WLVI
WLVI is a television station licensed to Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, serving the Boston area as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Sunbeam Television alongside WHDH, an independent station. WLVI and WHDH share studios at Bulfinch Place in downtown Boston; through a channel sharing agreement, the two stations transmit using WHDH's spectrum from the WHDH-TV tower in Newton, Massachusetts.
Channel 56 is Boston's oldest UHF station, with roots dating to 1953 and having been in continuous operation since 1966. In addition to syndicated entertainment programs, the station was notable for producing a variety of local children's and sports programs, and in the late 1960s and between 1984 and 2006, it produced local newscasts.
History
WTAO-TV
On December 19, 1952, the Middlesex Broadcasting Company, owners of WTAO and WXHR, applied for a construction permit to build a new television station in Cambridge, using Boston's allocated channel 56, which would originate from studios and transmitter atop Zion Hill in Woburn. The Federal Communications Commission granted the permit on March 11, 1953. After having broadcast a test pattern since August 31, WTAO-TV debuted on September 27, 1953, as Boston's third television outlet and first on the UHF band.An affiliate of the DuMont Television Network with occasional ABC programs, the station suffered from its position on the UHF band—as, in the days before the All-Channel Receiver Act, not all TV sets could receive UHF stations. After DuMont eliminated entertainment programming in 1955 and with most ABC output airing on WNAC-TV, the small station became reliant on movies and limited local programming to fill its airtime. On March 30, 1956, the station quit telecasting: its last program was a ceremony marking its departure from the air, with Massachusetts lieutenant governor Sumner G. Whittier delivering an address. It was the 58th UHF to fold, with president Frank Lyman, Jr., blaming the intermixture of VHF and UHF stations in the market.
Despite its closure, WTAO-TV retained its construction permit. Harvey Radio Laboratories acquired the radio and television stations in 1959, and in 1962, Harvey loaned the station to the Archdiocese of Boston. The channel broadcast a demonstration program that November 10 of what viewers, particularly clergy, could expect from the Catholic TV Center. The archdiocese later built WIHS-TV channel 38, which began telecasting in 1964. On April 12, 1965, WTAO-TV changed its call letters to WXHR-TV.
The Kaiser and Field years
In June 1966, Harvey Radio Laboratories sold its entire Boston-area broadcasting operation to Kaiser Broadcasting. Kaiser then sold 50 percent to The Boston Globe.Kaiser ordered $3 million in new RCA equipment to outfit a new channel 56 on an old construction permit. The new station also made a major push into sports, with away games of the Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins. The Kaiser-Globe partnership began operating the radio stations in November 1966, and under new WKBG-TV call letters, channel 56 returned to the air on December 21, 1966—two days after the opening ceremonies, because the station was hit with last-minute technical delays due to bad weather.
Little except the transmitter site was retained from the prior WTAO-TV. The effective radiated power at launch was 282,000 watts, up from 20,000, and a second boost came months after launch. After briefly operating from temporary quarters at 1050 Commonwealth Avenue in Brookline, the Kaiser-Globe partnership purchased a former supermarket next to the newspaper in Dorchester in 1968 and built a $2.25 million studio facility on the property, which was completed in 1969. This came alongside a move of the transmitter from Woburn to Needham on a tower shared with WSBK-TV, further expanding the station's signal and filling in gaps to the south and west. Despite all of this investment, WKBG-TV had lost nearly $11 million from its launch to November 1970.
By 1969, WSBK-TV had secured both the Bruins and Celtics; when it had to choose one or the other, WKBG had opted for the Celtics, only for the Bruins to become resurgent on channel 38 and the Celtics to falter. It also aired telecasts of the World Hockey Association's New England Whalers from 1972 to 1974.
After having cut from 50 to 10 percent ownership in 1968, in 1974, the Globe sold its share in WKBG back to Kaiser in exchange for a $500,000 note and $270,000 in advertising credit for the station; the newspaper recorded a $289,000 loss on its broadcasting investment. The call letters were then changed to the current WLVI-TV on May 1, in part because WKBG was being confused with other local stations in ratings diaries.
Kaiser Broadcasting merged with Chicago-based Field Communications in 1973 as part of a joint venture between the companies. In 1977, Kaiser sold its interest in the stations to Field for $42.625 million, making Field the sole owner of WLVI. In the late 1970s, Lucie Salhany—later the chair of Fox and one of the creators of UPN—worked as the station's program director.
