WFRV celebrating 70 years of committed, local broadcast journalism

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

February 10, 2025

GREEN BAY – As Northeast Wisconsin embarks on month two of 2025, WFRV is looking back on its seven decades of local, community-committed broadcast history.

John Laughrin, the station’s current news director, said his first full-time job out of college was at WFRV as an editor and producer.

Though he left Green Bay for part of his broadcast career, Laughrin said “Wisconsin has always been home” – eventually finding himself at the helm of WFRV after being hired as news director in 2021.

This year, WFRV is celebrating 70 years of community-based journalism – a milestone Laughrin said is a “major accomplishment.”

“We’re proud of where we are today,” he said. “Our connection to the community has been there since day one… We do more community-based things and connect at a higher level – I think I can say that declaratively – than anybody else.”

A bit of history

According to the station’s website (wearegreenbay.com), WFRV emitted its very first broadcast signals from Neenah on April 25, 1955, under the call letters WNAM-TV.

Shortly after, the station’s call letters were changed to WFRV (which stands for Fox River Valley) and the station’s parent company – Valley Telecasting Company – moved its licenses to Green Bay where it remains today.

The station initially bounced between broadcasting as an ABC or NBC affiliate before being bought by CBS in the early ’90s, “making Green Bay the smallest television market owned and operated by the broadcast network.”

Then, in the early 2010s, media company Nexstar acquired the station, and WFRV has remained under its operation since.

Regardless of who owned the station, throughout its history, Laughrin said WFRV has always worked diligently to live up to its commitment to local broadcast news.

“It’s right in our name, (WFRV Local 5),” he said. “From a news perspective, we want you to be aware of everything going on around you, but yes, ‘Local’ is there for a reason. It’s the news that we cover, it’s the community connections and the specialty projects that we do.”

From broadcasting community events live for viewers across the region, to prioritizing special programs and initiatives that put local news on the forefront of WFRV’s content, Laughrin said the station’s primary focus has always been its community.

“It separates us by so much,” he said. “Nobody else is doing the amount of out-in-the-community-connection productions we do.”

‘Positively Wisconsin’

Laughrin said WFRV is the only Northeast Wisconsin station to broadcast community events – such as the Flag Day and Christmas parades in Appleton and Fourth of July fireworks shows from four different cities – live for its viewers.

“Fireworks live from four different cities on the Fourth of July – that is an all-hands-on-deck staff project to be able to put together,” he said.

As the broadcast journalism industry has evolved, Laughrin said maintaining its commitment and focus on community content has been a driving force of success at WFRV.

“When I started (in the industry) in April of 2000, interning at FOX 11, we had dial-up internet that was not a source of news or very basic communication,” he said. “Some people at the time even thought, ‘Is this internet thing going to really take off and work, and be a viable part of what we do?’ And it is now so big. So the evolution of the way that things changed… people do watch and consume things in such different ways.”

Laughrin said positive, locally based content and programs are now more important than ever.

“From our ‘Local 5 Live’ lifestyle show that is on for an hour every morning, to ‘Our Town’ (where we go) and visit various communities that otherwise might not get to see reporters unless there’s something doom-or-gloom taking place – we go celebrate all these communities,” he said. “We are out and about, picking different communities to highlight and sending our team out to broadcast their program live from that community… Nobody else is doing that.”

One program initiative that Laughrin said embodies the idea of positive community news, is WFRV’s ‘Positively Wisconsin’ franchise.

“Positively Wisconsin is a franchise that I’m very proud of,” he said. “We guarantee positive news in every single newscast. Something uplifting, a reason to be proud of your neighbors, a reason to be proud of your community, and we find reasons to celebrate.”

Finding things to celebrate, Laughrin said, has not been a tall order for the station’s content producers.

“There’s so much cool stuff happening in our community that (we made) a pledge to highlight it with Positively Wisconsin,” he said. “We’ve been up and running two-plus years with that commitment and it is something that nobody else can offer.”

Laughrin said WFRV’s commitment to balancing uplifting, community-focused news with “doom and gloom” has also positively affected the station’s viewership and ratings.

“We knew it would do well, and some research certainly backs that up,” he said. “Viewers told us – and understandably so – after they watch the first segment of a newscast, they can kind of go, ‘Oh, give me some hope. Give me a reason that things are going to be okay with all of this going on.’ So, we knew… Positively Wisconsin would matter, and viewers said, ‘Yes, please tell me something good for my community. Let me know that there are good things going on’ – and it’s, quite frankly, easy to do.”

Something to celebrate

With WFRV’s 70th anniversary landing around the same time as the 2025 NFL Draft, Laughrin said it’s been an interesting challenge dedicating resources to both events.

“I have two different committees that have been working for months and months on both of those things,” he said. “So we have a 70th (anniversary) committee, and we have a draft committee.”

Laughrin said WFRV began covering draft-related stories last summer because, its “a once-in-a-lifetime deal.”

“For Green Bay to have an event of this level and plan for it, we’re going to be there for all aspects of that,” he said. “We started 14 weeks’ worth of half-hour specials every Wednesday at 6:30 that are committed to that. We’re going to have multiple hours of just live, wall-to-wall coverage on the first day of the draft. We’ve been figuring out partners in the community to work with on being live from the center of all the chaos.”

That chaos, however, won’t detract from the station’s anniversary, Laughrin said, as WFRV is simultaneously working to bolster its 70th celebration content.

“There’s already some acknowledgment on air – some connections to the community – so you’ll see it that way,” he said. “We’ve also reached out to some of our partners. Some of the folks at CBS, from their news and sports departments, have recorded special shout-outs to our station, and we’re going to be getting a bunch more of those from local partners, from mayors and representatives in Congress to (Green Bay) Packers players to other celebrities and dignitaries to former staff members who have worked here… And we have some specialty programming coming up as well closer to the actual anniversary date.”

WFRV’s “actual anniversary date,” Laughrin said, is considered to be when the station aired its first official broadcast programming on June 1, 1955 – a couple of months after its initial test broadcast.

“We’re working on some things to try to truly connect with the community,” he said. “We don’t have all the T’s crossed and I’s dotted, so I can’t share all of our plans, because they have to come together yet, but we’re trying to find some community celebrations to connect after the draft.”

And, with the draft in its backyard, Laughrin said WFRV’s coverage of the major event still maintains its promise to cover its community on all fronts – whether that be broadcast-, web-, or social media-based content.

“We have a staff designed to be able to go out and get and tell the stories that matter – it is our commitment,” he said. “We have committed resources to focus solely on digital, web, social media production and content that is all going to be local. You will see national stories pass through, but we have more than half a dozen folks solely focused on generating unique, local, Wisconsin-based news from your backyard that matters. We’re built to focus on and think about local.”