WSBK-TV (channel 38) is an independent television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside CBS outlet WBZ-TV (channel 4).The two stations share studios on Soldiers Field Road in the Allston–Brighton section of Boston.WSBK-TV's transmitter is located on Cedar Street in Needham, Massachusetts, on a tower site that was formerly owned by CBS and is now owned by American Tower Corporation (which is shared with transmitters belonging to WBZ-TV, WCVB-TV, WGBH-TV, WBTS-CD, and WGBX-TV).
WSBK is also available via satellite throughout the United States on Dish Network as part of its superstation package (which since September 2013, is available only to existing subscribers of the tier).[2]
US
airdate
October 12, 1964
callsign meaning
Ticker symbol for former owner Storer Broadcasting
Otherwise, it enjoys cable coverage throughout much of the
New England
region, though this has been limited compared to the past when it was more widely distributed.
History
Origins (1955–1966)
The first construction permit for channel 38 in Boston was granted in October 1955 to Ajax Enterprises, headed by Herbert Mayer, a former New York City attorney who had founded Empire Coil, a New Rochelle, New York–based manufacturer of RF coils for television stations and receivers.Mayer went on to own stations in Portland, Oregon (KPTV, the country's first licensed UHF station), and Cleveland (WXEL).He sold the cable manufacturer and both television stations to Storer Broadcasting in 1954.Channel 38 was originally slated to have the call sign WHMB; however, after Storer changed the call letters of the Cleveland property to WJW-TV in April 1956, Mayer quickly reclaimed WXEL for the Boston station.WXEL's proposed transmitter in Melrose was never built, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoked the construction permit and deleted the call sign in November 1960.
The current station signed on the air on October 12, 1964.[3] It was first licensed to the Boston Catholic Television Center under the call letters WIHS-TV, with the call letters standing for the "IHS" initialism for the Christogram.The station employed a general entertainment format, along with broadcasts of the daily and Sunday Mass. As WIHS, the station initially programmed a "hybrid" schedule—educational (for the Catholic schools in the Boston area) and religious programs during the morning, and syndicated programs and movies (and by 1966, some shows that the Boston area's network affiliates declined to air) in the afternoon and evening. The station also carried two 15-minute local newscasts each weekday, at 5:45 and 10 pm, which consisted of an announcer reading news headlines into a camera.[4]
The station also made an initial foray into sports, carrying ten regular season away games and all playoff road games from the Boston Celtics that were not carried on network television during the 1964–65 season.However, team management was worried about the lack of penetration of the UHF band, leading to playoff away games being simulcast on WHDH-TV (channel 5) in 1965 (that station had previously aired select Celtics telecasts, including playoff away games starting in 1962); the following season, the team moved back to WHDH outright. Some college sports (mostly hockey and basketball games) were carried during the WIHS era, which were carried over during the early Storer Broadcasting years.
WSBK-TV (1966–present)
The station was purchased by Storer Broadcasting in 1966. A few months after the purchase, the station's call sign was changed to the present WSBK-TV, named after the company's ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange, "SBK".Storer scored its biggest coup in 1967, when it secured broadcast rights to the Boston Bruins from WKBG-TV (channel 56, now WLVI), and eventually owned the team for a three-year period from 1972 to 1975.During the next few years, as the Bruins became a contender for the National Hockey League's Stanley Cup championship (led by young superstar Bobby Orr), 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 shown on network television.
In 1975, WSBK acquired television rights to the Boston Red Sox; during the team's first year on channel 38, the Red Sox won the American League pennant. The team remained on WSBK until 1995, and returned for another three-year period from 2003 to 2005. WSBK had broadcast between 90 and 110 Red Sox games a year between 1975 and 1983; about 75 games a year from 1984 to 1995, and a limited number of games (usually 28 to 30 a year) between 2003 and 2005. Although WSBK carried Celtics road playoff games in 1969 (the team having abandoned WKBG at the end of the regular season after seeing the number of regular-season games broadcast by channel 56 during the 1968–69 season shrink compared to the previous year), the station would not carry the NBA team's games on a regular basis until 1993. During that time, WSBK broadcast road games of the Celtics; it continued to do so through 1998.
