WBZ-TV

'WBZ-TV' is the CBS owned-and-operated television station serving the Boston, Massachusetts television market. The station's transmitter is located in Needham, Massachusetts while studios are located on Soldiers Field Road in north Boston's Brighton neighborhood. It is a sister station to independent WSBK-TV.

Contents

History

Early years

The 1960s

The 1970s and 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

Special events

Mass Lottery

Sports

Logos

Coverage area

Newscasts

Newscast Names

News Team

Past Personalities

External Links

History

Early years

WBZ-TV took to the air for the first time June 9, 1948. It was the first commercial television station in New England. It was owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting (later known as Group W), a subsidiary of Westinghouse Electric Corporation, along with WBZ radio (AM 1030 and 100.7 FM, now WZLX). The station immediately joined NBC owing to WBZ-AM's long affiliation with NBC Radio. It is the only television station to have been built from the ground up by Group W.
The station was knocked off the air August 31, 1954, when Hurricane Carol toppled the station's self-supporting tower over its studios. A temporary transmitter was installed on a nearby tower and later on the original tower of WNAC-TV (channel 7, now WHDH-TV). In 1957, WBZ-TV began broadcasting from a 1200-foot (366-meter) tower in Needham. The tower site is now known as the CBS Digital Television Broadcasting Facility, and is used by several Boston-area television stations, including WGBH-TV (channel 2) and WCVB-TV (channel 5).
Channel 4 nearly lost its NBC affiliation in 1955, when Westinghouse balked at NBC's offer to trade sister stations KYW-AM and WPTZ-TV (now KYW-TV) in Philadelphia in exchange for the network's owned and operated cluster in Cleveland. In response, NBC threatened to yank its programming from both WBZ-TV and WPTZ unless Westinghouse agreed to the trade. The swap was made in 1956, but Westinghouse immediately complained to the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department about NBC's extortion. In 1965, the FCC ordered the swap reversed without NBC realizing any profit on the deal.
WBZ-TV was a pioneer in Boston television. In 1948, it began live broadcasts of Boston's two Major League Baseball teams, the Red Sox and the Boston Braves; broadcasts that at first were split with WNAC. It was also the first Boston station to have daily newscasts, starting with the station's very first night on the air.

The 1960s

In the mid-1960s, it adopted the Eyewitness News format that had been pioneered at KYW-TV.
The station also broadcast many locally produced programs over the years. One of the most beloved was the long-running ''Big Brother Bob Emery'' show, hosted by veteran radio performer Emery, who first did the show on Boston-area radio in 1921 and who in 1947 hosted the first five-times-a-week children's show on network television on DuMont. For nearly two decades, from 1956 until 1974, Rex Trailer hosted a popular weekend-morning children's show called ''Boomtown''. For part of that time, ''Boomtown'' originated from an outdoor "western town" set built next to WBZ-TV's studios.

The 1970s and 1980s

From 1977 to 1990, ''Evening Magazine'' aired on the station. The original co-hosts were Robin Young and Marty Sender; later, Barry Nolan and Sara Edwards co-hosted the program.
''People Are Talking,'' (1980–1993) a live early-afternoon talk show aired on WBZ, as it did on some other Westinghouse stations. In Boston, it was originally hosted by Nancy Merrill. "People Are Talking" was later hosted by Buzz Luttrell, but the best-known host was the program's last, Tom Bergeron.

