American Football Database
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The Detroit Lions Television Network is a network of six television stations in Michigan that broadcast the NFL's Detroit Lions preseason games as well as its weekly regular season pregame show The Ford Lions Report. As of 2011, WXYZ-TV in Detroit is the flagship station. [1]

Affiliates[]

The stations in the network and the areas they serve are: [2]

Callsign Network affiliation Virtual channel DMA
WXYZ-TV ABC 7 Metro Detroit
WXMI-TV Fox 17 Grand Rapids / Kalamazoo / Battle Creek
WNEM-TV* CBS 5 Flint/Tri-Cities
WTOL / WUPW CBS / Fox 36 Toledo, Ohio
WSYM-TV Fox 47 Lansing / Jackson
WFQX-TV/WFUP Fox 32/45 Cadillac / Traverse City / Sault Ste. Marie
WJMN-TV CBS 3 Escanaba / Marquette / Houghton

* Due to E/I requirements, WNEM-TV does not air The Ford Lions Report; its sister station WNEM-DT2 does so instead.

Pre-season games[]

The network carries all preseason games, except those picked for national broadcast by CBS or Fox. WXYZ-TV,[1] WNEM-TV and WSYM-TV air games in high definition. The announcers are Matt Shepard with play-by-play, Rob Rubick with color commentary, and Tom Leyden with sideline reports. [1] Because of the NFL's local television blackout policy, Lions home games that do not sell out 72 hours before the game are not permitted to be broadcast live on stations whose normal coverage area is within 75 miles of the stadium (specifically WXYZ-TV, WNEM-TV, and WSYM-TV) [2] so they are broadcast on tape delay on those stations. However, all Lions road games are broadcast live on all affiliates.

The Ford Lions Report[]

The Ford Lions Report is a live regular season pre-game show from the game site and WXYZ-TV's studio broadcast across the Detroit Lions Television Network. Tom Leyden hosts the show, joined by Rob Rubick and Herman Moore as analysts. Matt Shepard (joined by Charlie Sanders for home games and Tony Ortiz for road games) serve as the field reporters. David Solano and Brad Galli do the fantasy football report and game preview, and Solano does a weekly feature featuring the Lions opposition. The show also includes interviews with Lions head coach Jim Schwartz by Tom Leyden and a one-on-one teammate interview by wide receiver Nate Burleson with a different player each week.[1] It also includes highlights from the previous game with players wired for sound coupled with the Detroit Lions Radio Network's Dan Miller's play-by-play.

Former broadcasters[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Detroit Lions and WXYZ partner for 2011 season WXYZ-TV, February 8, 2011
  2. 2.0 2.1 Preseason TV Detroit Lions official site
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