Top. From 1967 to 1987, a weather ball sat atop the Michigan National Bank building in Grand Rapids, utilizing 288 colored neon lights to convey forecast precipitation or changes in temperature, until being removed because its weight had caused structural damage. The station located the stainless steel ball in a scrapyard in Kalamazoo in 1999 and applied to authorities in Walker to mount a pole to display it near its studios in 2002. New neon tubes were fitted atop the restored weather ball, which returned to service in 2003. On June 29, 2015, the Gannett Company split in two, with one side specializing in print media and the other side specializing in broadcast and digital media. WZZM was retained by the latter company, named Tegna. The Battle Creek–Kalamazoo problem The northerly location of the transmitter, which had been necessary to insert channel 13 in the area in the first place, also put it at a disadvantage in the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek areas. In 1964, WZZM was authorized to construct a translator on channel 12 in Kalamazoo, and the next year, it applied to build one on channel 83 in Battle Creek. This was simultaneous with Mary Jane Morris, who had been involved with one of the losing bids for channel 13, filing with James Searer to build a full-service station there. That translator went on the air on channel 74 in January 1968, but the FCC then ordered it to cease broadcasting in early March in the context of a battle with the permittee for Battle Creek's channel 41, as the commission expressed concern that the continued rebroadcast of WZZM-TV could be detrimental to the establishment of the proposed full-service station. This was particularly acute because the channel 41 permittee, BCU-TV, proposed to affiliate with ABC, while WZZM-TV contended it had the rights to ABC in the Battle Creek area. West Michigan Telecasters reached a deal with BCU-TV to buy the channel 41 permit in October 1968. However, that same week, a second local group, Channel 41, Inc., filed a competing application to propose a local station, with Searer defecting from BCU-TV to become one of its leaders. The FCC canceled BCU-TV's construction permit and West Michigan Telecasters's attempt to buy it on September 8, 1969. It then accepted the application of Channel 41, Inc., for filing; ten days later, West Michigan Telecasters abandoned its attempt to pursue channel