As an NBC affiliate, the station was known to preempt several hours of network programming a day — a common practice among Group W stations. This was significant, since WBZ-TV was NBC's second-largest affiliate in the Eastern Time Zone. It primarily preempted several daytime morning programs. On January 3, 1983, when ''People Are Talking'' expanded to one hour, WBZ-TV dropped NBC's ''Another World,'' which would move to WQTV (now WBPX) until the fall of 1987, when the show moved to WHLL (now WUNI-TV) and later to WMFP in the early 1990s. The station also dropped many Saturday morning cartoons in 1990, even though NBC later abandoned such programming in favor of live-action, teen-oriented shows, such as ''Saved by the Bell''. NBC has traditionally been less tolerant of preemptions than the other networks. However, it was generally satisfied with WBZ-TV, which was one of NBC's strongest affiliates. As a sidebar, sister station KYW-TV in Philadelphia (ironically, NBC's largest affiliate) also heavily preempted NBC programming, but it spent most of the 1980s and 1990s as NBC's weakest major-market affiliate.
In the early 1980s, WBZ-TV lost its longtime spot as Boston's highest-rated news station to WCVB, but even then was a strong second for more than a decade. Its evening news team — anchors Liz Walker and Jack Williams, meteorologist Bruce Schwoegler and sportscaster Bob Lobel — was the longest-running news team in New England from 1980 until Walker moved to the noon newscasts in 2000. Other personalties who came at channel 4 during this time was entertainment reporter Joyce Kulhawik.

The 1990s

In 1994, Group W and CBS struck an affiliation deal that resulted in three of Group W's five stations — WBZ-TV, KYW-TV and WJZ-TV in Baltimore — switching to CBS (Group W's other two stations, KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh and KPIX-TV in San Francisco, were already CBS affiliates). The Boston switch happened in the early morning hours of January 2, 1995, with channel 7 (WHDH-TV) going to NBC. The news program ''NBC Nightside'' ended at 5 am, followed by local news and the first program from the new affiliation, ''CBS This Morning.'' WBZ-TV thus became the third station in Boston to affiliate with CBS. The network had originally affiliated with WNAC-TV in 1948, then moved to channel 5 (then known as WHDH-TV, no relation to the current WHDH-TV) in 1962. It then returned to channel 7 in 1972 and stayed there until the switch. As a CBS affiliate, WBZ-TV aired the entire CBS schedule with no pre-emptions except for local news emergencies, as per Westinghouse's agreement with CBS.
When Westinghouse merged with CBS in early 1996, WBZ-TV became a CBS-owned and operated station. As a condition of the merger, CBS had to sell recently-acquired WPRI-TV in Providence, Rhode Island. WBZ-TV's city-grade signal covers most of Rhode Island, while WPRI's city-grade signal reaches most of the Boston metropolitan area. FCC regulations at the time did not allow common ownership of two or more television stations with overlapping city-grade signals.

The 2000s

Although the station tends to rank #1 in daytime and primetime ratings, Channel 4's local news ratings have suffered since the switch in network affiliations. This is partly because at the time of the switch, CBS was well behind NBC in the network ratings. Taken as a whole, its local news is the lowest rated of Boston's "Big 3" affiliates, having dipped behind a resurgent WHDH-TV as well. In January of 2006, attempting to bolster its local news ratings, Channel 4 reinstated its 5 pm news and dismissed its former lead anchor Josh Binswanger, leading to the return of long-time anchor Jack Williams to the prime-time newscasts. In addition, Ed Carroll's contract was not renewed and in October 2005 the station hired Ken Barlow from KARE-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to replace him as chief meteorologist.
In late August 2006, WBZ-TV ended its 4 pm weekday newscast and hired anchor Chris May from WHDH channel 7. Chris May, along with Sara Underwood, anchor the 5 pm weekday news on WBZ-TV. Both of them anchor the ''TV38 News'', a newscast on sister station WSBK-TV, as of September 18, 2006, WHDH now airs the only 4 PM weekday newscast in the Boston area.
In January 2007, the station launched Project Mass.[1], a commitment to cover the community's top concerns in government, transit, healthcare, education, finance, and the environment. The initiative kicked-off with an online town meeting.
Channel 4 has changed its news and station branding continuously since the affiliation switch, from "Eyewitness News" to "WBZ News 4" to "News 4 New England" to "WBZ 4 News". On February 1, 2004, WBZ rebranded itself as "CBS4," as per the CBS Mandate.
The "CBS4" branding was phased-out during the first quarter of 2007 and, as of February 2007, the station's newscast title was reverted from "CBS 4 News" to "WBZ News". The return of "WBZ-TV" and "WBZ News" took place Sunday, February 4, 2007, during the station's coverage of the Super Bowl.[2] This makes the station the first station owned by CBS to depart from the CBS Mandate standardization since. It joins sister stations KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, WCCO-TV in Minneapolis-St. Paul, KUTV in Salt Lake City and WJZ-TV in Baltimore in not following the Mandate currently. General manager Ed Piette told ''The Boston Globe'' that he decided to ditch the "CBS4" branding when he arrived in Boston for his first day of work and a cabbie asked him, "Whatever happened to WBZ?" Piette hopes to reemphasize WBZ-TV's local identity--a strategy that worked well when he was general manager at WCCO-TV, ironically another station that doesn't follow the CBS Mandate. ^[1]
WBZ is currently in the design stages of working on a new news set which is supposed to debut around the new year.
After Viacom's (whose head Sumner Redstone comes from Boston) merger with CBS in 2000, WBZ-TV's operations were merged with that of Boston's UPN affiliate, WSBK-TV, and later with WLWC-TV, the UPN affiliate in nearby Providence. Today, the master control for all three stations as well as the studios and offices of WBZ-TV and WSBK-TV are co-located at WBZ's studios in Brighton; however, with the pending sale of WLWC to Cerberus Capital Management, it is unknown where WLWC will be mastered from in the future.

