WTLJ (channel 54) is areligious television station licensed toMuskegon, Michigan, United States, servingWest Michigan as anowned-and-operated station ofTri-State Christian Television (TCT). The station's transmitter is located inAllendale Charter Township inOttawa County, just southwest ofGrand Valley State University. Its signal is relayed ontranslator stationWJGP-LD (channel 26; originallyW24BO channel 24) inKalamazoo.

Until June 2018, the station aired its own locally produced programs,Ask the Pastor andDown Home, from a studio adjacent to its transmitter. This ended with the elimination of theFederal Communications Commission (FCC)'s Main Studio Rule earlier in the year and a decision by TCT's operators to consolidate all programming operations at its headquarters inMarion, Illinois.^[3]

The UHF channel 54 allocation in Michigan was originally assigned toLansing. It was occupied byDuMont affiliate WILS, which later becameWTOM-TV (call letters now used onchannel 4 inCheboygan), and was on the air from 1953 to 1956. The channel 54 allocation was then reassigned to Muskegon.^[4][5] Full-power station WMKG-TV broadcast for the first time on April 3, 1967 at 5:30 p.m. from the Occidental Hotel in downtown Muskegon.^[6] That station, which operated as anindependent station and relied heavily on live, local programming, had left the air by 1971, following the abrupt closure of the station.^[7]

In January 1983, WTLJ was originally assigned thecall letters WMKT with the intention of focusing on the Muskegon andHolland areas.^[8] That station was never built (Muskegon has its own station,WMKG-CD, which fulfills this purpose).

On November 3, 1986,Springfield, Ohio–based Miami Valley Christian Television launched WTLJ, as a Christian-oriented independent station.^[9] The station would eventually be sold to its present owners,Tri-State Christian Television. The history of its Kalamazoo repeater, WJGP-LD, is unknown, other than the fact that its application to move its signal from UHF channel 24 to channel 26 was approved in December 1998; the channel switch occurred in January 2002 to facilitate WTLJ's eventual digital channel 24.

The station was receivable in analog on the western shore of Lake Michigan in theWisconsin cities ofSheboygan andMilwaukee because of channel 54's transmitter being close to the Lake Michigan shore, although TCT does not explicitly market to those cities or have any cable coverage. With the termination on March 4, 2009, of the analog channel 24 signal of Milwaukee'sWCGV, the station's digital signal is also easily picked up in Wisconsin.

WTLJ is carried on AcenTek systems servingBuckley,Copemish,Hoxeyville,Mesick,Old Mission,South Boardman, andThompsonville (all located in theTraverse City market).^[10]

WTLJ formerly collaborated with the Ottawa County Department of Corrections to allow probationers to operate the station to receive community service credits and complete their sentences.

The stations' signals aremultiplexed:

WTLJ shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 54, on June 12, 2009, as part of thefederally mandated transition from analog to digital television.^[13] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 24, usingvirtual channel 54.

• TCT Network

• 1986 establishments in Michigan
• Allendale, Michigan
• Muskegon, Michigan
• Ottawa County, Michigan
• Television channels and stations established in 1986
• Television stations in the Grand Rapids–Kalamazoo–Battle Creek market
• Tri-State Christian Television stations

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