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WCVB-TV
WCVB-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Hearst Television. The station's studios are located on TV Place (off Gould Street near the I-95/MA 128/Highland Avenue interchange) in Needham, Massachusetts, and its transmitter is located on Cedar Street, also in Needham, on a tower shared with several other television and radio stations.
Nearby Manchester, New Hampshire, is considered part of the Boston media market, making WCVB-TV part of a nominal duopoly with WMUR-TV (channel 9), that city's ABC affiliate; however, the two stations maintain separate operations.
WCVB is also one of six Boston television stations that are carried by satellite provider Bell Satellite TV and fiber optic television provider Bell Fibe TV in Canada. Since 2010, midday and weekend late newscasts, along with World News Now, are overlaid with Canadian paid programming on those providers; however, the latter has carried the normal WCVB-TV feed in recent years.[when?]
The channel 5 allocation in Boston was first occupied by the original WHDH-TV, which signed on the air on November 26, 1957. The station was owned by the Boston Herald-Traveler Corporation, along with WHDH radio (850 AM, now WEEI; and 94.5 FM, now WJMN). It was originally an ABC affiliate, but switched to CBS in 1961.
However, almost as soon as it signed on, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began investigating allegations of impropriety in the granting of the television station's construction permit. This touched off a struggle that lasted 15 years. As a result, WHDH-TV never had a license renewal period lasting more than six months at a time (most television licenses at the time lasted for three years). In 1969, a local group, Boston Broadcasters, won a construction permit to build a new station on channel 5 under the callsign of WCVB-TV after promising to air more local programming than any other station in the United States at the time. The new channel 5 needed to have a different call sign (due to FCC rules at the time that stated that TV and radio stations in the same market, but with different ownership were required to have different call signs). It was also critical of the combination of the Herald-Traveler and WHDH-AM-FM-TV. Herald-Traveler Corporation fought the decision in court, but lost in 1972 and Boston Broadcasters was awarded a full license. The local group was led by acoustic expert Leo Beranek and communications lawyer Nathan H. David.
The original WHDH-TV signed off for the last time on March 18, 1972, and was replaced by the new WCVB-TV early the next morning. The Herald-Traveler refused to hand over its facilities to the new channel 5, forcing the station to rent tower space for its transmitter from WBZ-TV (channel 4); during the final months of its operation, WHDH-TV was court-ordered to sign off daily at 1 a.m. so that WCVB-TV could test its equipment. WCVB purchased a former International Harvester sales and service facility in Needham to serve as its studio facility along Route 128, which the station continues to operate from to this day. Although WCVB operates under a different license and celebrates station anniversaries using its 1972 sign-on date, it inherited all of WHDH-TV's personnel, including anchorman Jack Hynes and sportscaster Don Gillis, all transferred to WCVB-TV with the termination of the WHDH-TV license.
However, WCVB did not inherit its predecessor's CBS affiliation. Boston Broadcasters' plans for a large amount of local programming would have resulted in heavy preemptions of network programming. CBS was not pleased with the prospect of being subjected to numerous preemptions of its programs in the nation's fifth-largest market at the time (as of 2016, it is the seventh-largest), especially since WCVB would have inherited WHDH's status as CBS's second-largest affiliate and largest on the East Coast. It refused to have anything to do with WCVB, and moved its programming back to WNAC-TV, which had been Boston's original CBS affiliate from 1948 to 1960. NBC was entrenched with WBZ-TV, and in any event was even less tolerant of preemptions than CBS. More or less by default, WCVB affiliated with ABC.
Making good on its promise, WCVB aired more local programming than any other television station in the nation throughout the 1970s and 1980s.[citation needed] One of its local programs, Good Day!, which first premiered in 1973 as Good Morning!, broke ground by taking its entire production on the road and broadcasting from locations outside of the Boston area and around the world. Good Day!, along with The Morning Exchange on Cleveland's WEWS-TV, served as a prototype for the format of ABC's Good Morning America. Good Day! lasted until 1991.