Becoming a superstation
WSBK's popularity was such that by the mid-1970s, it was available on nearly every cable provider in New England and as far west as Buffalo, New York, and as far south as Long Island.In the late 1980s, WSBK became a national superstation when it entered into an agreement with Eastern Microwave to distribute its signal outside of New England.Eastern Microwave also distributed the signal of existing superstation WOR-TV in New York City.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 respectively used their coverage of the New York Mets, Chicago Cubs and White Sox, and Atlanta Braves.WSBK's carriage did not reach the same level as the other stations, but covered large portions of New York, and a handful of cable providers in Florida (which produced the unusual circumstance of Red Sox games being regularly broadcast into part of the New York Yankees' main market; similarly, Yankees flagship station WPIX was carried by Boston area cable systems).WSBK's coverage of the Boston Bruins also made it a favorite superstation on Canadian cable providers, 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).
Sale to Paramount and affiliation with UPN (1995–2006)
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 existing affiliate WFXT (channel 25), which Fox would acquire soon afterward.(WSBK would not have been beneficial to Fox, as it was a UHF station—the New World stations that switched to Fox had broadcast on VHF channels between 2 and 13—and, also unlike its sister stations, it did not have a news department.) Channel 38 was then sold to the Paramount Stations Group, controlled by Paramount Pictures (which would become a subsidiary of Viacom that same year) and became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN) on January 16, 1995; that June, the longtime "TV 38" branding was retired and changed to "UPN 38".[7] In 1996, Viacom acquired a 50% ownership stake in the network from Chris-Craft Industries, which effectively made WSBK-TV a UPN owned-and-operated station. Originally, WSBK continued to essentially program under the conventions of an independent station as UPN would not run five nights a week of programming until 1998. While the affiliation did not result in immediate changes to the rest of its lineup outside of prime time, WSBK began incorporating more talk and reality shows by 1997, with older shows being gradually phased out. The Movie Loft was discontinued as a result of host Dana Hersey's retirement, as well as declining ratings for the program as the movie packages that the station acquired were of a lesser quality than in previous years.
First return to independent status (2006–2011)
On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation (which spun off from Viacom two months earlier) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW.[10][11] Even though WSBK is owned by The CW's part-owner CBS, then-WB affiliate WLVI—owned at the time by Tribune Broadcasting (which sold that station to WHDH owner Sunbeam Television that September)—was announced as The CW's Boston outlet through an affiliation agreement that signed 16 of Tribune's 19 WB stations as charter affiliates. It would not have been an upset if WSBK had been chosen as Boston's CW affiliate, as representatives for The CW had been on record as preferring the "strongest" WB and UPN affiliates, and Boston was one of the few markets where the WB and UPN affiliates both had relatively strong viewership.
On June 15, 2011, WBIN-TV (the former WZMY-TV) announced that it would end its affiliation with MyNetworkTV that September to become an independent station.[16] CBS Television Stations subsequently signed an affiliation agreement with the programming service five days later, on June 20, 2011, to move its Boston area affiliation to WSBK.[17] It is believed that CBS' initial decision to deny its larger UPN stations affiliation agreements with MyNetworkTV was in retaliation against Fox for refusing to affiliate any of its UPN affiliates in markets where CBS Corporation or Tribune did not already sign deals to carry The CW with that network. WSBK affiliated with MyNetworkTV on September 19, 2011 (joining Miami sister station WBFS-TV as one of two CBS-owned stations to maintain an affiliation with the service). The station's branding was amended to "myTV38", in accordance to the new affiliation.
Second return to independent status (2022–present)
On September 19, 2022, WSBK-TV reverted to being an independent station, ending its affiliation with MyNetworkTV and leaving the programming service without an outlet in the Boston market. In preparation for the move, earlier in the month, the station returned its TV38 moniker for the third time, along with its post-UPN "circle 38" logo. Also, in September 2022, the 50-year contract to air the Three Stooges' film shorts expired; WSBK wanted to renew the contract or sign a new one, but Sony Pictures (owner of the Stooges' shorts) refused; there have not been New Year's Eve Three Stooges marathons since December 31, 2021.(Three Stooges shorts continue to air in Boston on the MeTV-affiliated 5.2 subchannel of WCVB.)
