WSBK-TV
Encyclopedia
WSBK-TV is a MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV is a television broadcast syndication service in the United States, owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a division of News Corporation...

 television station
Television station
A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...

 for eastern Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 and southern New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

 that is licensed to Boston. It broadcasts a high definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...

 digital signal on UHF channel 39 (previously 38) from a transmitter along the Needham
Needham, Massachusetts
Needham is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. A suburb of Boston, its population was 28,886 at the 2010 census.- History :...

 and Wellesley
Wellesley, Massachusetts
Wellesley is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of Greater Boston. The population was 27,982 at the time of the 2010 census.It is best known as the home of Wellesley College and Babson College...

 town line southwest of the MA 9 and I-95
Interstate 95 in Massachusetts
Interstate 95 is the main highway on the East Coast of the United States, paralleling the Atlantic Ocean from Florida to Maine. The Massachusetts portion of the highway enters from the state of Rhode Island in Attleboro and travels in a northeasterly direction to the junction with Route 128 in...

 / MA 128 interchange. Owned by the CBS Corporation
CBS Corporation
CBS Corporation is an American media conglomerate focused on commercial broadcasting, publishing, billboards and television production, with most of its operations in the United States. The President and CEO of the company is Leslie Moonves. Sumner Redstone, owner of National Amusements, is CBS's...

, the station is sister to CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 owned-and-operated affiliate WBZ-TV
WBZ-TV
WBZ-TV, virtual channel 4, is a CBS owned-and-operated television station, located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. WBZ-TV's studios and office facilities, shared with sister station WSBK-TV , are located in the Allston-Brighton section of Boston, and its transmitter is located in Needham,...

. The two share studios on Soldiers Field Road in the Brighton section of Boston. Syndicated
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...

 programming on WSBK includes: Frasier
Frasier
Frasier is an American sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for eleven seasons, from September 16, 1993, to May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee in association with Grammnet and Paramount Network Television.A spin-off of Cheers, Frasier stars...

, The King of Queens
The King of Queens
The King of Queens is an American sitcom that originally ran on CBS from September 21, 1998, to May 14, 2007.This show was produced by Hanley Productions and CBS Productions , CBS Paramount Television ,and CBS Television Studios in association with Columbia TriStar Television , and Sony Pictures...

, That '70s Show
That '70s Show
That '70s Show is an American television period sitcom that centers on the lives of a group of teenage friends living in the fictional suburban town of Point Place, Wisconsin, from May 17, 1976, to December 31, 1979...

, and Judge Joe Brown.

It is considered an alternate CBS affiliate and as such takes on responsibility of airing programming from the network whenever WBZ-TV cannot do so. Examples of this practice include during the Boston Marathon
Boston Marathon
The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon hosted by the U.S. city of Boston, Massachusetts, on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897 and inspired by the success of the first modern-day marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics, the Boston Marathon is the world's oldest...

, and more recently in 2009, during New England Patriots
New England Patriots
The New England Patriots, commonly called the "Pats", are a professional football team based in the Greater Boston area, playing their home games in the town of Foxborough, Massachusetts at Gillette Stadium. The team is part of the East Division of the American Football Conference in the National...

 pre-season games as well as the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...

 and his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, DSG a member of the Kennedy family, sister to President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward Kennedy, was the founder in 1962 of Camp Shriver, and in 1968, the Special Olympics...

. The station is also seen in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 to subscribers of the Bell TV and Shaw Direct satellite services as well as subscribers of Cogeco Cable, Shaw Cable, Rogers Cable
Rogers Cable
Rogers Cable Inc., a subsidiary of Rogers Communications Inc., is Canada's largest cable television service provider with about 2.25 million television customers, and over 930,000 Internet subscribers, in Manitoba, Southern & Eastern Ontario, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador.The...

, Vidéotron
Vidéotron
Vidéotron GP is a Canadian integrated telecommunications company active in cable television, interactive multimedia development, video on demand, cable telephony, wireless communication and Internet access services. Currently, the company primarily serves Quebec, as well as the francophone...

, Telus TV
TELUS
Telus is a national telecommunications company in Canada that provides a wide range of telecommunications products and services including internet access, voice, entertainment, video, and satellite television. The company is based in Burnaby, British Columbia, part of Greater Vancouver...

, and Persona
Persona Inc.
Persona Communications, formerly Regional Cablesystems, was a cable television, Internet and telecommunications provider in Canada.Persona was purchased by EastLink in 2007. At that point it ceased to be an independent company, and was used only as a brand by some of EastLink's operations in...

. WSBK is available throughout the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 on Dish Network
Dish Network
Dish Network Corporation is the second largest pay TV provider in the United States, providing direct broadcast satellite service—including satellite television, audio programming, and interactive television services—to 14.337 million commercial and residential customers in the United States. Dish...

 direct broadcast satellite
Direct broadcast satellite
Direct broadcast satellite is a term used to refer to satellite television broadcasts intended for home reception.A designation broader than DBS would be direct-to-home signals, or DTH. This has initially distinguished the transmissions directly intended for home viewers from cable television...

 as part of a Superstation
Superstation
Superstation in United States television can have several meanings. In its most precise meaning, a superstation is defined by the Federal Communications Commission as "A television broadcast station, other than a network station, licensed by the FCC that is secondarily transmitted by a satellite...

 package.

History

The station began broadcasting on October 12, 1964. It was first licensed to Boston Catholic Television Center
CatholicTV
CatholicTV is a Catholic television network based in Watertown, Massachusetts. It is distributed on cable systems in eight U.S. states and via the internet....

 and had the call letters WIHS-TV. The station employed a general entertainment format along with the daily and Sunday Mass
Mass
Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...

