John Earl Fetzer (March 25, 1901 – February 20, 1991) was an American radio and television executive who was best known as the part-owner of the Detroit Tigers from 1956 to 1961 and sole owner from 1961 through 1983.

There, his brother-in-law, a telegraph operator for the Wabash Railroad, introduced young John to the early workings of wireless communication.

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 1922, he came to Michigan and enrolled at Emmanuel Missionary College, now known as Andrews University, in Berrien Springs, and began operating an experimental radio station for the school.

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.

Unwilling to either operate commercially or solicit donations from listeners, college officials offered to sell it to Fetzer.

This, in turn, led to a lawsuit by WOW in Omaha, Nebraska, which claimed the directional antenna would interfere with its 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.

Fetzer's own broadcasting empire grew during the war and spread from Kalamazoo to Grand Rapids, Nebraska and Peoria.

Longtime KOLN/KGIN television personality Leta Powell Drake noted that "KOLN used to have in their news an 85 share of the audience.