Programming
WSBK-TV occasionally takes on the responsibility of airing CBS network programming whenever WBZ-TV runs extended breaking news coverage or special programming. Examples of this practice include during the Boston Marathon, and more recently in 2009, during New England Patriots preseason games as well as the funerals of Senator Ted Kennedy and his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
Sports
In terms of sports, WSBK was the longtime television home of the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins. WSBK became the Red Sox's over-air flagship station in 1975 and remained so for 20 years until it lost the broadcast rights to WABU (channel 68, now WBPX-TV) in 1996.[18] After a seven-season hiatus, WSBK (in partnership with sister station WBZ-TV) resumed its role as the Red Sox flagship station, replacing WFXT, in 2003;[19] however, channel 38 only broadcast the team's Friday night games.Most games were carried by the New England Sports Network (NESN), which aired the Friday night games outside of the Boston television market, effectively blacking out WSBK in these areas (the Red Sox hold an 80% ownership interest in NESN).Among the nationally prominent announcers that have performed play-by-play duties for the station's Red Sox games include Dick Stockton and Sean McDonough. WBZ stopped broadcasting the games after the 2004 season, and WSBK would cease airing games itself following the 2005 season, rendering the team's game telecasts cable-exclusive.
WSBK was also the over-the-air flagship of the Boston Bruins for more than 30 years. Its broadcasts were considered important enough to the station, 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 WSBK's then-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; Dale Arnold called the play-by-play in later years. As with the Red Sox, Bruins coverage gradually moved to NESN. Nearly all home games were broadcast on NESN starting in 1984, and coverage left WSBK entirely in 2002.[20]
In addition, WSBK became the over-the-air home of the Boston Celtics in 1993, replacing WFXT (which the team had owned at that time).[21] It lost the broadcast rights in 1998 to WABU.[22] All Celtics games not on national television are now broadcast on NBC Sports Boston.From 2005 until 2019, WSBK carried Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) college football and basketball games produced and syndicated by Raycom Sports (through its ACC Network package), after Boston College's move to the conference created regional interest for the ACC; the package ended as a result of ESPN launching an ACC Network cable channel.
In 2007, Major League Soccer announced that WSBK would become the exclusive carrier of the New England Revolution, replacing WLVI and FSN New England.After three seasons, the Revolution moved their non-nationally televised games to Comcast SportsNet New England (the former FSN New England and current NBC Sports Boston) in 2010;[23] in 2021, the club moved its telecasts back to WSBK as part of a partnership with sister station WBZ-TV.[24] WSBK and WBZ lost their local rights to Revolution games in 2023, when all MLS broadcasts shifted over to MLS Season Pass, a new subscription service hosted on Apple TV.
In December 2007, 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 other four aired on Comcast SportsNet New England). This arrangement continued through 2012; as of 2013, the six statewide state championship games air on Comcast SportsNet New England.[25] Starting in 2009, audio-only simulcasts of these games began airing on then-sister radio station WBZ-FM (98.5 MHz). The station previously aired sports replay programs called Red Sox This Week and Patriots This Week during their respective seasons; the latter program has since moved to Comcast SportsNet New England. The station broadcasts the "Fifth Quarter" postgame shows after 4:25 p.m. ET Patriots' games (due partly to WBZ's network commitments with CBS to broadcast 60 Minutes), as well as 1 p.m. Patriots games on weeks in which CBS is airing a doubleheader.
Local programming
One of WSBK's most remembered past programs was the informative and often amusing series Ask the Manager, created by then-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-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 program's producer, Cliff Allen, was often referred to when off-camera, but did substitute as letter reader on many occasions. Allen died just weeks before Ask the Manager broadcast its final show in January 1999; the series finale was dedicated to his memory. Though it was long hampered by poor viewership, the show became a cult favorite. There were other attempts at local programs on WSBK through the years with shows such as We Don't Knock, A.M. Boston, and Hersey's Hollywood.