. The station was bought by Storer Broadcasting
Storer Broadcasting
Storer Broadcasting, Inc. was an American company which owned several television and radio stations in the northeast United States. It was incorporated in Ohio in 1927, and sold its broadcasting properties in 1983.-1920s—1940s:...

 two years later. A few months after the purchase, the station's call letters became the present WSBK-TV, named after the company's ticker symbol
Ticker symbol
A stock symbol or ticker symbol is a short abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. A stock symbol may consist of letters, numbers or a combination of both. "Ticker symbol" refers to the symbols that were printed on the ticker...

 on the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...

, SBK.

As WIHS, the station initially programmed a "hybrid" schedule—educational (for the Catholic schools in the Boston area) and religious programs during the morning, then syndicated programs and movies (and by 1966, some shows passed by the network affiliates in Boston) in the afternoon and evening. The station also carried two local newscasts each weekday, at 5:45 and 10 P.M. In both cases, they consisted of fifteen minutes of an announcer reading news into a camera.

The station also made an initial splash into sports, carrying ten away games of the Boston Celtics
Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics are a National Basketball Association team based in Boston, Massachusetts. They play in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. Founded in 1946, the team is currently owned by Boston Basketball Partners LLC. The Celtics play their home games at the TD Garden, which...

 and all of the team's playoff road games not on network television during the 1964-65 season. However, team management was worried about the lack of penetration of UHF, leading to playoff away games being simulcast on WHDH-TV
WHDH-TV (defunct)
WHDH-TV was the callsign of the first station to use channel 5 in Boston. The station ceased operations March 18, 1972, after the station lost its license. The channel, but not the license, was taken over by WCVB-TV the following morning: March 19, 1972. It is of no relation to either WCVB or...

 (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 entirely.

Some college sports (mostly hockey and basketball games) were carried during the WIHS era, which carried over during the early Storer years.

Storer scored its biggest coup in 1967, when it secured broadcast rights to the Boston Bruins
Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The team has been in existence since 1924, and is the league's third-oldest team and its oldest in the...

 from WKBG-TV
WLVI-TV
WLVI, digital channel 41, is a television station licensed to Cambridge, Massachusetts which serves as the CW affiliate for the Boston, Massachusetts television market. WLVI is owned by Sunbeam Television, and is a sister station to WHDH, Boston's NBC affiliate. The two stations share studios at...

. During the next few years, as the Bruins became a contender for the National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...

's Stanley Cup
Stanley Cup
The Stanley Cup is an ice hockey club trophy, awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoffs champion after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug...

 championship, 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 on network television.

In 1975, WSBK acquired television rights to the Boston Red Sox
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since . The "Red Sox"...

, and got even luckier; the Red Sox won the American League pennant during the team's first year on WSBK. The team stayed on WSBK through 1995, and returned for three years from 2003 through 2005. WSBK broadcast between 90 and 110 Red Sox games a year between 1975 and 1983; about 75 games a year from 1984 until 1995; and a limited number of games (usually 28 to 30 a year) between 2003 and 2005.

Although WSBK carried road playoff games of the Boston Celtics in 1969 (the team having abandoned WKBG at the end of the regular-season after seeing the number of regular-season games broadcast by WKBG in 1968-69 shrink compared to the previous year), the station would not carry Celtics' games on a regular basis until 1993. During that time, WSBK broadcast road games of the Celtics; it continued to do so through 1998.

In addition to an increasingly-stronger lineup of syndicated programs and movies, WSBK continued to run some network programs that were preempted by the local NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 (WBZ-TV), ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 (first WNAC-TV
WHDH-TV
WHDH, digital channel 42 , is an NBC-affiliated television station in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest NBC station not owned by the network. Owned by Sunbeam Television, WHDH is a sister station to CW affiliate WLVI...

, then WCVB-TV
WCVB-TV
WCVB-TV, channel 5, is a television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, owned by Hearst Television and affiliated with the ABC Television Network. WCVB-TV's studios and transmitter are co-located in Needham, Massachusetts. WCVB is also one of six Boston television stations seen in Canada by...

), and CBS (first WHDH-TV
WHDH-TV (defunct)
WHDH-TV was the callsign of the first station to use channel 5 in Boston. The station ceased operations March 18, 1972, after the station lost its license. The channel, but not the license, was taken over by WCVB-TV the following morning: March 19, 1972. It is of no relation to either WCVB or...

, then WNAC-TV/WNEV-TV) affiliates until 1981.

WSBK's popularity was such that by the mid-1970s, it was available on nearly every cable
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...

 system in New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

. In the late 1980s, WSBK became a national superstation
Superstation
Superstation in United States television can have several meanings. In its most precise meaning, a superstation is defined by the Federal Communications Commission as "A television broadcast station, other than a network station, licensed by the FCC that is secondarily transmitted by a satellite...

 when it entered into agreement with a company called Eastern Microwave to distribute its signal outside New England. Eastern Microwave also distributed the signal of superstation WOR-TV
WWOR-TV
WWOR-TV, virtual channel 9 , is the flagship station of the MyNetworkTV programming service, licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey and serving the Tri-State metropolitan area. WWOR is owned by Fox Television Stations, a division of the News Corporation, and is a sister station to Fox network flagship...

 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. It had already been available on nearly every cable system in New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

 since the mid-1970s. WSBK's main selling point was its coverage of the Red Sox, similar to how WOR-TV, WGN-TV
WGN-TV
WGN-TV, virtual channel 9 , is the CW-affiliated television station in Chicago, Illinois built, signed on, and owned by the Tribune Company. WGN-TV's studios and offices are located at 2501 W...

 in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, and WTBS in Atlanta used their coverage of the New York Mets
New York Mets
The New York Mets are a professional baseball team based in the borough of Queens in New York City, New York. They belong to Major League Baseball's National League East Division. One of baseball's first expansion teams, the Mets were founded in 1962 to replace New York's departed National League...

