WSBK-TV

WSBK-TV
Boston, Massachusetts
Branding	TV 38 (general) WBZ News (newscasts)
Slogan	Entertaining Boston
Channels	Digital: 39 (UHF) Virtual: 38 (PSIP)
Affiliations	Independent CBS (alternate)
Owner	CBS Television Stations (CBS Corporation)
First air date	October 12, 1964
Call letters’ meaning	SBK (stock ticker symbol of former owner Storer Broadcasting)
Sister station(s)	WBZ, WBZ-FM, WBZ-TV, WBMX, WODS, WZLX
Former callsigns	WIHS-TV (1964-1966)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 38 (UHF, 1964-2009)
Former affiliations	Independent (1964-1995) UPN (1995-2006)
Transmitter Power	135 kW
Height	390 m
Facility ID	73982
Transmitter Coordinates	42°18′37″N 71°14′14″W / 42.31028°N 71.23722°W / 42.31028; -71.23722
Website	wbztv.com/tv38

WSBK-TV is an independent television station for eastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire that is licensed to Boston. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 39 from a transmitter along the Needham and Wellesley town line southwest of the MA 9 and I-95 / MA 128 interchange. Owned by the CBS Corporation, the station is sister to CBS owned-and-operated affiliate WBZ-TV. The two share studios on Soldiers Field Road in the Brighton section of Boston. Syndicated programming on WSBK includes: Frasier, The King of Queens, That '70s Show, and Judge Joe Brown.

It is considered an alternate CBS affiliate and as such takes on responsibility of airing programming from the network whenever WBZ-TV cannot do so. Examples of this practice include during the Boston Marathon, and more recently in 2009, during New England Patriots pre-season games as well as the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy and his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver. The station is also seen in Canada to subscribers of the Bell TV and Shaw Direct satellite services as well as subscribers of Cogeco Cable, Shaw Cable, Rogers Cable, Vidéotron, Telus Cable, and Persona. WSBK is available throughout the United States on Dish Network direct broadcast satellite as part of a Superstation package.^[1]

History

The station began broadcasting on October 12, 1964. It was first licensed to Boston Catholic Television Center and had the call letters WIHS-TV. The station employed a general entertainment format along with the daily and Sunday Mass. The station was bought by Storer Broadcasting two years later. A few months after the purchase, the station's call letters became the present WSBK-TV, named after the company's ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange, SBK. Storer kept the general entertainment format and added stronger programming—including cartoons, off-network sitcoms and feature films.

However, Storer scored its biggest coup almost the following year, when it secured broadcast rights to the Boston Bruins from WKBG-TV. During the next few years, as the Bruins became a contender for the National Hockey League's Stanley Cup championship, the popularity of these games led to a spike in UHF antenna purchases, and helped make channel 38 one of the leading independent stations in the country. For much of the time between 1970 and 1984, WSBK would televise between 70 and 72 of the Bruins' 80 regular-season games, as well as all playoff games not on network television.

In 1975, WSBK acquired television rights to the Boston Red Sox, and got even luckier; the Red Sox won the American League pennant during the team's first year on WSBK. The team stayed on WSBK through 1995, and returned for three years from 2003 through 2005. WSBK broadcast between 90 and 110 Red Sox games a year between 1975 and 1983; about 75 games a year from 1984 until 1995; and a limited number of games (usually 28 to 30 a year) between 2003 and 2005.

At the beginning of the 1990s, WSBK began to broadcast road games of the Boston Celtics; it continued to do so through 1997-98.

Until 1980, WSBK also ran some network programs that were preempted by the local NBC (WBZ-TV), ABC (first WNAC-TV, then WCVB-TV), and CBS (first WHDH-TV, then WNAC-TV/WNEV-TV) affiliates.

