| WUNI | |
|---|---|
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| Worcester-Boston, Massachusetts | |
| Branding | Univision 27 Univision Nueva Inglaterra |
| Channels | Digital: 29 (UHF) |
| Affiliations | Univision LATV (DT2) |
| Owner | Entravision Communications Corporation (Entravision Holdings, LLC) |
| First air date | January 1970[1] |
| Call letters’ meaning | UNIvision -or- Univision Nueva Inglaterra |
| Sister station(s) | WUTF-TV |
| Former callsigns | WSMW-TV (1970-1985) WHLL (1986-1993) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 27 (1970-2009) |
| Former affiliations | independent (1970-1992) Telemundo (1992-1993) |
| Transmitter Power | 270 kW |
| Height | 468 m |
| Facility ID | 30577 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | 42°20′8.8″N 71°42′55″W / 42.335778°N 71.71528°W |
| Website | www.wunitv.com |
WUNI, digital channel 29, is the Univision television affiliate for the Greater Boston market. Licensed to Worcester, Massachusetts, the station runs general Spanish entertainment programs as well as news and information programming. The call letters stand for "Univision Nueva Inglaterra", which is Spanish for New England.
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History
The station signed on January 2, 1970 as English-language WSMW-TV, and served Worcester with general entertainment programming with old movies, cartoons, religious shows, a cooking show (Cooking with Bernard), science fiction shows (Gerry Anderson's UFO) and sitcoms. WSMW also broadcast sports; from its debut through the end of the 1971-1972 NBA season, the station was the television home of the Boston Celtics. In 1970 and 1971, WSMW broadcast pre-season games of the New England Patriots. WSMW also covered a lot of college basketball throughout the 1970s, mostly games of the College of the Holy Cross and Assumption College, with some Boston College, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Bentley College games included on the schedule. Finally, WSMW broadcast Bay State Bowling, a weekly candlepin bowling program on Sunday evenings for most of the 1970s.
Beginning in 1980, channel 27 began running a subscription TV service called Preview at night. By 1982, the station was running Preview all day, with a couple hours in the morning devoted to religious and public affairs programming.
In the spring of 1985, WSMW cut Preview back to 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. on weekdays and after 3 p.m. on weekends., and brought back some general entertainment programs. Hill Broadcasting bought the station at the end of 1985, and renamed the station WHLL. At that time, WHLL ceased to broadcast Preview and reverted to being a general-entertainment independent television station.
Initially, WHLL's schedule consisted of B grade movies, drama shows, cartoons, a few sitcoms, as well as religious shows. By 1987, the cartoons and sitcoms were gone, and the station began running preempted network programming from NBC, ABC, and CBS. WHLL also began running a few first-run syndicated shows by 1988, as well as a good amount of religious programming.
By 1992, the station began to focus on Spanish-language programming with the addition of Telemundo programming from 4 or 5 p.m.. By 1993, when the Jasas Corporation acquired WHLL from Hill Broadcasting, it ran Spanish shows after noon. The station eventually broadcast Univision programming and changed its call letters to WUNI. Entravision eventually bought the station in 2000.
Newscast
On April 1, 2003, WUNI launched its first and only live local newscast, Noticias Univision Nueva Inglaterra (Univision News New England), at 6 p.m. Sara Suarez was brought from KCEC, Univision's affiliate in Colorado, to serve as anchorwoman and news director. Angel Salcedo, who hosted Enfoque Latino (a local public affairs program on WUNI) for years, was chosen as the anchorman. However, Salcedo left the station shortly afterwards, leaving Suarez as the sole anchor until Carlos Ruben Zapata was hired to replace Salcedo. In early-to-mid 2005, Zapata left the station and Suarez anchored the news by herself once again. In late 2005, the station hired a new anchorman, Eduardo Guerrero.
Before the newscast went on the air, the station signed an agreement with regional cable television network NECN, in which NECN provided news footage. In addition, several commercial spots were featured on WUNI, as well as Telefutura affiliate WUTF-TV (which is owned by Univision but operated by Entravision), encouraging Hispanics to tune-in during the day to watch NECN. However, the agreement with NECN expired in mid 2005, and as a result WUNI signed a new agreement with WBZ-TV. Instead of featuring commercial spots on WUNI and WUTF encouraging Hispanics to tune-in to channel 4, its newscast (WBZ News) is credited while the images are shown on the air, as well as at the end of the broadcast, right before the copyright graphic title.
In April 2007, the station launched Despierta Boston, a local morning news update segment during Univision's Despierta América at 7:25, 8:25, and 9:25. The station used Despierta America's logo, replacing "américa" with "boston", while using a version of the graphics and music package used on the 6 p.m. newscast. Despierta Boston was anchored by reporter Maria Gonzalez. While Despierta Boston saw some success, economic problems led to Entravision canceling it in early 2009. The station also laid off Eduardo Guerrero (once again resulting in Sara Suarez becoming the solo anchor) and 10 year veteran sports journalist Omar Cabrera.
On July 14, 2007, the station began broadcasting Las Noticias Univision Fin de Semana from WLII, Univision's Puerto Rico affiliate, on weekends.
News team
- Sara Suarez, Anchorwoman and News Director
- Maria Gonzalez, Reporter, Anchor for Despierta Boston
- Cecy Gutierrez, Weather reporter
- Ana Carolina Pereira, Special assignment reporter
- Fernando Pizarro, Washington D.C. reporter (featured on several Univision stations with local newscasts)
External links
- WUNI 27 Website
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WUNI
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WUNI-TV
References
- ^ The Broadcasting and Cable Yearbook says January 2, while the Television and Cable Factbook says January 1.
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