, Chicago Cubs
Chicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs are a professional baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the Central Division of Major League Baseball's National League. They are one of two Major League clubs based in Chicago . The Cubs are also one of the two remaining charter members of the National...

, and Atlanta Braves
Atlanta Braves
The Atlanta Braves are a professional baseball club based in Atlanta, Georgia. The Braves are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League. The Braves have played in Turner Field since 1997....

, respectively. The carriage did not reach those other stations' levels, but covered large portions of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

 and a handful of cable systems in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 (which produced the unusual circumstance of Red Sox games being regularly broadcast into part of the New York Yankees
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...

' main market).

WSBK's coverage of the Boston Bruins also made it a favorite superstation on Canadian cable systems, along with WOR (at the time, WOR was televising away games of all three New York-area NHL teams, the New York Islanders
New York Islanders
The New York Islanders are a professional ice hockey team based in Uniondale, New York. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League...

, the New York Rangers
New York Rangers
The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the borough of Manhattan in New York, New York, USA. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . Playing their home games at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers are one of the...

 and the New Jersey Devils
New Jersey Devils
The New Jersey Devils are a professional ice hockey team based in Newark, New Jersey, United States. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League...

).

When the FCC's "Syndication Exclusivity
Syndication exclusivity
Syndication exclusivity is a federal law in the United States designed to protect a local television station's rights to syndicated television programs by granting exclusive rights to the station for that program in the local market, usually defined by a station's Nielsen DMA...

" 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.

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 Movie Loft aired syndicated movies with interstitial program elements hosted by Dana Hersey. Part of The Movie Lofts marketing was that it aired only "unedited" movies. The Movie Loft tested that on several occasions airing movies such as The Deer Hunter
The Deer Hunter
The Deer Hunter is a 1978 drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Russian American steel worker friends and their infantry service in the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, John Savage, John Cazale, and George Dzundza...

 and 48 Hrs.
48 Hrs.
48 Hrs. is a 1982 American action comedy film directed by Walter Hill, starring Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy as a cop and convict, respectively, who team up to catch a cop-killer. The title refers to the amount of time they have to solve the crime. This was Eddie Murphy's film debut , and Joel...

 in unedited fashion.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts bought WSBK along with most of the other Storer stations in 1985. At this time, ownership was officially under the KKR subsidiary of New Boston Television, although on the air, the parent company of WSBK was still referenced to Storer. KKR later sold most of its stations to Gillett Communications
George N. Gillett Jr.
-Biography:George Gillett graduated from Lake Forest Academy in 1956. He attended Amherst College and is a graduate of Dominican College in Racine, Wisconsin....

. 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 filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, WSBK was sold in a group deal to New World Communications
New World Communications
New World Pictures was an independent motion picture and television production company, and later television station owner in the United States from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s...

 in 1993. In 1994, New World made a landmark deal with Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

 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 WFXT
WFXT
WFXT is a television station owned and operated by the News Corporation-owned Fox Broadcasting Company, located in Boston, Massachusetts. The station's studio and office facility is in Dedham, Massachusetts, and its transmitter is located in Needham, Massachusetts...

, which Fox would acquire soon afterward. The station was then sold to Paramount Stations Group
Paramount Stations Group
Paramount Stations Group was a television broadcasting company that was renamed from the TVX Broadcast Group in 1991 after Paramount Pictures gained full ownership of the group. At the time, it owned several Fox affiliates and independent stations...

 (which would become a subsidiary of Viacom that same year) and became a charter UPN
UPN
United Paramount Network was a television network that was broadcast in over 200 markets in the United States from 1995 to 2006. UPN was originally owned by Viacom/Paramount and Chris-Craft Industries, the former of which, through the Paramount Television Group, produced most of the network's...

 affiliate in 1995; that June, the longtime "TV 38" branding was retired in favor of "UPN 38". Originally, the station continued to run the same type of programming with UPN's schedule added. The Movie Loft was put to rest because Dana Hersey retired, the movie packages were not of the quality they had been before and ratings for the show dropped. WSBK later revived the genre with The UPN 38 Movie House, hosted by actor and comedian Brian Frates; in the early 2000s, it also attempted a revival of The Movie Loft hosted by Skip Kelly. The station also began to lose its relationship with the local sports teams.

For some time after affiliating with UPN, WSBK continued to air primarily cartoons and classic sitcoms. By 1997, however, the station began mixing in more talk and reality shows, with older shows being gradually phased out. WSBK eliminated afternoon cartoons by 2000, and morning cartoons disappeared in 2003, when UPN discontinued the Disney's Animation Weekdays
Disney's One Too
Disney's One Too was a weekday and Sunday morning children's programming block on UPN, it was a spinoff of Disney's One Saturday Morning, and resembled The Disney Afternoon.-History:...

 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.

In 2001, after Viacom's merger with the previous CBS Corporation
Westinghouse Electric (1886)
Westinghouse Electric was an American manufacturing company. It was founded in 1886 as Westinghouse Electric Company and later renamed Westinghouse Electric Corporation by George Westinghouse. The company purchased CBS in 1995 and became CBS Corporation in 1997...

, WSBK moved its studios and offices to WBZ-TV's building. The former WSBK building now occupies some of corporate sibling CBS Radio
CBS Radio
CBS Radio, Inc., formerly known as Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, is one of the largest owners and operators of radio stations in the United States, third behind main rival Clear Channel Communications and Cumulus Media. CBS Radio owns around 130 radio stations across the country...

's Boston radio stations. Under CBS, WSBK began sharing some first run syndicated shows with WBZ-TV.
On January 24, 2006, UPN and the WB Television Network announced that they would merge to create a new network, the CW Television Network, named for its corporate parents CBS and the Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 unit of Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...