From May 2001 to August 2004, WSBK had rights to Lottery Live, the nightly 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 three years prior to the move. When WSBK's contract expired, the lottery drawings were moved to WCVB-TV (channel 5).
WSBK broadcasts Phantom Gourmet on weekends depending on the station's programming commitments; a half-hour version of the show has also aired at noon on weekdays since 2009; reruns began to air in prime time in 2022 with the MyNetworkTV disaffiliation. In 2007, WSBK revived Community Auditions, the local talent competition program that had run on WBZ-TV from 1965 to 1986. With series creator and former host Dave Maynard as a consultant (until his death in February 2012), the new Community Auditions was hosted by WJMN (94.5 FM) radio DJ Ramiro, with former WBZ entertainment reporter Joyce Kulhawik, WMJX (106.7 FM)'s Candy O'Terry and WODS
Newscasts
As WIHS-TV, the station had a small news operation, featuring former WBZ-TV anchor Victor Best.[26] After becoming WSBK-TV, the station considered producing a local, in-house 10 p.m. newscast in the 1970s. However, Storer received indications that such a venture would get low ratings and lose money, leading it to conclude that there was no market for a local 10 p.m. newscast in Boston. As a result, unlike most top-rated independents in markets of its size, channel 38 never had a news department in its incarnation as WSBK.
In 1980, WSBK did begin running a nationally syndicated newscast for independent stations, Independent Network News, which was produced by New York City's WPIX and distributed by its owner Tribune Broadcasting. INN did not do well in Boston; part of the reason for the low ratings was that the newscast sometimes aired late due to Red Sox or Bruins games, putting it in direct competition with the 11 p.m. newscasts on WBZ-TV, WCVB-TV, and WNAC-TV/WNEV-TV. After 1984, it also faced competition from a local 10 p.m. newscast on WLVI-TV. In January 1986, the weeknight INN broadcasts moved to WLVI, airing after that station's 10 p.m. news—before INN was dropped by the station after one year (it was not acquired by another station in the Boston market).
WSBK finally launched a 10 p.m. local newscast on October 25, 1993, by way of the WBZ-produced WBZ News 4 on TV 38, competing against both WLVI and a New England Cable News (NECN)-produced program on WFXT;[27] this program was canceled on August 6, 1995, soon after the sale of WSBK to Paramount, as it was felt that the WBZ News 4 branding was incompatible with the then-new "UPN 38" brand.
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's signal is multiplexed: {{legend|#DFEBF6|Broadcast on behalf of another station}}
Analog-to-digital conversion
WSBK-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 38, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate.The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 39,[38][39] using virtual channel 38.
See also
Channel 38 virtual TV stations in the United States
Channel 21 digital TV stations in the United States
List of television stations in Massachusetts
List of United States stations available in Canada
In addition to an increasingly stronger lineup of syndicated programs—which during the late 1960s through (to a lesser extent) the 1990s included cartoons (such as Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts and the 1960s made-for-TV Popeye cartoons) and sitcoms (such as The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Cheers (itself set in Boston and now owned by CBS), M*A*S*H and Frasier), WSBK continued to run 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 until 1981.
The station also ran several movies a day (one during the day, prime time, and late night).
During the 1970s through the mid-1980s, WSBK's cartoon programs were hosted by Willie Whistle, a clown who used a bird-whistle in his mouth to create a distinctive voice he was recognized for.