WSBK's popularity was such that by the mid-1970s, it was available on nearly every cable system in New England. In the late 1980s, WSBK became a national superstation when it entered into agreement with a company called Eastern Microwave to distribute its signal outside New England. Eastern Microwave also distributed the signal of superstation WOR-TV in New York City. It had already been available on nearly every cable system in New England since the mid-1970s. WSBK's main selling point was its coverage of the Red Sox, similar to how WOR-TV, WGN-TV in Chicago, and WTBS in Atlanta used their coverage of the New York Mets, Chicago Cubs, and Atlanta Braves, respectively. The carriage did not reach those other stations' levels, but covered large portions of New York, New Jersey and a handful of cable systems in Florida (which produced the unusual circumstance of Red Sox games being regularly broadcast into part of the New York Yankees' main market).

WSBK's coverage of the Boston Bruins also made it a favorite superstation on Canadian cable systems, along with WOR (at the time, WOR was televising away games of all three New York-area NHL teams, the New York Islanders, the New York Rangers and the New Jersey Devils).

When the FCC's "Syndication Exclusivity" rules (called "Syndex") were strengthened in the early 1990s, distribution of all "distant signals" were hampered. The rule protected stations in local markets from out-of-market competition by superstations airing identical syndicated programming. Any station could file with cable systems for "protection" and the cable system would have to black out the offending station for periods of time. The management of this "blocking" would prove so cumbersome that many cable systems began dropping distant signals such as WSBK and effectively stopped most superstation distribution. Distributors such as Eastern Microwave attempted to make it easier for cable systems by substituting shows that could not be blocked, but the damage had already been done by then.

Besides its status as a sports powerhouse, WSBK made a name for itself when it created The Movie Loft, one of the first "hosted movie" franchises on television long before it became a staple on cable. The Movie Loft aired syndicated movies with interstitial program elements originally hosted by Dana Hersey, and later by Skip Kelly. Part of The Movie Loft's marketing was that it aired only "unedited" movies. The Movie Loft tested that on several occasions airing movies such as The Deer Hunter and 48 Hrs. in unedited fashion.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts bought WSBK along with most of the other Storer stations in 1985. At this time, ownership was officially under the KKR subsidiary of New Boston Television, although on the air, the parent company of WSBK was still referenced to Storer. KKR later sold most of its stations to Gillett Communications. When Gillett defaulted on some of the financing agreements in the early 1990s, the ownership was restructured and the company was renamed SCI Television.

As a result of SCI filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, WSBK was sold in a group deal to New World Communications in 1993. In 1994, New World made a landmark deal with Fox to switch most of its CBS, ABC, and NBC affiliated stations to Fox. WSBK remained an independent station and was eventually put up for sale again to protect WFXT, which Fox would acquire soon afterward. The station was then sold to Paramount Stations Group (which would become a subsidiary of Viacom that same year) and became a charter UPN affiliate in 1995. Originally, the station continued to run the same type of programming with UPN's schedule added. The Movie Loft was put to rest because Dana Hersey retired, the movie packages were not of the quality they had been before and ratings for the show dropped. WSBK tried to revive the genre with UPN 38 Movie House with little success. The station also began to lose its relationship with the local sports teams.

For some time after affiliating with UPN, WSBK continued to air primarily cartoons and classic sitcoms. By 1997, however, the station began mixing in more talk and reality shows, with older shows being gradually phased out. The station eliminated afternoon cartoons by 2000, and morning cartoons disappeared in 2003, when UPN discontinued the Disney's Animation Weekdays block. By 2002, WSBK was running a blend of talk shows, court shows, and reality shows from 9 a.m. through the late afternoon, with recent off network sitcoms continuing in the evenings.

In 2001, after Viacom's merger with the previous CBS Corporation, WSBK moved its studios and offices to WBZ-TV's building. The former WSBK building now occupies some of corporate sibling CBS Radio's Boston radio stations. Under CBS, WSBK began sharing some first run syndicated shows with WBZ-TV.