. WLVI, Boston's WB affiliate, was announced as Boston's CW affiliate, leaving WSBK without an affiliation. On February 22, 2006, the News Corporation
News Corporation
News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...

 announced that it would launch another new broadcast television network, MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV is a television broadcast syndication service in the United States, owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a division of News Corporation...

, operated by its Fox Television Stations division. WSBK was considered the favorite to become the Boston affiliate of MyNetworkTV, but that May, CBS announced that channel 38, along with WBFS-TV
WBFS-TV
WBFS-TV is the MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for South Florida that is licensed to Miami. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 32 from a transmitter in Miramar. Owned by the CBS Corporation, the station is sister to CBS affiliate WFOR-TV and the two share...

 in Miami, would revert to independent status. Although WBFS ultimately signed with the service, the Boston market MyNetworkTV affiliation eventually went to what was then independent station WZMY-TV (now WBIN-TV) in Derry, New Hampshire
Derry, New Hampshire
-Climate:-Demographics:As of the census of 2010, there were 33,109 people, 12,537 households, and 8,767 families residing in the town. The population density was 924.8 people per square mile . There were 13,277 housing units at an average density of 143.2/km²...

.

WSBK-TV officially reverted to its previous branding, "TV 38", on September 6, 2006, and also revived its former Entertaining Boston slogan; the station had changed its web address to "tv38.com" in late August. Nonetheless, WSBK continued to carry UPN programming until September 15, 2006, the network's final night on the air.

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 named TV 38 Blockhead.

After WBIN-TV announced on June 15, 2011 that it would drop MyNetworkTV, speculation arose that WSBK-TV would become the service's new Boston affiliate. On June 20, the station formally announced that it would join MyNetworkTV starting that September. The first program from MyNetworkTV aired on WSBK at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on September 19. As a result, WSBK joined WBFS as one of two MyNetworkTV affiliates owned by CBS. The station was also rebranded as "myTV38".

Digital television

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion that took place on June 12, 2009, WSBK-DT continued on its pre-transition channel, 39. However, through the use of PSIP
Program and System Information Protocol
The Program and System Information Protocol is the protocol used in the ATSC digital television system for carrying metadata about each channel in the broadcast MPEG transport stream of a TV station and for publishing information about television programs so that viewers can select what to watch...

, digital television receivers display WSBK-DT's virtual channel
Virtual channel
In telecommunications, a logical channel number , also known as virtual channel, is a channel designation which differs from that of the actual radio channel on which the signal travels....

 as 38.

Programming

Presently, WSBK generally broadcasts first run talk, court, and reality shows as well as some off network syndicated programs
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...

 and very few movies. However, in the past, the station ran a large amount of movies, classic shows and sports.

Sports

In terms of sports, WSBK was the long-time television home of the Boston Red Sox
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since . The "Red Sox"...

 and Boston Bruins
Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The team has been in existence since 1924, and is the league's third-oldest team and its oldest in the...

. WSBK became the Red Sox' over-air flagship station in 1975 and remained so for 20 years, losing the rights in 1996 to WABU (now WBPX-TV). After a seven-season hiatus, WSBK (in partnership with sister station WBZ-TV) resumed its role as the Red Sox flagship station, replacing WFXT
WFXT
WFXT is a television station owned and operated by the News Corporation-owned Fox Broadcasting Company, located in Boston, Massachusetts. The station's studio and office facility is in Dedham, Massachusetts, and its transmitter is located in Needham, Massachusetts...

, in 2003, though only for Friday night games. Most games were carried by the New England Sports Network
New England Sports Network
The New England Sports Network, or NESN [NESS-en], is a regional cable television network that covers the six New England states except Fairfield County, Connecticut and Southbury, Connecticut, a town in New Haven County, Connecticut which is covered by New York City sports networks...

 (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
Dick Stockton
Dick Stockton is an American sportscaster. He is currently employed by Fox Sports and Turner Sports as a football, baseball, and basketball play-by-play announcer.-Early life and career:...

 and Sean McDonough
Sean McDonough
Sean McDonough is an American sportscaster, currently employed by ESPN.-Early life and career:The son of Boston Globe sportswriter Will McDonough, Sean graduated from Syracuse University in 1984. It was in Syracuse where McDonough began his broadcasting career in 1982 as the play-by-play announcer...

. WBZ ceased to broadcast the games after the 2004 season, and WSBK would itself cease airing games after the 2005 season. 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
Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The team has been in existence since 1924, and is the league's third-oldest team and its oldest in the...

. 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
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...

 and enormously popular in Boston, that then-station 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
Fred Cusick
Frederick Michael Cusick was an American ice hockey broadcaster who served as the Boston Bruins play-by-play announcer from 1971 until 1997 on WSBK-TV in Boston, and from 1984 until 1995 on NESN...

 (on play-by-play) and Johnny Peirson
Johnny Peirson
John Frederick Peirson is a retired National Hockey League player who played right wing for the Boston Bruins....

 (on color commentary
Color commentator
A color commentator is a sports commentator who assists the play-by-play announcer, often by filling in any time when play is not in progress. The color analyst and main commentator will often exchange comments freely throughout the broadcast, when the play-by-play announcer is not describing the...

), who was later succeeded by Dave Shea
Dave Shea
Dave Shea is an Canadian web designer and co-author of The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web.He is known for his work in web-standard development—from his design community project CSS Zen Garden to his active contributions at the Web Standards Project...

 and former Bruin Derek Sanderson
Derek Sanderson
Derek Michael Sanderson, nicknamed "Turk", , is a former Canadian professional ice hockey centre who is now a bank executive and restaurateur....

. In later years Dale Arnold
Dale Arnold
Dale Arnold is a New England sportscaster who hosts Boston Bruins broadcasts on NESN. He is formerly the co-host of a popular midday sports talk radio show on WEEI and formerly the Bruins' play-by-play announcer on NESN...

 called the play by play. 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.

