John Fetzer
| John Earl Fetzer | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 25, 1901 Decatur, Indiana |
| Died | February 20, 1991 (aged 89) Honolulu, Hawaii |
| Occupation | Radio and Television Executive |
| Known for | Owner of Detroit Tigers |
John Earl Fetzer (March 25, 1901 - February 20, 1991) was a radio and television executive who was best known as the owner of the Detroit Tigers from 1961 through 1983.
Born in 1901 in Decatur, Indiana, Fetzer moved with his mother to Lafayette, Indiana, after his father died when Fetzer was 2 years old. There his brother-in-law, a telegraph operator for the Wabash Railroad, introduced young John to the early workings of wireless communication. Via telegraph reports they would track the baseball games of the Detroit Tigers, which he would later own.
Radio was still in its infancy, but Fetzer took it seriously and built his first transmitter-receiver in 1917 and began communicating from his home in Indiana with a man in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1923, he came to Michigan to build a radio station for Emmanuel Missionary College, now known as Andrews University, in Berrien Springs. He built and operated the station, and also met Rhea Yeager. They would stay married until his death, for 65 years.
Fetzer toured Europe in the late 1920s, studying radio operations, and recalled being repulsed by government monopolies on radio there. He returned to the United States at the beginnings of the Great Depression and would remain a staunch advocate of a "hands off" policy by the government in the communications industry. Emmanuel Missionary College was running out of money to operate its radio station and offered to sell it to Fetzer. He bought it and, in 1930, moved the station to Kalamazoo because of his wife's area ties. Kalamazoo was also the last major city in Michigan without its own radio station. He named the station WKZO and started broadcasting in 1931. The station began its broadcasts in the Burdick Hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Fetzer worked side by side. She served as program director and secretary. He sold advertising and kept track of the technology. He said of these early beginnings, "It was a mixture of pride, stubbornness and stupidity that kept me in the business. If I knew then what I know now about economics, I would have shut down."
His innovations in radio led to the development of a directional antenna for broadcasting at night. This, in turn, led to a lawsuit by a station in Omaha, Nebraska, that said it would interfere with their signal if allowed. The case went through the Supreme Court twice and was finally settled in Fetzer's favor on the floor of the United States Senate. This led to some 3,000 stations getting their licenses granted by the FCC and put Fetzer in the position of pioneer and confidante of many in Washington.
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