was built in Alpena. While the Sault Ste. Marie application remained pending at the FCC, labor problems developed in Traverse City. On March 1, 1975, a NABET local went on strike at WGTU after multiple bargaining sessions failed to produce a resolution on issues including overtime, jurisdiction, travel compensation for engineers to the transmitter, and wages. Management personnel kept the station in operation during this time, while union members urged advertisers and viewers to boycott it. One Detroit job-seeker responded to a classified ad placed by WGTU in a newspaper there only to learn that the station was on strike. The strike lasted three months, and before year's end, the union and station agreed to a contract. In 1978, Michigan Television Network—the renamed Northern Entertainment—filed to sell WGTU and WGTQ to Panax Television for $925,000. The deal attracted attention because of other dealings involving the 40 percent owner of Panax: John McGoff, a newspaper publisher that was being investigated by the United States Department of Justice for links to the apartheid South African government. The FCC Broadcast Bureau approved the transaction, but citing the pending investigation into McGoff, the commission vacated the ruling on a 6–0 vote. As a result, the parties abandoned the proposed sale. Three years later, WGTU-WGTQ would be sold to Center Group Broadcasting for $1.8 million. WGTU was acquired in 1993 by Scanlan Communications; Max Media purchased it from Scanlan in 2003. In 1998, the station began to provide promotional and advertising services for cable-only The WB affiliate "WBVC", part of The WB 100+ Station Group. This service became a digital subchannel of WGTU in 2006 when The WB made way for The CW. In early November 2006, WGTU and WGTQ upgraded their digital signals to begin offering ABC in high definition. On September 19, 2007, an application was filed to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by Max Media to sell WGTU/WGTQ to Tucker Broadcasting for $10 million. After FCC approval, Tucker entered into joint sales and shared services agreements with Barrington Broadcasting for WPBN/WTOM to provide advertising According to the FCC filing, WPBN/WTOM would sell advertising time and provide other programming for WGTU. The sale was approved in April 2008, and that summer, WGTU moved into the WPBN-TV studios in Traverse City. On June 12, 2009, WGTU and WGTQ reverted their digital signals back to the previous analog signal locations as part of the switch