In addition, WSBK became the over-air home of the Boston Celtics
Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics are a National Basketball Association team based in Boston, Massachusetts. They play in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. Founded in 1946, the team is currently owned by Boston Basketball Partners LLC. The Celtics play their home games at the TD Garden, which...

 in 1993, replacing WFXT (which was owned at that time by the team). It the broadcast rights in 1998 to WABU. Currently, all Celtics games not on national television are now broadcast on Comcast SportsNet New England.

The station, through its UPN affiliation, also carried WWE Smackdown when that program aired on the network.

Since 2005, WSBK has been the Boston-area television home of syndicated Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference is a collegiate athletic league in the United States. Founded in 1953 in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC sanctions competition in twenty-five sports in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association for its twelve member universities...

 college football
College football
College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...

 and basketball
College basketball
College basketball most often refers to the USA basketball competitive governance structure established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association . Basketball in the NCAA is divided into three divisions: Division I, Division II and Division III....

 games in Boston, as Boston College
Boston College
Boston College is a private Jesuit research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. The main campus is bisected by the border between the cities of Boston and Newton. It has 9,200 full-time undergraduates and 4,000 graduate students. Its name reflects its early...

's move to the conference has created regional interest for the ACC.

In 2007, Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...

 announced that WSBK would become the exclusive carrier of the New England Revolution
New England Revolution
The New England Revolution is an American professional association football club based in Foxborough, Massachusetts which competes in Major League Soccer , the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada...

, replacing WLVI and Comcast SportsNet New England (then known as FSN New England). After three seasons, the Revolution moved their non-nationally televised games to CSN New England in 2010; it was the last Boston-area professional sports team to have locally-produced over-the-air telecasts of regular-season games.

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 continues to this day; since 2009, the audio of all seven games has been simulcast on sister station WBZ-FM
WBZ-FM
WBZ-FM is a sports radio station known as "98.5 The Sports Hub" and broadcasting on 98.5 MHz in Boston, Massachusetts. Owned by CBS Radio, the current WBZ-FM began on August 13, 2009 and competes with AM sports talk stations WEEI and competed with the ESPN Radio pair of WAMG and WLLH before their...

 (98.5 FM).

The station also airs sports replay programs called Red Sox This Week and Patriots
New England Patriots
The New England Patriots, commonly called the "Pats", are a professional football team based in the Greater Boston area, playing their home games in the town of Foxborough, Massachusetts at Gillette Stadium. The team is part of the East Division of the American Football Conference in the National...

 This Week during their respective seasons and also broadcasts the "Fifth Quarter" postgame shows after 4:15 P.M. ET Patriots' games (since WBZ is tied up with 60 Minutes).

Cartoons, classic sitcoms and movies

WSBK was also known for running cartoons and classic sitcoms during the late 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and to a lesser extent in the 1990s. Some of the shows run on the station in the 1970s included Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny is a animated character created in 1938 at Leon Schlesinger Productions, later Warner Bros. Cartoons. Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray rabbit and is famous for his flippant, insouciant personality and his portrayal as a trickster. He has primarily appeared in animated cartoons, most...

/Porky Pig
Porky Pig
Porky Pig is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He was the first character created by the studio to draw audiences based on his star power, and the animators created many critically acclaimed shorts using the fat little pig...

 post 1948/pre 1941, made-for-TV Popeye
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor is a cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons in the cinema as well as on television. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929...

 cartoons, Underdog, Bullwinkle
The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show is an American animated television series that originally aired from November 19, 1959 to June 28, 1964 on the ABC and NBC television networks...

, The Three Stooges, My Three Sons
My Three Sons
My Three Sons is an American situation comedy. The series ran from 1960 to 1965 on ABC, and moved to CBS until its end on August 24, 1972. My Three Sons chronicles the life of a widower and aeronautical engineer named Steven Douglas , raising his three sons.The series was a cornerstone of the CBS...

, Sgt. Bilko, The Honeymooners
The Honeymooners
The Honeymooners is an American situation comedy television show, based on a recurring 1951–'55 sketch of the same name. It originally aired on the DuMont network's Cavalcade of Stars and subsequently on the CBS network's The Jackie Gleason Show hosted by Jackie Gleason, and filmed before a live...

, The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised by CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays a widowed sheriff in the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina...

, The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show is an American television sitcom that initially aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from October 3, 1961, until June 1, 1966. The show was created by Carl Reiner and starred Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. It was produced by Reiner with Bill Persky and Sam Denoff....

, Bewitched
Bewitched
Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...

, I Dream Of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American sitcom with a fantasy premise. The show starred Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie, and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries...

, Hogan's Heroes
Hogan's Heroes
Hogan's Heroes is an American television sitcom that ran for 168 episodes from September 17, 1965, to March 28, 1971, on the CBS network. The show was set in a German prisoner of war camp during the Second World War. Bob Crane had the starring role as Colonel Robert E...

, The Odd Couple
The Odd Couple
The Odd Couple is a 1965 Broadway play by Neil Simon, followed by a successful film and television series, as well as other derivative works and spin offs, many featuring one or more of the same actors. The plot concerns two mismatched roommates, one neat and uptight, the other more easygoing and...

, Ironside
Ironside
-Entertainment and literature:*Ironside , an American television series starring Raymond Burr*Ironside: A Modern Faery's Tale, an urban fantasy novel by Holly Black-People:...

, Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...

, and The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist...

, among others. The station also ran several movies a day (one during the day, prime time, and late night). WSBK began 24 hour operation in the late '70s, only to revert to a late night signoffs by the early '80s. During the 1970s through the mid 1980's, 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.

