, acquiring its technical infrastructure but lacking sufficient funds to construct studios or resume broadcasting. In June 1972, United transferred the construction permit to the proprietors of WXON (channel 62), who subsequently relocated to channel 20 that December by utilizing WJMY’s permit.

Initial phase

Rev. Dr. Robert M. Parr, founder of Gilead Baptist Church, submitted an application for channel 62 in Allen Park on September 20, 1960, alongside a proposal for an FM station at 98.3 MHz. Both stations were intended to carry his initials as WRMP. After securing a higher-powered FM license at 98.7 MHz licensed to Detroit (which became WBFG in 1961), FCC regulations necessitated changing the channel 62 call sign to WJMY on May 8, 1961. Parr then relocated the channel 20 allocation from Ann Arbor to Allen Park and updated his permit accordingly.

WJMY commenced broadcasting on October 7, 1962, with program listings appearing in the Detroit Free Press. Station manager Henry Vanden Bosch indicated that broadcasts ran for two hours nightly (7:00–9:00 p.m.), featuring travel and informational films along with weekly airings of the 1953 series The Air Force Story. Sundays were dedicated to two-hour segments of "gospel films." Special programming included Trial For Tara, a Catholic Church production depicting St. Patrick's triumph over paganism in Ireland, and the US Navy’s The John Glenn Story, honoring his Mercury-Atlas 6 spaceflight anniversary. Theron Spurr, Parr’s son-in-law, delivered brief five-minute sermons prior to nightly sign-off. Despite these initiatives, viewer numbers remained low, leading WJMY to cease operations on June 10, 1963.

Station closure

Parr passed away on January 22, 1964. In July of that year, Richard Eaton's United Broadcasting Company—known for African-American radio programming and ownership of WOOK-TV in Washington, D.C., along with multiple TV construction permits—acquired the WJMY permit for $115,000. To enhance coverage across the metro Detroit area beyond the original WJMY setup, United secured space on WKBD-TV’s new tower under construction in Southfield, Michigan. The programming strategy aimed at serving Detroit’s Polish and African-American communities.

Nevertheless, United Broadcasting lacked the necessary capital to develop studios for both WJMY and its Baltimore counterpart station, which launched as WMET-TV in 1967. The Free Press documented ongoing postponements: no broadcast date by June 1965; a promised fall 1967 start that did not materialize; and a planned late-1968 launch. Occasional transmitter tests contributed to the misconception that WJMY only transmitted a static slide displaying its call letters and city name.

By 1968, plans surfaced for building studio facilities near 11 Mile Road amidst increasing competition. On September 15, 1968, channel 62 debuted as Detroit’s second commercial independent WXON (licensed to Walled Lake), which had initially considered using the Southfield transmitter location before constructing its own tower. As channel 20 prepared for activation—with studio groundbreaking and fall openings reported in May 1969 and readiness anticipated by September—United announced in September it was selling WJMY to United Artists for nearly $925,000.

The transaction fell through in 1970 amid United Broadcasting’s legal difficulties concerning disputes over its Washington stations. Eaton subsequently filed to sell the WJMY construction permit to WXON for $413,832 in recovered expenses. Land mobile interests opposed this transfer, petitioning for reassignment of channel 20 for their use within metropolitan Detroit. The FCC approved WXON’s acquisition in June 1972, allowing WXON to switch from channel 62 to channel 20 utilizing the former WJMY permit on December 9, 1972.