On January 24, 2006, UPN and the WB Television Network announced that they would merge to create a new network, the CW Television Network, named for its corporate parents CBS and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. WLVI-TV, Boston's WB affiliate, was announced as Boston's CW affiliate, leaving WSBK to tenatively become an independent station once again. On February 22, 2006, the News Corporation announced that it would launch another new broadcast television network, MyNetworkTV, operated by its Fox Television Stations division. WSBK was mentioned as a potential affiliate of MyNetworkTV, but on May 1, 2006, CBS announced that channel 38 would revert to independent status again. The Boston market MyNetworkTV affiliation eventually went to independent station WZMY-TV in Derry, New Hampshire.

WSBK-TV officially became an independent once again on September 16, 2006, after UPN shut down. A few days earlier, the station had restored its classic branding, TV 38.

Digital television

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion that took place on June 12, 2009,^[2] WSBK-DT continued on its pre-transition channel, 39.^[3] However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display WSBK-DT's virtual channel as 38.

Programming

Presently, WSBK generally broadcasts first run talk, court, and reality shows as well as some off network syndicated programs and very few movies. However, in the past, the station ran a large amount of movies, classic shows and sports.

In terms of sports, WSBK was the long-time television home of the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins. WSBK became the Red Sox' over-air flagship station in 1975 and remained so for 20 years losing the rights in 1996 to WABU (now WBPX-TV). After a seven-season hiatus, WSBK (in partnership with sister station WBZ) resumed its role as the Red Sox flagship station in 2003 although only for Friday night games. Most games were carried by NESN, who aired the Friday night games outside of the Boston DMA, effectively blacking out WSBK in these areas (the Red Sox have 80 percent holdings in NESN). Among the nationally prominent announcers that have called Red Sox games on the station are Dick Stockton and Sean McDonough. WBZ ceased to broadcast the games after the 2004 season and NESN announced that WSBK would itself cease airing games in early 2006. This made the team cable-exclusive.

In addition to the Red Sox, WSBK was also, for over thirty years, the over-air flagship of the Boston Bruins. It was considered important enough to the station's broadcasting, especially in the 1970s when the Bruins were one of the perennially elite teams in the National Hockey League and enormously popular in Boston, that then-station owners Storer Broadcasting purchased and owned the Bruins for several years. The announcers for most of the Bruins games were hall-of-famer Fred Cusick (on play-by-play) and Johnny Peirson (on color commentary), who was later succeeded by Dave Shea and former Bruin Derek Sanderson. In later years Dale Arnold called the play by play. As with the Red Sox, Bruins coverage gradually moved to NESN. All home games were broadcast on NESN starting in 1984, and coverage left WSBK entirely in 2002.

In addition, WSBK was the over-air home of the Boston Celtics before losing the broadcast rights in 1998 to WABU. Currently, all Celtics games not on national television are now broadcast on Comcast SportsNet New England. Since 2005, the station has been the home of Atlantic Coast Conference college football and basketball games in Boston as Boston College's move to the conference has created regional interest for the ACC.

In 2007, Major League Soccer announced that WSBK would become the exclusive carrier of the New England Revolution. The Revolution are now the only Boston-area professional sports team to have locally-produced over-the-air telecasts of regular-season games. In December that year, WSBK produced the first-ever over-the-air television broadcasts of the Eastern Massachusetts High-School Football Super Bowl games, broadcasting three of the seven divisional championship contests.

The station has played host to no fewer than three locally-produced nighttime movie programs: The Movie Loft (hosted by Dana Hersey), The UPN 38 Movie House (hosted by Brian Frates), and Movie Night (co-hosted by Dan Andelman and Dave Andelman).

WSBK was also known for running cartoons and classic sitcoms during the late 1960's, 1970's, 1980's, and to a lesser extent in the 1990's. Some of the shows run on the station in the 1970's included Bugs Bunny/Porky Pig post 1948/pre 1941, made-for-TV Popeye cartoons, Underdog, Bullwinkle, The Three Stooges, My Three Sons, Sgt. Bilko, The Honeymooners, The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, I Dream Of Jeannie, Hogan's Heroes, The Odd Couple, Ironside, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Twilight Zone, among others. The station also ran several movies a day (one during the day, prime time, and late night). WSBK began 24 hour operation in the late 70's, only to revert to a late night signoffs by the early 80's.