By the 1980s, some shows like Bewitched and Jeannie moved to WLVI-TV; the station did pick up shows like M*A*S*H, Barney Miller
Barney Miller
Barney Miller is a situation comedy television series set in a New York City police station in Greenwich Village. The series originally was broadcast from January 23, 1975 to May 20, 1982 on ABC. It was created by Danny Arnold and Theodore J. Flicker...

, The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for nine seasons on CBS from 1962 to 1971, starring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer, Jr....

, Alice
Alice (TV series)
Alice is an American sitcom television series that ran from August 31, 1976 to July 2, 1985 on CBS. The series was based on the 1974 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. The show stars Linda Lavin in the title role, a widow who moves with her young son to start her life over again, and finds a job...

, The Jeffersons
The Jeffersons
The Jeffersons is an American sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from January 18, 1975, through June 25, 1985, lasting 11 seasons and a total of 253 episodes. The show was produced by the T.A.T. Communications Company from 1975–1982 and by Embassy Television from 1982-1985...

, Maude
Maude (TV series)
Maude was an American television sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS network from September 12, 1972 until April 22, 1978.Maude starred Beatrice Arthur as Maude Findlay, an outspoken, middle-aged, politically liberal woman living in suburban Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York with...

, One Day At A Time
One Day at a Time
One Day at a Time is an American situation comedy on the CBS network that aired from December 16, 1975 until May 28, 1984. It portrays Ann Romano, a divorced mother, played by Bonnie Franklin, her two teenage daughters Julie and Barbara Cooper and Schneider, their building superintendent .The show...

, Hart To Hart
Hart to Hart
Hart to Hart is an American television series, starring Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers as Jonathan and Jennifer Hart, a wealthy couple who also moonlighted as amateur detectives. The series was created by writer Sidney Sheldon and produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg...

, Quincy, M.E.
Quincy, M.E.
Quincy, M.E., also called Quincy, is a United States television series from Universal Studios that aired from October 3, 1976, to September 5, 1983, on NBC...

, Trapper John M.D., Cheers
Cheers
Cheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television for NBC, and was created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles...

 (itself set in Boston and now owned by CBS), Family Ties
Family Ties
Family Ties is an American sitcom that aired on NBC for seven seasons, from 1982 to 1989. The sitcom reflected the move in the United States from the cultural liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s to the conservatism of the 1980s. This was particularly expressed through the relationship between young...

, Small Wonder, Punky Brewster
Punky Brewster
Punky Brewster was an American sitcom about a girl named Punky Brewster being raised by her foster parent...

, Scooby Doo, He-Man
He-Man
He-Man is a fictional heroic character featured in the Masters of the Universe media franchise. In most variations, he is the alter ego of Prince Adam...

, Superfriends, Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters is a 1984 American science fiction comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. The film stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, and Rick Moranis and follows three eccentric parapsychologists in New York City, who start a...

, Ducktales
DuckTales
DuckTales is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Based on Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comic book series, it premiered on September 18, 1987 and ended on November 28, 1990 with a total of four seasons and 100 episodes...

, and others. The Honeymooners
The Honeymooners
The Honeymooners is an American situation comedy television show, based on a recurring 1951–'55 sketch of the same name. It originally aired on the DuMont network's Cavalcade of Stars and subsequently on the CBS network's The Jackie Gleason Show hosted by Jackie Gleason, and filmed before a live...

 moved to WQTV, but when that station fell on hard times and lost much of its programming, it returned to the station. In the mid-1980s, WSBK dropped the midday movie to make room for more sitcoms. For a few years WSBK signed off at 1 or 2 a.m. but was at 24/7 operation by the end of the decade.

In the 1990s, The Disney Afternoon
The Disney Afternoon
The Disney Afternoon was a created-for-syndication two-hour television programming block which aired from September 10, 1990, until Fall 1999. At that time, it was taken out of syndication, and a new Disney weekday afternoon block was started on UPN. The Disney Afternoon was produced by The Walt...

, ALF
ALF (TV series)
ALF is an American science fiction sitcom that originally aired on NBC from 1986 to 1990, created by Paul Fusco. The title character was Gordon Shumway, a friendly extraterrestrial nicknamed ALF , who crash lands in the garage of the suburban middle-class Tanner family.The series starred Max...

, The Hogan Family
The Hogan Family
The Hogan Family is an American television situation comedy that aired from March 1, 1986 to July 20, 1991...

, Murphy Brown
Murphy Brown
Murphy Brown is an American situation comedy which aired on CBS from November 14, 1988, to May 18, 1998, for a total of 247 episodes. The program starred Candice Bergen as the eponymous Murphy Brown, a famous investigative journalist and news anchor for FYI, a fictional CBS television...

, Frasier
Frasier
Frasier is an American sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for eleven seasons, from September 16, 1993, to May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee in association with Grammnet and Paramount Network Television.A spin-off of Cheers, Frasier stars...

, Seinfeld
Seinfeld
Seinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself...

, Saved by the Bell
Saved by the Bell
Saved by the Bell is an American television sitcom that aired between 1989 and 1993. The series is a retooled version of the 1988 series Good Morning, Miss Bliss, which was itself later folded into the history of Saved by the Bell...

, California Dreams
California Dreams
California Dreams is an American teen-oriented sitcom that aired from 1992 to 1996 on Saturday mornings during NBC's TNBC programming block. It was created by writers Brett Dewey and Ronald B. Solomon and executive produced by Peter Engel, all known for their work on Saved by the...

, The Wacky World of Tex Avery
The Wacky World of Tex Avery
The Wacky World of Tex Avery is a cartoon television show produced by DiC Entertainment in 1997 and 1998.-Production:The series was named after Tex Avery, a cartoonist who is most famous for his work at Warner Bros. and MGM...

, Garfield and Friends
Garfield and Friends
Garfield and Friends is an American animated television series based on the comic strip Garfield by Jim Davis. The show was produced by Film Roman, in association with United Feature Syndicate and Paws, Inc., and ran on CBS Saturday mornings from September 17, 1988 to December 10, 1994, with...