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WCVB-TV
WCVB-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Hearst Television. The station's studios are located on TV Place (off Gould Street near the I-95/MA 128/Highland Avenue interchange) in Needham, Massachusetts, and its transmitter is located on Cedar Street, also in Needham, on a tower shared with several other television and radio stations.
Nearby Manchester, New Hampshire, is considered part of the Boston media market, making WCVB-TV part of a nominal duopoly with WMUR-TV (channel 9), that city's ABC affiliate; however, the two stations maintain separate operations.
WCVB is also one of six Boston television stations that are carried by satellite provider Bell Satellite TV and fiber optic television provider Bell Fibe TV in Canada. Since 2010, midday and weekend late newscasts, along with World News Now, are overlaid with Canadian paid programming on those providers; however, the latter has carried the normal WCVB-TV feed in recent years.[when?]
The channel 5 allocation in Boston was first occupied by the original WHDH-TV, which signed on the air on November 26, 1957. The station was owned by the Boston Herald-Traveler Corporation, along with WHDH radio (850 AM, now WEEI; and 94.5 FM, now WJMN). It was originally an ABC affiliate, but switched to CBS in 1961.
However, almost as soon as it signed on, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began investigating allegations of impropriety in the granting of the television station's construction permit. This touched off a struggle that lasted 15 years. As a result, WHDH-TV never had a license renewal period lasting more than six months at a time (most television licenses at the time lasted for three years). In 1969, a local group, Boston Broadcasters, won a construction permit to build a new station on channel 5 under the callsign of WCVB-TV after promising to air more local programming than any other station in the United States at the time. The new channel 5 needed to have a different call sign (due to FCC rules at the time that stated that TV and radio stations in the same market, but with different ownership were required to have different call signs). It was also critical of the combination of the Herald-Traveler and WHDH-AM-FM-TV. Herald-Traveler Corporation fought the decision in court, but lost in 1972 and Boston Broadcasters was awarded a full license. The local group was led by acoustic expert Leo Beranek and communications lawyer Nathan H. David.
The original WHDH-TV signed off for the last time on March 18, 1972, and was replaced by the new WCVB-TV early the next morning. The Herald-Traveler refused to hand over its facilities to the new channel 5, forcing the station to rent tower space for its transmitter from WBZ-TV (channel 4); during the final months of its operation, WHDH-TV was court-ordered to sign off daily at 1 a.m. so that WCVB-TV could test its equipment. WCVB purchased a former International Harvester sales and service facility in Needham to serve as its studio facility along Route 128, which the station continues to operate from to this day. Although WCVB operates under a different license and celebrates station anniversaries using its 1972 sign-on date, it inherited all of WHDH-TV's personnel, including anchorman Jack Hynes and sportscaster Don Gillis, all transferred to WCVB-TV with the termination of the WHDH-TV license.
However, WCVB did not inherit its predecessor's CBS affiliation. Boston Broadcasters' plans for a large amount of local programming would have resulted in heavy preemptions of network programming. CBS was not pleased with the prospect of being subjected to numerous preemptions of its programs in the nation's fifth-largest market at the time (as of 2016, it is the seventh-largest), especially since WCVB would have inherited WHDH's status as CBS's second-largest affiliate and largest on the East Coast. It refused to have anything to do with WCVB, and moved its programming back to WNAC-TV, which had been Boston's original CBS affiliate from 1948 to 1960. NBC was entrenched with WBZ-TV, and in any event was even less tolerant of preemptions than CBS. More or less by default, WCVB affiliated with ABC.
Making good on its promise, WCVB aired more local programming than any other television station in the nation throughout the 1970s and 1980s.[citation needed] One of its local programs, Good Day!, which first premiered in 1973 as Good Morning!, broke ground by taking its entire production on the road and broadcasting from locations outside of the Boston area and around the world. Good Day!, along with The Morning Exchange on Cleveland's WEWS-TV, served as a prototype for the format of ABC's Good Morning America. Good Day! lasted until 1991.