Gannett ownership
In 1983, WLVI was sold to the Gannett Company—primarily an owner of network-affiliated stations—as part of a liquidation of Field's television assets. The $47 million winning bid beat out a $44 million offer from a group of investors that included channel 56's general manager. To purchase WLVI, Gannett had to divest itself of one of its two UHF stations; it ended up selling both WPTA in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and WLKY-TV in Louisville, Kentucky, to Pulitzer Publishing. Under Gannett, WLVI continued its general entertainment format. This included a running tradition of children's programming. In the 1970s and 1980s, "Uncle Dale" Dorman hosted the cartoons via off-screen announcements. A WLVI Kids Club was established in January 1990; by that July, it had 65,000 members across New England and as far as Long Island.From 1985 to 1990, WLVI again became the carrier of the Boston Celtics road games after it made a five-year, $12.5 million deal with the team. Although it was one of the strongest independent stations in the country, it passed on the Fox affiliation when that network launched in 1986; Fox then purchased WXNE, which became WFXT. After a limited partnership including the Celtics acquired that station in 1989, the team's games moved to channel 25 in 1990. By 1993, with competition from WFXT and WSBK for news in the planning stages and no marquee sports programming, the station was seen as lacking an identity.
WB affiliation and Tribune Company ownership
In November 1993, Gannett sold the station to the Tribune Company's broadcasting division, which was finalized in early 1994. The day before the sale had been announced, Tribune had revealed the creation of WB Television Network, of which WLVI was announced as an affiliate; the network launched January 11, 1995. The station also served as the default WB affiliate for Providence, Rhode Island—where WLVI had been available on cable for decades—until WLWC signed on in 1997, remaining on Providence's cable system as late as 2003. WLVI's newscasts continued to air on Rhode Island cable as late as 2012.The station briefly went off the air in August 1998, when a crane that was erecting a nearby studio-to-transmitter link tower collapsed onto WLVI's studio building. Though no one was injured and the damage was confined to the station's office spaces, the incident resulted in several hundred thousand dollars' worth of damage. The station used a satellite truck for a network programming downlink and studio space at WCVB-TV 's facilities in Needham for its 10 p.m. newscast.
In the late 1990s, WLVI twice attempted to court rights to be the flagship station of the Boston Red Sox. A proposal was put together and initially agreed with Kevin Dunn, who headed a $67 million bid, but investors pulled out, and the Red Sox ended up spending three seasons on WABU. Three years later, Kevin Dunn was successful in obtaining the rights through a company known as JCS on a two-year contract. However, the JCS partnership ended in financial failure, and WFXT displaced JCS and WLVI after just one year when JCS could not come up with the full 1999 rights payment. In the 2000s through 2006, WLVI broadcast New England Revolution soccer games.
CW affiliation and Sunbeam purchase
On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Time Warner's Warner Bros. Entertainment announced that they would dissolve UPN and The WB, and combine UPN and The WB's most popular programs alongside new series on a newly created network, The CW, which launched September 18, 2006. The network signed 10-year affiliation agreements with 16 of Tribune's 19 WB affiliates, including WLVI, even though CBS owned WSBK.As this was going on, however, Tribune was attempting to improve its balance sheet as part of a "performance improvement plan" that called for $500 million in asset sales. On September 14, 2006, four days prior to the launch of The CW, Tribune Broadcasting announced that WLVI would be sold to Sunbeam Television, owner of then-NBC affiliate WHDH-TV, for $117.3 million. The sale was announced to employees the day some received new "Boston's CW" business cards. The sale received FCC approval in late November 2006, creating the Boston market's third television duopoly. Tribune continued to operate WLVI until December 18, 2006, when the final Tribune-produced newscast aired.
The sale to Sunbeam took effect the following day. In buying WLVI, it acquired the license, transmitter facility, and programming rights. Except for a few technicians, the station's staff was laid off; the operations that remained were consolidated with WHDH. The Morrissey Boulevard building has remained vacant since the acquisition; in 2007, a lease on the site was described as a "tough sell". The site was later purchased by car dealer Herb Chambers ; in 2020 and 2021, plans were proposed for redevelopment of the site and, in future phases, adjacent parcels. As of 2022, a decaying "Boston's CW" sign graces the entrance to the property, while a dilapidated "Boston's WB" sign remains visible atop the pylon on the studio building, a site the Dorchester Reporter community newspaper described as "verging on eyesore status".