, The Mask
The Mask: The Animated Series
The Mask: The Animated Series is a television animated series based on the comic book superhero, The Mask, but is a sequel to the 1994 film adaptation. The show ran for three seasons, from August 12, 1995 to March 8, 1997, and spawned its own short-run comic book series, Adventures of The Mask....

, Mummies Alive!
Mummies Alive!
Mummies Alive! is an American animated series from DIC Entertainment. It originally aired for one season in 1997.In ancient Egypt, an evil sorcerer named, Scarab, kills the pharaoh's son, Prince Rapses, so he can become pharaoh immortal...

, Extreme Ghostbusters
Extreme Ghostbusters
Extreme Ghostbusters is an animated television series and a follow-up to the animated series Slimer! and the Real Ghostbusters. It is a part of the film/TV Ghostbusters franchise...

, Pocket Dragon Adventures
Pocket Dragon Adventures
Pocket Dragon Adventures was a short-lived 1998 syndicated cartoon series, based on the Pocket Dragon character created by artist Real Musgrave, best known from Pocket Dragons figurines also based on his work. The cartoon was about the Pocket Dragons who live with a kindly old wizard, and their...

, Pokemon
Pokémon (anime)
, abbreviated from , is a children's TV anime series, which has since been adapted for the North and South American, Australian and European television markets...

, and other shows landed on the station. While the UPN affiliation did not result in immediate changes to the rest of its non-primetime lineup, in the late 1990s, WSBK gradually added more talk and reality shows to the lineup. By 2000, WSBK was down to only a morning cartoon block, tons of talk and reality shows middays and afteroons, and more recent sitcoms in the evening along with UPN shows. In 2003, the cartoons were dropped due to the fact that their run in syndication was ended. Movies were also cut back, and are now generally shown only on weekends. One tradition that remained on WSBK was the Sunday morning run of The Three Stooges.

The station has played host to no fewer than three locally-produced nighttime 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 Andelman and Dave Andelman).

Game shows

WSBK broadcast reruns of the original Password
Password
A password is a secret word or string of characters that is used for authentication, to prove identity or gain access to a resource . The password should be kept secret from those not allowed access....

 in prime-time during 1969, and in the late 1970s, carried The Joker's Wild
The Joker's Wild
The Joker's Wild is an American television game show that aired at different times during the 1970s through the 1990s. Contestants answered questions based on categories that were determined randomly by a mechanism resembling a slot machine....

 and Liar's Club
Liar's Club
Liar's Club is an American comedy game show, produced by Ralph Andrews that had three syndicated runs. It was first seen in 1969 with Rod Serling as host, and returned for a three-season run from 1976-1979...

 back-to-back in prime-time.

From 2001 until 2009, WSBK was the Boston home for the game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...

 as well as the daytime version of Deal Or No Deal
Deal or No Deal
Deal or No Deal is the name of several closely related television game shows, the first of which was the Dutch Miljoenenjacht produced by Dutch producer Endemol. It is played with up to 26 cases with certain sums of money...

 during the 2007-2008 TV season— unusual for a UPN or independent station (the shows had previously run on WHDH-TV
WHDH-TV
WHDH, digital channel 42 , is an NBC-affiliated television station in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest NBC station not owned by the network. Owned by Sunbeam Television, WHDH is a sister station to CW affiliate WLVI...

). The shows then moved to WBZ-TV, swapping with The Insider
The Insider (TV series)
The Insider is an American tabloid television news program covering events and celebrities. It debuted on September 13, 2004 as a spinoff of Entertainment Tonight and started as a popular segment that took viewers "behind closed doors" and gave them "inside" information...

 and Entertainment Tonight
Entertainment Tonight
Entertainment Tonight is a daily tabloid television entertainment television news show that is syndicated by CBS Television Distribution throughout the United States, Canada and in many countries around the world. Linda Bell Blue is currently the program's executive producer...

, with management citing their older-skewing demographics as more closely fitting WBZ, and the younger audiences for the entertainment news programs more closely fitting WSBK.

Other programming

After UPN ceased operations in September 2006, WSBK's primetime lineup was converted to a second run of Dr. Phil
Dr. Phil (TV series)
Dr. Phil is a reality/talk television show hosted by Phil McGraw. After McGraw's success with his segments on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Phil debuted on September 16, 2002...

 at 8 p.m., a second-run of Jeopardy! at 9 p.m., and a new local newscast at 9:30 p.m. Dr. Phil was replaced by Law and Order: Special Victims Unit in 2009 and by The Insider and Entertainment Tonight in 2010, while the second-run of Jeopardy!, which swapped places with the newscast in 2007, has since been replaced by various other programs. It also continues to air CBS programs whenever WBZ-TV preempts for local programming (such as Boston Marathon
Boston Marathon
The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon hosted by the U.S. city of Boston, Massachusetts, on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897 and inspired by the success of the first modern-day marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics, the Boston Marathon is the world's oldest...

 coverage).

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 Cliff Allen, who died just weeks after Ask the Manager broadcast its final show in January 1999. Though poorly rated by the Nielsen
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...

 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.

From May 2001 to August 2004, WSBK had rights to Lottery Live, the weeknight broadcasts of the Massachusetts State Lottery
Massachusetts Lottery
The Massachusetts Lottery was established in 1971, following the legalization of gambling by the Massachusetts General Court, the legislature of the Commonwealth...

 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
WCVB-TV
WCVB-TV, channel 5, is a television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, owned by Hearst Television and affiliated with the ABC Television Network. WCVB-TV's studios and transmitter are co-located in Needham, Massachusetts. WCVB is also one of six Boston television stations seen in Canada by...

.

