, channel 25, is an owned-and-operated station of the
News Corporation -owned
Fox Broadcasting Company , based in
Boston ,
Massachusetts . This station covers the greater Boston area, with transmitter located in
Newton, Massachusetts and studios in
Dedham, Massachusetts . WFXT is one of six Boston television stations seen in
Canada to subscribers of the
Bell ExpressVu satellite service.
Channel 25 signed on as (for "Christ '''(X)''' in '''N'''ew '''E'''ngland") on
October 10 ,
1977 . The station was originally owned by the
Christian Broadcasting Network . The early format consisted of religious programming such as the ''
700 Club '' and programs of many other
Televangelist s. Religious programming ran for about six hours a day during the week and all day on Sundays.
Secular Programming consisted of westerns, old movies, family type drama shows, old film shorts, and classic TV shows. By
1980 , the religious programming was cut back on Sundays to 6-11 AM and 7 PM to midnight, and about four to five hours a day during the week.
The station began adding more cartoons, made-for-TV movies, and off network sitcoms in the early
1980s . While the station was only on cable systems in the
Greater Boston market, WXNE was a solid third among independent stations, behind
WSBK-TV and
WLVI-TV , and sixth among commercial television stations.
In October
1986 WXNE became Boston's affiliate for the new
Fox Broadcasting Company , a precursor to a sale of the station to Fox, which was finalized on
January 19 ,
1987 . Prior to the sale to Fox, WXNE did not air ''
The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers '', Fox's inaugural program and a weeknight show which aired opposite
Johnny Carson 's ''
Tonight Show '' on
NBC . The outgoing CBN ownership believed that the program did not fit its strict content guidelines. Fox instead contracted a Boston FM radio station to carry the audio portion of the ''Late Show'' until its purchase of WXNE was completed. When it was, Fox renamed the station and made a few on-air changes. Besides adding the ''Late Show'' to the schedule, the ''700 Club'' was demoted to a once-a-day airing, and the daily broadcast of a
Roman Catholic Mass was moved to an earlier timeslot. Fox programmed aggressively, purchasing popular off network sitcoms and syndicated fare. In April 1987, the Sunday evening religious programming block was replaced with Fox programming.
In purchasing channel 25, Fox was granted a temporary waiver of a
Federal Communications Commission rule prohibiting the common ownership of a television station and a newspaper in the same market. Fox's parent company, News Corp., also published the ''
Boston Herald ''. In
1990 , Fox placed WFXT in a trust company, and in
1991 , sold the station outright to the
Boston Celtics , who would maintain the network relationship while making WFXT the basketball team's flagship. The Celtics, however, didn't have the financial means to compete as a broadcaster. By
1992 , WFXT was on many more cable systems in areas of
New England where Fox programming was not available. But locally the station was a distant third behind WSBK and WLVI. For a while under the Celtics' watch, WFXT was in danger of losing its Fox affiliation.
In
1995 Fox purchased WFXT for a second time. (News Corp. had sold the ''Boston Herald'' in the
Previous Year .) Though the network was pushing for more news-intensive formats for its stations, channel 25 moved slowly in building its own news department. The station did not broadcast its own primetime 10 PM newscast until
1996 (however, for a brief period during Celtics ownership the station aired a newscast produced by
New England Cable News ). WFXT was the second-to-last Fox owned-and-operated station left without any local news, as well as the last such station running a morning kids block. WFXT was the television flagship of the
Boston Red Sox for the baseball team's
2000 ,
2001 and
2002 seasons. In 2002, WFXT actually carried more Red Sox games than
NESN , the team-owned regional sports network. By
2003 , the station added a morning talk/news/entertainment block along with an evening 5-6 (weekdays only) newscast.
Today, channel 25 runs about 30 hours a week of local news along with first-run syndicated talk, reality, and court shows. The station also airs some off-network sitcoms.
