Information AboutWsbk-tv |
WSBK-TV is an Independent Television Station for Boston, Massachusetts . Licensed to the city, the station broadcasts an analog signal on UHF channel 38 and a digital signal on UHF channel 39. WSBK's analog transmitter is located east of I-95 / Route 128 , while its digital is located west of the highway. Both transmitters are located in Needham . Owned by the CBS Corporation , WSBK is a sister station to the area's CBS affiliate WBZ-TV . The two stations share studios which are located on Soldiers Field Road in the North Brighton section of Boston. WSBK is known on-air as '''''"TV 38"'''''. WSBK is also a sister to WLWC , the CW affiliate for the state of Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts . Although WLWC is a Providence / New Bedford station, master control of WLWC is located at the WSBK and WBZ studios. However, the staton is currently awaiting FCC approval to become owned by Cerberus Capital Management . After the sale closes, it is unknown where WLWC's master control will be located. The station will air CBS programming if WBZ cannot do so for any reason. One common example of this practice is during the Boston Marathon in which WSBK will air WBZ's weekday morning lineup. WSBK is also seen in Canada to subscribers of the Bell ExpressVu and StarChoice satellite services as well as subscribers of Cogeco Cable , Shaw Cable , Rogers Cable , Videotron , and Persona . As an independent station, WSBK runs a general entertainment format which includes Syndicated programming, movies, and sports. 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. WSBK was known for broadcasting Boston Bruins and Boston Red Sox games and, as a result, many viewers bought UHF antennas just to view the station. Storer ran Channel 38 as a general entertainment Independent Station . Some of the shows included cartoons, off-network sitcoms, professional sports, and feature films. Until 1983 , WSBK also ran some network programs that were preempted by Boston's NBC affiliate then WBZ, ABC affiliate WNAC-TV (later WCVB-TV ), and CBS (the original WHDH-TV and later WNAC-TV / WNEV) affiliates. Channel 38 also had a local newscast in the late 1970s to the early 1980s . In the late 1980s , WSBK entered into agreement with a company called Eastern Microwave to distribute its signal beyond its market. Eastern Microwave also distributed the signal of superstation WWOR-TV in New Jersey . This helped WSBK become a superstation, similar to WGN-TV in Chicago and WTBS in Atlanta , using its sports coverage in much the same way as the other stations used the Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves , respectively. The carriage did not reach those other stations levels, but it did cover the entire New England market reaching into 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 Yankees main market). WSBK was generally passive in the distribution efforts which were handled by Eastern Microwave. 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. WSBK made a name in the Boston market by being a sports powerhouse airing Red Sox and Bruins games until the 1990s . It created one of the first "hosted movie" franchises on television long before it became a staple on cable networks with ''The Movie Loft''. ''The Movie Loft'' aired syndicated movies with interstitial program elements hosted by Dana Hersey. 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 Hours '' in unedited fashion. Another popular show on WSBK was called ''Ask the Manager''. It featured viewer mail read by station personnel and answered by station's General Manager or a Senior Manager. 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''. The station was sold in a group deal with other Storer stations to KKR in 1985 . 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 TV's parent company 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 its CBS, ABC, and NBC affiliated stations to the young FOX Network. WSBK remained an independent station and was eventually put up for sale again to protect FOX-owned WFXT . The station was then sold to Paramount Communications (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. As UPN's schedule grew to more nights of the week, key WSBK franchises such as ''The Movie Loft'' were discontinued. Because Paramount owned the station and UPN, it did not want to pre-empt UPN programming. Red Sox and Bruins rights were eventually dropped as well. In 2001 , after Viacom's merger with The Previous CBS Corporation , WSBK moved its studios and offices to WBZ-TV 's building. On (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner . The area's WB affiliate, then owned by Tribune Broadcasting , was announced as becoming a CW affiliate. On February 22 , 2006, News Corporation announced that they would