WSBK broadcasts Phantom Gourmet
Phantom Gourmet
The Phantom Gourmet is a food-related television program with reviews of New England area restaurants from an anonymous critic. The show airs on WSBK-TV in Boston, Massachusetts and WLWC-TV in Providence, Rhode Island each Saturday and Sunday morning, with a half-hour episode composed of older...

 on weekends depending on the station's programming commitments (such as ACC college football); a half-hour version of the show has also aired at noon on weekdays since 2009.

WSBK, despite being an independent station from 2006-2011, was far different from the way it was prior to 2000.

Newscasts

As WIHS-TV, the station had a small news operation, featuring former WBZ-TV anchor Victor Best.

After becoming WSBK-TV, the station considered launching a local, station-produced 10 p.m. newscast in the 1970s. However, after determining that the broadcast would get very low ratings and lose money, Storer concluded that there was no market for a local 10 p.m. newscast in Boston.

In 1980, WSBK did begin running a national syndicated-by-satellite newscast, Independent Network News
Independent Network News
The name Independent Network News can represent:* Independent Network News : Nationwide news service for independent radio stations in the Republic of Ireland...

, produced and syndicated by WPIX
WPIX
WPIX, channel 11, is a television station in New York City built, signed on, and owned by the Tribune Company. WPIX also serves as the flagship station of The CW Television Network...

 for independent stations. 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. news on WLVI-TV
WLVI-TV
WLVI, digital channel 41, is a television station licensed to Cambridge, Massachusetts which serves as the CW affiliate for the Boston, Massachusetts television market. WLVI is owned by Sunbeam Television, and is a sister station to WHDH, Boston's NBC affiliate. The two stations share studios at...

. In January 1986, the weeknight INN broadcasts moved to WLVI, airing after their 10 p.m. news; there, it only lasted one more year in the Boston market.

WSBK finally launched a local 10 p.m. 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
New England Cable News
New England Cable News is a regional 24-hour cable news television network owned and operated by NBCUniversal serving the New England region of the United States. It is very similar to CNN in structure and style, but focuses more on regional news. The channel is also similar to Northwest Cable...

 (NECN)-produced program on WFXT
WFXT
WFXT is a television station owned and operated by the News Corporation-owned Fox Broadcasting Company, located in Boston, Massachusetts. The station's studio and office facility is in Dedham, Massachusetts, and its transmitter is located in Needham, Massachusetts...

; this production left the air 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" branding. Rumors soon spread that NECN would move its 10 p.m. newscast from WFXT to WSBK; on October 2, 1995, the day after NECN's contract with WFXT expired, the network 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 (a former WHDH-TV
WHDH-TV
WHDH, digital channel 42 , is an NBC-affiliated television station in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest NBC station not owned by the network. Owned by Sunbeam Television, WHDH is a sister station to CW affiliate WLVI...

 news duo) took over for the remainder of its run. This newscast generally trailed both WLVI and, starting in 1996, an in-house newscast on WFXT; on October 4, 1998, WSBK discontinued UPN 38 Prime News in order to refocus the station on sports and entertainment, though NECN continued to produce news updates within Bruins telecasts during the 1998-1999 season.

After Viacom's merger with CBS, WBZ-TV once again began to produce the station's news programming starting in 2001. On September 3, WSBK debuted a 7 p.m. newscast; 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 left the air on March 29, 2002 in favor of a return to a 10 p.m. newscast, this time as Nightcast at 10 on UPN 38, which launched April 1. On September 16, 2002, an hour long extension of WBZ-TV's weekday morning news was added at 7 a.m., known as The Morning News on UPN 38.

WSBK dropped Nightcast on January 16, 2005 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 Daily Buzz
The Daily Buzz is a nationally syndicated breakfast television news and infotainment program. The show is produced by Fisher Communications and is owned and distributed by ACME Communications; it is broadcast every weekday morning from studios at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida...

. On June 30, 2006, The Morning Show aired its last broadcast. The Daily Buzz was dropped at the same time (it would return to the market in January 2011 on WLVI).

When WSBK became an independent station for the second time, WBZ-TV began to produce a weeknight 9:30 newscast called TV 38 News at 9:30. Starting on April 23, 2007, the newscast began airing at 9 p.m. The second run of Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...

 switched time slots with the newscast. After this, the news became known as TV 38 News at 9. 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 WBZ News 4 on TV 38 and WBZ 4 News at 7 O'Clock. On December 12, the newscast began airing in high definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...

 after WBZ made the upgrade. For a period starting in late-August 2009, WSBK also re-aired WBZ-TV's noon newscast at 12:30 p.m.; this was subsequently replaced with Judge Judy
Judge Judy
Judge Judy is an American court show featuring former family court judge Judith Sheindlin arbitrating over small claims cases in small claims court...

. As a result of the station joining MyNetworkTV, WSBK replaced the 9 p.m. newscast with another attempt at a 10 p.m. newscast on September 19, 2011; to reflect the station's modified branding, the newscast was renamed to WBZ News on myTV38.

News team

WBZ News on My TV38
(Weeknights 10 to 10:30)
  • Anchor:
    • Kate Merrill
    • Jack Williams
  • Weather:
    • Todd Gutner
  • Sports:
    • Steve Burton
      Steve Burton (sports journalist)
      Steve Burton is a television sports reporter for WBZ-TV and WSBK-TV in Boston. The son of former New England Patriots player Ron Burton, Steve Burton grew up in Framingham, Massachusetts and is a graduate of Northwestern University holding a bachelor of science degree in Communications and a...


WSBK features additional news personnel from WBZ-TV. See that article
WBZ-TV
WBZ-TV, virtual channel 4, is a CBS owned-and-operated television station, located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. WBZ-TV's studios and office facilities, shared with sister station WSBK-TV , are located in the Allston-Brighton section of Boston, and its transmitter is located in Needham,...

for a complete listing.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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