Becoming a superstation
WSBK's popularity was such that by the mid-1970s, it was available on nearly every cable provider in New England and as far west as Buffalo, New York, and as far south as Long Island.In the late 1980s, WSBK became a national superstation when it entered into an agreement with Eastern Microwave to distribute its signal outside of New England.Eastern Microwave also distributed the signal of existing superstation WOR-TV in New York City.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 respectively used their coverage of the New York Mets, Chicago Cubs and White Sox, and Atlanta Braves.WSBK's carriage did not reach the same level as the other stations, but covered large portions of New York, and a handful of cable providers in Florida (which produced the unusual circumstance of Red Sox games being regularly broadcast into part of the New York Yankees' main market; similarly, Yankees flagship station WPIX was carried by Boston area cable systems).WSBK's coverage of the Boston Bruins also made it a favorite superstation on Canadian cable providers, 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 (or "Syndex") were strengthened in the early 1990s, distribution of all out-of-market station signals were hampered. The rule protected stations in local markets from out-of-market competition by superstations that aired identical syndicated programming. Any station could file with cable providers for "protection" and the provider would have to black out the offending station for periods of time. The management of this "blocking" would prove so cumbersome that many cable providers 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 providers by substituting shows that could not be blocked, but the damage had already been done by then.
WSBK began operating on a 24-hour schedule in the late 1970s, only to revert to late-night signoffs by the early 1980s. 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 program aired syndicated movies with interstitial program elements hosted by Dana Hersey. Part of the program's marketing was that it aired only "unedited" movies. The Movie Loft tested that on several occasions airing movies such as The Deer Hunter, The Boys in the Band and 48 Hrs. without editing for inappropriate content or length. In the mid-1980s, WSBK dropped the midday movie to make room for more sitcoms. For a few years, WSBK signed off at 1 a.m. or 2 am, but began operating 24 hours a day (except on early Monday mornings) by the end of the decade. Although it was one of the strongest independent stations in the nation, WSBK turned down an offer to affiliate with the upstart Fox network in 1986. This may have been because most of the markets in channel 38's cable footprint had enough stations to provide Fox affiliates at the outset, making the prospect of WSBK as a multistate Fox affiliate unattractive to Storer/KKR. The Fox affiliation for the market went to WFXT in 1987 after News Corp. acquired the station from CBN.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts bought WSBK and most of Storer's other stations in 1985.At this time, ownership was officially under the KKR subsidiary of New Boston Television, although Storer was still referenced on-air as being the parent company of WSBK.[5][6] 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. Eventually, SCI ran into fiscal issues, and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1993.As a result, WSBK was sold in a group deal to New World Communications that year.
Sale to Paramount and affiliation with UPN (1995–2006)
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 existing affiliate WFXT (channel 25), which Fox would acquire soon afterward.(WSBK would not have been beneficial to Fox, as it was a UHF station—the New World stations that switched to Fox had broadcast on VHF channels between 2 and 13—and, also unlike its sister stations, it did not have a news department.) Channel 38 was then sold to the Paramount Stations Group, controlled by Paramount Pictures (which would become a subsidiary of Viacom that same year) and became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN) on January 16, 1995; that June, the longtime "TV 38" branding was retired and changed to "UPN 38".[7] In 1996, Viacom acquired a 50% ownership stake in the network from Chris-Craft Industries, which effectively made WSBK-TV a UPN owned-and-operated station. Originally, WSBK continued to essentially program under the conventions of an independent station as UPN would not run five nights a week of programming until 1998. While the affiliation did not result in immediate changes to the rest of its lineup outside of prime time, WSBK began incorporating more talk and reality shows by 1997, with older shows being gradually phased out. The Movie Loft was discontinued as a result of host Dana Hersey's retirement, as well as declining ratings for the program as the movie packages that the station acquired were of a lesser quality than in previous years.
First return to independent status (2006–2011)
On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation (which spun off from Viacom two months earlier) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW.[10][11] Even though WSBK is owned by The CW's part-owner CBS, then-WB affiliate WLVI—owned at the time by Tribune Broadcasting (which sold that station to WHDH owner Sunbeam Television that September)—was announced as The CW's Boston outlet through an affiliation agreement that signed 16 of Tribune's 19 WB stations as charter affiliates. It would not have been an upset if WSBK had been chosen as Boston's CW affiliate, as representatives for The CW had been on record as preferring the "strongest" WB and UPN affiliates, and Boston was one of the few markets where the WB and UPN affiliates both had relatively strong viewership.
