, channel 56, is currently the
WB television network affiliate serving
Boston, Massachusetts , owned by the
Tribune Company . Its transmitter is located in
Newton, Massachusetts and its studios are located along
I-93 in
Boston 's Dorchester neighborhood.
On
January 24 ,
2006 , the WB and
UPN networks announced they would merge. The newly combined network would be called , the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents
CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the
Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. The merger will take effect in September 2006, and WLVI will be the CW's Boston affiliate.
Channel 56 is one of Boston's heritage
UHF stations, having first gone on the air on
September 27 ,
1953 as . WTAO was written off as failure in
1956 due to low viewership and lack of funds. The station went back on the air as WXHR in
1962 for a six-month
FCC study before being purchased by
Kaiser Broadcasting and the ''
Boston Globe '' in
1965 and renamed as '''WKBG-TV'''.
As a Kaiser station, channel 56's schedule consisted primarily of cartoons, off-network sitcoms and old movies; however, it was willing to experiment with such projects as Paramount Television's ''Operation Prime Time'' and syndicated reruns of ''
National Geographic '' specials in prime time. Such common indedpendent-station programming as a Saturday "Creature Double-Feature" (following repeats of ''
The Outer Limits '') reached youthful and cult audiences; U.S.
Talk-show host
Conan O'Brien has credited the station's rotation of classic
Musicals in its prime-time movie offering with encouraging him to consider a career as a performer. The station constantly lagged behind the sports-heavy schedule of
WSBK-TV . Still, it was carried on every cable system in
Massachusetts ,
Rhode Island and
New Hampshire , along with many in
Connecticut ,
Vermont and
Maine . In
1975 , the ''Boston Globe'' sold its share in WKBG back to Kaiser. The
Call Letters were then changed to and in
1977 ,
Chicago -based
Field Communications purchased WLVI and the other Kaiser stations.
Field Communications started a news department shortly before putting the station up for sale and would start a 10 PM weeknight newscast. In
1982 , WLVI was sold to
Gannett .
Under Gannett, WLVI continued its general entertainment format of children's programming from 6 AM to 11 AM as well as 1 PM to 5:30 PM. The station also continued its 10 PM newscast.
In
1994 , Gannett sold the station to
Tribune , which affiliated the station with
The WB network in
January 1995 .
The station was temporarily off the air in
August 1998 when a crane that was erecting a nearby STL (studio-to-transmitter link) tower collapsed onto WLVI's building. Though no one was injured and the damage was confined to the station's office spaces, the incident resulted in several hundred thousand dollars worth of damages. The station used a satellite truck for network programming downlink and studio space at
WCVB-TV for its 10 PM newscast.
In
1999 , WLVI discontinued its morning kids programming block in favor of a short-lived morning newscast. The station also began running more syndicated talk and reality shows. Afternoon children's programming continued to be provided by ''
Kids WB '' until early
2006 . Channel 56 was the last commercial station in the Boston market that continued to broadcast weekday children's programming.
WLVI introduced the 10 PM newscast to the Boston market on
April 23 ,
1984 . The newscast normally airs from 10 PM to 11 PM on the weekdays and Sundays. On Saturdays the newscast airs from 10 PM to 10:30 PM. However, there are unconfirmed reports that Tribune Broadcasting will shut down the WLVI news department and have it outsourced to another channel or cancelled altogether, this has been denied by the station.