By the 1980's, some shows like Bewitched and Jeannie fell off the schedule onto other stations. But shows like M*A*S*H, Barney Miller, The Beverly Hillbillies, Alice, The Jeffersons, Maude, One Day At A Time, Hart To Hart, Quincy, Trapper John M.D., Cheers, Family Ties, Punky Brewster, Scooby Doo, He-Man, Superfriends, Ghostbusters, Ducktales, and others landed on Channel 38. The Honeymooners fell off the schedule onto another station, but when that station fell on hard times and lost much of its programming, WSBK reinstated that show. In the mid-1980's, WSBK dropped the midday movie to make room for more sitcoms. For a few years WSBK signed off at 1 or 2 a.m. but was at 24/7 operation by the end of the decade.

In the 1990's, The Disney Afternoon, Alf, Murphy Brown, Frasier, Seinfeld, and other shows landed on the station. After the sale to Paramount Stations, in 1995, WSBK became the affiliate for UPN. This, in and of itself, effected the station very little because UPN was only programming a couple hours a day and not even every day. WSBK in fact added some classic sitcoms falling off other stations in 1995. Still, in the late 1990's, WSBK gradually added more talk and reality shows to the lineup. By 2000, WSBK was down to only a morning cartoon block, tons of talk and reality shows middays and afteroons, and more recent sitcoms in the evening along with UPN shows. In 2003, the cartoons were dropped due to the fact that their run in syndication was ended. Movies also dwindled from the schedule. One tradition that remained on WSBK was the Sunday morning run of The Three Stooges.

From May 2001 to August 2004, WSBK had rights to Lottery Live, the weeknight broadcasts of the Massachusetts State Lottery games. After the station moved into WBZ's studios, WSBK continued to broadcast the drawings. This was because WBZ had the games to itself for the last 3 years prior to that move. When the contract for WSBK expired, the games moved to WCVB-TV.

WSBK broadcasts Phantom Gourmet on weekends depending on the station's programming commitments (such as ACC college football); a half-hour version of the show has also aired at noon on weekdays since 2009. The station also airs a sports replay program called Patriots This Week on Saturday nights at 10 PM; a similar program focused on the Red Sox has also aired on the station.

From 2001 until 2009, WSBK was the Boston home for the game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! — unusual for a UPN or independent station (the shows had previously run on WHDH-TV).^[4] The shows then moved to WBZ, swapping with The Insider and Entertainment Tonight, with management citing their older-skewing demographics as more closely fitting WBZ, and the younger audiences for the entertainment news programs more closely fitting WSBK.^[5]

After UPN ceased operations in September 2006, WSBK's primetime lineup was converted to a second run of Dr. Phil at 8 PM, a second-run of Jeopardy! at 9 PM, and a new local newscast at 9:30 PM. Dr. Phil was replaced by Law and Order: Special Victims Unit in 2009, while the second-run of Jeopardy!, which swapped places with the newscast in 2007, has since been replaced by various other programs. It also continues to air CBS programs whenever WBZ preempts for local programming. WSBK, after becoming independent again, returned to the "TV 38" branding and "Entertaining Boston" slogan. The station changed its web address to "tv38.com" in late August and started using the new branding on the air on September 6, more than a week before officially becoming independent.

One of WSBK's most remembered past programs was the informative series Ask the Manager, created by its general manager William J. Flynn in the mid-1970s. Each week Flynn, and later his successors Joseph C. Dimino, Daniel J. Berkery, and Stuart Tauber would answer viewer questions on the air. The letters were read each week for many years by the station's announcer and host Dana Hersey. Other letter-readers included Sean McDonough and Carla Nolan. Meg LaVigne and Leslie Savage occasionally substituted in the manager's chair. The producer of Ask the Manager was Cliff Allen, who died just weeks after Ask the Manager broadcast its final show in January 1999. Though poorly rated by the Nielsen ratings, this show became a cult favorite. There were other attempts at local programming through the years with shows such as We Don't Knock, A.M. Boston, and Hersey's Hollywood.