start up another new broadcast television network called MyNetworkTV. The new network, which would be sister to FOX, would be operated by FOX Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television . MyNetworkTV was created in order to give UPN and WB stations, not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates, another option besides becoming independent. It was also created to compete against The CW. CBS announced on May 1 , 2006, that WSBK would revert to independent status again instead of joining MyNetworkTV. The MyNetworkTV affiliation for Boston eventually went to an independent station in Derry, New Hampshire , WZMY-TV . MyNetworkTV began broadcasting on September 5 , 2006. WSBK's changeover from a UPN affiliate to an independent occurred on September 16 , 2006, after UPN officially shut down. The CW began broadcasting on WLVI on September 18 , 2006. In 2007 , Major League Soccer announced that WSBK would become the exclusive carrier of the New England Revolution . The station's current logo resembles that of TNT , ironic considering that Time Warner, the owner of TNT, also owns half of The CW. PROGRAMMING WSBK generally broadcasts Syndicated Programs and movies. However, the station is best known in the Boston area for being the long-time television home of the Boston Red Sox . WSBK became the Red Sox's over-air flagship station in 1975 and remained so for 20 years losing the rights in 1996 to WABU (now WBPX ). 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 , that then-station owners Storer Broadcasting purchased and owned the Bruins for several years. The announcerd for most of the Bruins games were Fred Cusick (on play-by-play) and Johnny Pierson (on color commentary). As with the Red Sox, Bruins coverage gradually moved to NESN. All home games were broadcasted on NESN starting in 1984 and coverage left WSBK entirely by 2005 . In addition, WSBK 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 FSN 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. The station has played host to no fewer than three locally-produced nightime 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 and Dave Andelman). ''The Movie Loft'' was noted for occasionally broadcasting theatrical movies uncut and without censorship, pioneered by a showing of '' The Deer Hunter '' in 1978 . From May of 2001 to August of 2004, WSBK had rights to ''Lottery Live'', the weeknight broadcasts of the 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). The station also airs a sports replay program called ''Red Sox This Week'' on Sundays nights at 10 PM. After UPN ceased operations in 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 Clifford D. "Cliff" Allen, who died just weeks after "Ask the Manager" broadcast its final show in January of 1999 . NEWSCASTS WSBK has broadcast a 10 PM newscast on several occasions. WBZ-TV produced such programming from 1993 to 1995 known as ''WBZ News 4 on TV 38''. The newscast was then produced by NECN until 1998 known as ''UPN 38 Prime News''. During the NECN period, Lila Orbach was the original sole anchor when the newscast launched on October 2 , 1995. Eventually, Margie Reedy and R.D. Sahl, a former WHDH news duo, took over for the remainder of its run. After Viacom 's merger with CBS , WBZ once again began to produce the station's news programming starting in 2001. During this time, WSBK initially airing a 7 PM newscast called ''THE 7 O'Clock News on UPN 38''. It switched back to 10 PM in 2002 and was known as ''Nightcast at 10 on UPN 38''. In 2003 , a WSBK extension of WBZ's weekday morning news was added from 7 to 8 AM. In January of 2005, WSBK cancelled ''Nightcast'' and turned its attention to the morning newscast which was relaunched as ''The Morning Show'' on April 4 , 2005. On September 12 , 2005 the program was moved and aired 8 to 9 PM to make room for the first two hours of the nationally syndicated newscast '' The Daily Buzz ''. On June 30 , 2006 , ''The Morning Show'' aired its last broadcast. When WSBK became an independent station for the second time, WBZ began to produce a weeknight 9:30 PM newscast called ''TV 38 news at 9:30''. WBZ's weeknight 5 PM anchors, Chris May and Sara Underwood, anchor on WSBK. Starting on April 23 , 2007 , the newscast began airing at 9 PM. The second run of ''Jeopardy!'' that did air at 9 PM switched time slots with the newscast which then became known as ''TV 38 News at 9''. During weather forecasts, WSBK uses WBZ's Weather Radar known as "WBZ Doppler Live", which is located at the Worcester Regional Airport in Worcester . On WSBK, it is rebranded as "38 Weather Live Doppler". News Team
''WSBK uses additional news personnel from WBZ, seen the WBZ article for a complete listing'''' LOGOS |
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