On June 15, 2011, WBIN-TV (the former WZMY-TV) announced that it would end its affiliation with MyNetworkTV that September to become an independent station.[16] CBS Television Stations subsequently signed an affiliation agreement with the programming service five days later, on June 20, 2011, to move its Boston area affiliation to WSBK.[17] It is believed that CBS' initial decision to deny its larger UPN stations affiliation agreements with MyNetworkTV was in retaliation against Fox for refusing to affiliate any of its UPN affiliates in markets where CBS Corporation or Tribune did not already sign deals to carry The CW with that network. WSBK affiliated with MyNetworkTV on September 19, 2011 (joining Miami sister station WBFS-TV as one of two CBS-owned stations to maintain an affiliation with the service). The station's branding was amended to "myTV38", in accordance to the new affiliation.
Second return to independent status (2022–present)
On September 19, 2022, WSBK-TV reverted to being an independent station, ending its affiliation with MyNetworkTV and leaving the programming service without an outlet in the Boston market. In preparation for the move, earlier in the month, the station returned its TV38 moniker for the third time, along with its post-UPN "circle 38" logo. Also, in September 2022, the 50-year contract to air the Three Stooges' film shorts expired; WSBK wanted to renew the contract or sign a new one, but Sony Pictures (owner of the Stooges' shorts) refused; there have not been New Year's Eve Three Stooges marathons since December 31, 2021.(Three Stooges shorts continue to air in Boston on the MeTV-affiliated 5.2 subchannel of WCVB.)
When the FCC's syndication exclusivity rules (or "Syndex") were strengthened in the early 1990s, distribution of all out-of-market station signals were hampered.
The rule protected stations in local markets from out-of-market competition by superstations that aired identical syndicated programming.
Any station could file with cable providers for "protection" and the provider would have to black out the offending station for periods of time.
The management of this "blocking" would prove so cumbersome that many cable providers 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 providers by substituting shows that could not be blocked, but the damage had already been done by then.
WSBK began operating on a 24-hour schedule in the late 1970s, only to revert to late-night signoffs by the early 1980s. 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 program aired syndicated movies with interstitial program elements hosted by Dana Hersey. Part of the program's marketing was that it aired only "unedited" movies. The Movie Loft tested that on several occasions airing movies such as The Deer Hunter, The Boys in the Band and 48 Hrs. without editing for inappropriate content or length. In the mid-1980s, WSBK dropped the midday movie to make room for more sitcoms. For a few years, WSBK signed off at 1 a.m. or 2 am, but began operating 24 hours a day (except on early Monday mornings) by the end of the decade. Although it was one of the strongest independent stations in the nation, WSBK turned down an offer to affiliate with the upstart Fox network in 1986. This may have been because most of the markets in channel 38's cable footprint had enough stations to provide Fox affiliates at the outset, making the prospect of WSBK as a multistate Fox affiliate unattractive to Storer/KKR. The Fox affiliation for the market went to WFXT in 1987 after News Corp. acquired the station from CBN.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts bought WSBK and most of Storer's other stations in 1985.At this time, ownership was officially under the KKR subsidiary of New Boston Television, although Storer was still referenced on-air as being the parent company of WSBK.[5][6] 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. Eventually, SCI ran into fiscal issues, and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1993.As a result, WSBK was sold in a group deal to New World Communications that year.
WSBK later revived the genre with The UPN 38 Movie House, hosted by actor and comedian Brian Frates and Movie Night (co-hosted by Dan and Dave Andelman); in the early 2000s, it also attempted a revival of The Movie Loft hosted by Skip Kelly.
The station also began to decrease its telecasts of local professional sports events.
For some time after affiliating with UPN, WSBK continued to air primarily cartoons and classic sitcoms.
In late 1999, WSBK was lowered to only a morning cartoon block, a major amount of talk and reality shows during the midday and afternoon hours, and more recent sitcoms in the evening along with UPN shows.
The station stopped carrying cartoons in 2003, around the same time that UPN discontinued the Disney's One Too block.
By 2002, the station 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.
Movies were also cut back, and were generally relegated to weekends only.
However, one tradition that remained on WSBK was the Sunday morning run of The Three Stooges (until 2022, as detailed further below).
