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WBPX-TV
WBPX-TV (channel 68) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, airing programming from the Ion Television network. It is owned by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, which also owns Woburn-licensed Grit station WDPX-TV (channel 58); the two channels share the same TV spectrum. WBPX-TV and WDPX-TV are broadcast from a tower on Parmenter Road in Hudson, Massachusetts.
WBPX-TV's programming is duplicated on WPXG-TV (channel 21) in Concord, New Hampshire, which shares its channel with Lowell, Massachusetts–licensed Daystar station WYDN (channel 48) and broadcasts from Fort Mountain near Epsom, New Hampshire.
WBPX-TV began broadcasting as WQTV in 1979 and originally broadcast subscription television programming to paying customers, which ended in 1983, with the station operating as a full-time commercial independent station until succumbing to financial troubles and paring back its programming. After being sold to The Christian Science Monitor in 1986, WQTV became the nucleus of a major production operation, which in 1991 spawned a cable television channel, the Monitor Channel. After $325 million in losses, this service shut down in 1992, and The Monitor sold WQTV to Boston University, which operated it for six years as commercial independent WABU. Boston University also bought the Concord station, which had been silent since it failed as CBS affiliate WNHT in 1989, and turned it into a satellite of WABU in 1995. Both stations were sold in 1999 to become outlets of the Pax network, which changed its name to i in 2005 before becoming known as Ion in 2007.
On June 3, 1966, Boston Heritage Broadcasting, Inc.—a consortium of local owners and New Jersey–based Blonder-Tongue Laboratories—filed an application for a construction permit for channel 68 in Boston, which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted on September 23, 1969, after a comparative hearing. Boston Heritage then filed the third-ever application for authority to install subscription television (STV) equipment in July 1970, which the FCC granted three years later.
Even though a construction permit had been awarded in 1969, it would be nearly a decade before channel 68 broadcast. By late 1977, Boston Heritage had begun work to build the transmitter on the Prudential Tower, and Blonder-Tongue's pay-TV system was already in use in the New York area. The subscription television programs to be aired on the station would come from Universal Subscription Television, a subsidiary of Canadian company CanWest Capital Corporation. CanWest was in the middle of assembling a network of stations to air its programming, with outlets in various stages of consideration on New York's Long Island and in Detroit, Minneapolis, and Sacramento.
WQTV began program testing at the very end of 1978 and regular programming on January 2, 1979. The subscription service, named BEST at launch, became known as StarCase in May 1979. That month, the station's only non-subscription programs were paid-for ethnic and religious hours. Universal was prompted to abandon its plan to sign up subscribers by area because prospective customers kept calling, having dialed past channel 56 to see the new station on their sets. Further interest was sparked when StarCase began broadcasting adult films in late-night hours.
Universal Subscription Television was acquired in two parts during the course of 1981 by Satellite Television & Associated Resources (STAR) of Santa Monica, California; after acquiring franchises for unbuilt services on stations in San Jose (KSTS) and Detroit (WGPR-TV) in January, STAR then spent $20.5 million (equivalent to $59.7 million in 2024 dollars) to acquire the Boston StarCase service and another $600,000 for WQTV itself. The service was rebranded Star with the sale. Star offered partial-season coverage of the Boston Celtics to subscribers in the 1981–82 season, mostly because cable carrier PRISM New England was not available on the Boston cable system at the time.
Channel 68 was not the only purveyor of subscription television programming in Massachusetts; alongside a microwave distribution system carrying HBO, its primary over-the-air competition came from Preview, owned by American Television and Communications (ATC)—the cable division of Time, Inc.—and broadcast on WSMW-TV from Worcester. By June 1982, generally the zenith of STV's existence nationally, Star was the 8th-largest service in the nation with 52,000 subscribers; Preview was the 7th-largest with 60,000.
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WBPX-TV
WBPX-TV (channel 68) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, airing programming from the Ion Television network. It is owned by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, which also owns Woburn-licensed Grit station WDPX-TV (channel 58); the two channels share the same TV spectrum. WBPX-TV and WDPX-TV are broadcast from a tower on Parmenter Road in Hudson, Massachusetts.
WBPX-TV's programming is duplicated on WPXG-TV (channel 21) in Concord, New Hampshire, which shares its channel with Lowell, Massachusetts–licensed Daystar station WYDN (channel 48) and broadcasts from Fort Mountain near Epsom, New Hampshire.
WBPX-TV began broadcasting as WQTV in 1979 and originally broadcast subscription television programming to paying customers, which ended in 1983, with the station operating as a full-time commercial independent station until succumbing to financial troubles and paring back its programming. After being sold to The Christian Science Monitor in 1986, WQTV became the nucleus of a major production operation, which in 1991 spawned a cable television channel, the Monitor Channel. After $325 million in losses, this service shut down in 1992, and The Monitor sold WQTV to Boston University, which operated it for six years as commercial independent WABU. Boston University also bought the Concord station, which had been silent since it failed as CBS affiliate WNHT in 1989, and turned it into a satellite of WABU in 1995. Both stations were sold in 1999 to become outlets of the Pax network, which changed its name to i in 2005 before becoming known as Ion in 2007.
On June 3, 1966, Boston Heritage Broadcasting, Inc.—a consortium of local owners and New Jersey–based Blonder-Tongue Laboratories—filed an application for a construction permit for channel 68 in Boston, which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted on September 23, 1969, after a comparative hearing. Boston Heritage then filed the third-ever application for authority to install subscription television (STV) equipment in July 1970, which the FCC granted three years later.
Even though a construction permit had been awarded in 1969, it would be nearly a decade before channel 68 broadcast. By late 1977, Boston Heritage had begun work to build the transmitter on the Prudential Tower, and Blonder-Tongue's pay-TV system was already in use in the New York area. The subscription television programs to be aired on the station would come from Universal Subscription Television, a subsidiary of Canadian company CanWest Capital Corporation. CanWest was in the middle of assembling a network of stations to air its programming, with outlets in various stages of consideration on New York's Long Island and in Detroit, Minneapolis, and Sacramento.
WQTV began program testing at the very end of 1978 and regular programming on January 2, 1979. The subscription service, named BEST at launch, became known as StarCase in May 1979. That month, the station's only non-subscription programs were paid-for ethnic and religious hours. Universal was prompted to abandon its plan to sign up subscribers by area because prospective customers kept calling, having dialed past channel 56 to see the new station on their sets. Further interest was sparked when StarCase began broadcasting adult films in late-night hours.
Universal Subscription Television was acquired in two parts during the course of 1981 by Satellite Television & Associated Resources (STAR) of Santa Monica, California; after acquiring franchises for unbuilt services on stations in San Jose (KSTS) and Detroit (WGPR-TV) in January, STAR then spent $20.5 million (equivalent to $59.7 million in 2024 dollars) to acquire the Boston StarCase service and another $600,000 for WQTV itself. The service was rebranded Star with the sale. Star offered partial-season coverage of the Boston Celtics to subscribers in the 1981–82 season, mostly because cable carrier PRISM New England was not available on the Boston cable system at the time.
Channel 68 was not the only purveyor of subscription television programming in Massachusetts; alongside a microwave distribution system carrying HBO, its primary over-the-air competition came from Preview, owned by American Television and Communications (ATC)—the cable division of Time, Inc.—and broadcast on WSMW-TV from Worcester. By June 1982, generally the zenith of STV's existence nationally, Star was the 8th-largest service in the nation with 52,000 subscribers; Preview was the 7th-largest with 60,000.