WSBK, though an independent station, today is far different from the way it was prior to 2000.

News operation

Over the years, WSBK has broadcast a 10 P.M. newscast on several occasions. Being that Storer Broadcasting owned only network affiliates with the exception of Channel 38, news was a part of their stations, including WSBK. The station produced such a newscast beginning in the early 1970s. After very low ratings over the years, it was concluded that there was no market for a 10 p.m. newscast in Boston. So it was eliminated in the early 1980s in favor of classic sitcoms or a drama show. Part of the reason for the low ratings of the 10 p.m. newscast was that it usually aired late due to Red Sox or Bruins games on the station. By the time sports was over, news was on all the network stations. WSBK was the only independent Storer owned station and the only Storer station with no local newscast.

News returned to the station in 1993, by way of the WBZ-produced WBZ News 4 on TV 38; this was canceled in 1995, soon after the sale of WSBK to Paramount. The news was then produced by NECN until 1998 and was known as UPN 38 Prime News. During the NECN period, Lila Orbach was the original sole anchor when the news launched on October 2, 1995. Eventually, Margie Reedy and R.D. Sahl (a former WHDH-TV news duo) took over for the remainder of its run. After Viacom's merger with CBS, WBZ-TV once again began to produce the station's news programming starting in 2001. During this time, WSBK initially airing a 7 P.M. newscast called THE 7 O'Clock News on UPN 38 (always emphasizing "the"). It switched back to 10 o'clock in 2002 and was known as Nightcast at 10 on UPN 38. In 2003, an hour long extension of WBZ-TV's weekday morning news was added at 7 A.M. known as The Morning News on UPN 38.

In January 2005, WSBK canceled Nightcast and turned its attention to the morning newscast which was relaunched as The Morning Show on April 4. On September 12, the program began airing 8 to 9 A.M. to make room for the first two hours of the nationally syndicated morning show, The Daily Buzz. On June 30, 2006, The Morning Show aired its last broadcast. The Daily Buzz was eventually dropped as well. When WSBK became an independent station for the second time, WBZ-TV began to produce a weeknight 9:30 newscast called TV 38 News at 9:30. Starting on April 23, 2007, the newscast began airing at 9 P.M. The second run of Jeopardy! switched time slots with the newscast. After this, the news became known as TV 38 News at 9. On August 25, 2008, the newscast became known as WBZ News at 9 and now mirrors news programs that air on WBZ-TV. On December 12, the newscast began airing in high definition after WSBK's sister station made the upgrade. As of late-August 2009, the station re-airs WBZ-TV's Noon newscast during the week.^[6]

News team

WBZ News at Noon
(Weekdays 12:30 to 1 P.M.)

• Anchors:
  • David Wade
  • Paula Ebben
• Weather:
  • Todd Gutner

WBZ News at 9
(Weeknights 9 to 9:30)

• Anchor:
  • Kate Merrill
• Weather:
  • Ken Barlow
• Sports:
  • Steve Burton

WSBK features additional news personnel from WBZ. See that article for a complete listing.

Station Presentation

Station Slogans

• Entertaining Boston (2006-present)

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References

1. ^ http://www.dishnetwork.com/faq/channels/
2. ^ http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf
3. ^ CDBS Print
4. ^ Trigoboff, Dan (May 6, 2001). "Station Break". Broadcasting & Cable. http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/147238-Station_Break.php. Retrieved November 15, 2009. 
5. ^ Albiniak, Paige (October 5, 2009). "CBS’ Boston Duop Swaps Shows". Broadcasting & Cable. http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/356868-CBS_Boston_Duop_Swaps_Shows.php. Retrieved November 16, 2009. 
6. ^ http://wsbk.titantv.com/apg/basic.aspx?siteid=52953

• WSBK-TV (3-27-2005). The Boston TV Dial.
• WSBK: About UPN38 (2005). UPN38.com.

External links

• WSBK-DT "TV 38"
• WBZ-DT
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WSBK-TV