In 2000, after Viacom merged with the previous CBS Corporation—which created a duopoly with WBZ-TV, WSBK moved out of its longtime home on Leo Birmingham Parkway in Brighton and integrated its operations into WBZ-TV's facility nearby.The former WSBK studio facility is now occupied by four Boston radio stations that, until 2017, were owned by former corporate sibling CBS Radio (now Audacy). Under CBS, WSBK began sharing some first-run syndicated programs with WBZ-TV. In 2001, WSBK became the Boston home for the game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!—unusual for a UPN or independent station (Wheel and Jeopardy! had previously run on WHDH-TV).[8] In 2009, both shows moved to WBZ-TV, swapping stations with The Insider and Entertainment Tonight, with management citing the game shows' older-skewing demographics as more closely fitting WBZ, and the younger audiences for the entertainment news programs more closely fitting WSBK.[9]
announced the launch of
MyNetworkTV
, another new broadcast television network to be operated by its
WSBK-TV officially reverted to the "TV 38" branding on September 6, 2006, and also revived its former Entertaining Boston slogan; the station continued to carry UPN programming until the network shut down on September 15. After the station reverted to independent status, WSBK's prime time lineup was filled by first-run syndicated programs (initially a second run of Dr. Phil at 8 p.m. and a second run of Jeopardy! at 9 pm), and a WBZ-produced 9:30 p.m. newscast.[14] The station adopted a new ad campaign entitled Hello in September 2009, where the majority of station promotion is centered around the word "hello"; this new campaign also brought forth a mascot called the TV 38 Blockhead.[15]
(103.3 FM)'s J.J. Wright as judges.
Originally airing Fridays at 9:30 p.m. during its first four years, WSBK moved the program to Saturdays at midnight for a few months in the fall of 2011, before shifting it to Sundays at noon in February 2012.
Community Auditions was also syndicated to WWLP in Springfield and WPXT in Portland, Maine, and was rebroadcast on WBZ-TV on Saturdays at midnight and Sundays at 1 a.m.
on October 2, 1995, the day after NECN's contract with WFXT expired, the regional news channel began producing UPN 38 Prime News.
Lila Orbach was the original sole anchor, reprising her role on the WFXT newscast, eventually, Margie Reedy and R. D. Sahl (who were formerly paired as anchors during their tenures at WHDH-TV) took over for the remainder of its run.
This newscast generally trailed both WLVI's program and, starting in 1996, an in-house newscast on WFXT; on October 4, 1998, WSBK discontinued UPN 38 Prime News to refocus towards sports and entertainment shows (around the same time, sister UPN stations KSTW in Seattle and WTOG in Tampa canceled their own in-house newscasts, while KMAX-TV in Sacramento downsized to focus on morning news), though NECN continued to produce news updates within Bruins telecasts during the 1998–1999 season.[29] The station replaced the 10 p.m. newscast with a two-hour late-evening comedy lineup (including Cheers and Mad About You), promoted in the fall of 1998 as Laughter Dark.
After Viacom merged with CBS, putting WSBK and WBZ-TV under the same ownership, WBZ once again began producing a newscast for the station starting in 2001. On September 3, WSBK debuted a 7 p.m. newscast;[30] initially called THE 7 O'Clock News on UPN 38 (always emphasizing "the"), it was later rebranded as WBZ 4 News at 7 O'Clock.This newscast was replaced on March 29, 2002, by a new 10 p.m. newscast, titled Nightcast at 10 on UPN 38, which launched on April 1.[31] On September 16, 2002, an hour-long extension of WBZ-TV's weekday morning newscast was added at 7 am, known as The Morning News on UPN 38.[30]
WSBK dropped Nightcast on January 16, 2005,[32] 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. The Morning Show aired its last broadcast on June 30, 2006, The Daily Buzz was dropped at the same time (it would return to the market in January 2011 on WLVI, and later moved to WBIN-TV).
