John E. Fetzer was the head of Fetzer Broadcasting, headquartered in Michigan. He was born in 1901 in Decatur, Indiana and graduated from West Lafayette High School, where he lettered in three sports. He attended Purdue University and received his first class radio operator license in 1922. He designed and built his first radio station in Southwest Michigan, KFGZ. In 1926, he married Rhea Yeaker and graduated from the National Radio Institute.

In 1930 he purchased WEMC, change the name to WKZO, and the next year moved it to Kalamazoo, Michigan. In 1938, WKZO won the landmark 590 case from the FCC, which granted nighttime broadcasts with a directional antenna. This ruling allowed 3,000-5,000 additional radio stations to go on air. The same year Fetzer was elected to the NAB Board of Directors and he remained on the board through 1946.

Fetzer Broadcasting's WKZO TV went on the air in 1950. John became first chair of the Television Code Review Board of the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters and served from 1952 to 1955. In 1953, Fetzer Broadcasting purchased KOLN TV in Lincoln and then donated the station to the University of Nebraska in 1954. The same year, the John E. Fetzer Foundation was established.

He became interested in sports franchising and organized an 11-man syndicate to purchase the Detroit Baseball Company, becoming one-third owner and Chairman of the Board of Directors. He became sole owner of the Detroit Tigers in 1961.

Fetzer received the NAB Distinguished Service Award, the highest award of the Broadcasting industry in 1960. He died at the age of 89 in February, 1991. John Fetzer was a true broadcast pioneer in every sense of the word.

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