When WSBK became an independent station for the second time, WBZ-TV began to produce a weeknight newscast called TV 38 News at 9:30, the newscast was then moved up a half-hour to 9 p.m. on April 23, 2007, retitled as TV 38 News at 9, and switching time slots with a second run of Jeopardy! On August 25, 2008, the newscast became known as WBZ News on TV 38 (on occasion, it is also referred to as WBZ News at 9); it now mirrors the news programs that air on WBZ-TV, as had been the case with 10 p.m. broadcast that WBZ produced in the mid-1990s and the former 7 p.m. newscast. On December 12, 2008, the newscast began to be broadcast in high definition after WBZ upgraded its newscasts to the format. For a period starting in late-August 2009, WSBK also ran a rebroadcast of WBZ-TV's noon newscast at 12:30 pm; this was subsequently replaced with Judge Judy. When the station joined MyNetworkTV, WSBK moved the prime time newscast back to 10 p.m. on September 19, 2011;[33] the newscast is now referred to as WBZ News at 10.On September 29, 2014, the 10 p.m. newscast was now an hour long.[34] As of August 29, 2016, the newscast is being seen at 8 pm.On September 24, 2019, as part of the launch of CBSN Boston, the 8 p.m. newscast was moved to that service, while retaining a simulcast on WSBK-TV.[35] On July 18, 2022, a 10 newscast was reintroduced under the CBS News Now format; the 8 p.m. newscast was not affected.[36] On August 31, 2023, the 10 p.m. newscast was cancelled, following the end of the CBS News Now format across CBS-owned duopoly stations and standalone CW affiliates that became independent the next day; as replacement, on September 1, a new 9 p.m. newscast from WBZ News was introduced to WSBK, serving as extension to the 8 p.m. newscast.
WSBK later revived the genre with The UPN 38 Movie House, hosted by actor and comedian Brian Frates and Movie Night (co-hosted by Dan and Dave Andelman); in the early 2000s, it also attempted a revival of The Movie Loft hosted by Skip Kelly.
The station also began to decrease its telecasts of local professional sports events.
For some time after affiliating with UPN, WSBK continued to air primarily cartoons and classic sitcoms.
In late 1999, WSBK was lowered to only a morning cartoon block, a major amount of talk and reality shows during the midday and afternoon hours, and more recent sitcoms in the evening along with UPN shows.
The station stopped carrying cartoons in 2003, around the same time that UPN discontinued the Disney's One Too block.
By 2002, the station 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.
Movies were also cut back, and were generally relegated to weekends only.
However, one tradition that remained on WSBK was the Sunday morning run of The Three Stooges (until 2022, as detailed further below).
In 2000, after Viacom merged with the previous CBS Corporation—which created a duopoly with WBZ-TV, WSBK moved out of its longtime home on Leo Birmingham Parkway in Brighton and integrated its operations into WBZ-TV's facility nearby.The former WSBK studio facility is now occupied by four Boston radio stations that, until 2017, were owned by former corporate sibling CBS Radio (now Audacy). Under CBS, WSBK began sharing some first-run syndicated programs with WBZ-TV. In 2001, WSBK became the Boston home for the game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!—unusual for a UPN or independent station (Wheel and Jeopardy! had previously run on WHDH-TV).[8] In 2009, both shows moved to WBZ-TV, swapping stations with The Insider and Entertainment Tonight, with management citing the game shows' older-skewing demographics as more closely fitting WBZ, and the younger audiences for the entertainment news programs more closely fitting WSBK.[9]
announced the launch of
MyNetworkTV
, another new broadcast television network to be operated by its
WSBK-TV officially reverted to the "TV 38" branding on September 6, 2006, and also revived its former Entertaining Boston slogan; the station continued to carry UPN programming until the network shut down on September 15. After the station reverted to independent status, WSBK's prime time lineup was filled by first-run syndicated programs (initially a second run of Dr. Phil at 8 p.m. and a second run of Jeopardy! at 9 pm), and a WBZ-produced 9:30 p.m. newscast.[14] The station adopted a new ad campaign entitled Hello in September 2009, where the majority of station promotion is centered around the word "hello"; this new campaign also brought forth a mascot called the TV 38 Blockhead.[15]