Special events

Over the past few years, WBZ-TV and parent CBS have co-produced a live telecast of the annual Boston Pops' July 4 concert at Boston's Hatch Shell along the Charles River. The entire concert is broadcast live locally by WBZ. The CBS network joins the show in progress at 10 p.m. to show the Pops' signature versions of "1812 Overture" and "Stars and Stripes Forever," as well as the fireworks over the Charles. Live coverage of the event will be broadcast in high-definition beginning in 2007.[3]
For several years, the station has aired exclusive First Night Boston coverage on New Year's Eve, showcasing festivities from Boston, New England, and the world.
Also the Boston Marathon (see Sports section below).

Mass Lottery

WBZ-TV was also the first station to air daily Mass State Lottery drawings in Boston, starting in 1975. Tom Bergeron credits one of his early TV jobs to hosting lottery drawings on Channel 4. The station holds the record for having the rights to the games the longest (12 years), before passing the torch to Channel 7 (then known as WNEV-TV) in 1987. Eleven years later, ''Lottery Live'' would return to WBZ, with long-time host Dawn Hayes still at the helm. Due to new limited contacts permitting the local stations to carry ''Lottery Live'' for only three years at a time, WBZ moved the games to sister station WSBK in 2001.

Sports

WBZ-TV has aired local sporting events over the years. Besides the Braves (1948 until they moved to Milwaukee before the 1953 season) and the Red Sox (1948–1957; 1972–1974, and a handful of games in 2003 and 2004), WBZ-TV also broadcast the Boston Celtics from 1972–73 through 1984–85. In 1980, WBZ-TV was the first Boston television station to broadcast live wire-to-wire coverage of the Boston Marathon; the station has done so every year since. In April 2007, WBZ will be the exclusive broadcast home for marathon coverage.[4]
In April 2007, WBZ4 was the only local news station to have complete coverage of the Boston Marathon.

Logos

In the early 1960s, WBZ unveiled a new stylized "4" logo, using a distinctive font that had been designed especially for Group W. The logo became italicized in the late 1980s, but remained the same font. It kept this logo for over 30 years until it unveiled its first "News 4 New England" logo in September 1996. The old logo was the longest-used numeric logo in New England television history until WCVB's stylized "5" crossed the 31-year mark in 2003.
The "Circle-4" logo that replaced the original "News 4" logo in 1998 was often referred to on-air by WBZ sports anchor Bob Lobel as "The Circle 4 Ranch". As of 2007, WBZ has dropped the CBS Mandated "CBS4" logo & branding and now refers to itself simply as "WBZ".

Coverage area

WBZ-TV's transmitter and antenna are located in Needham, Massachusetts, on the same tower as WCVB-TV/DT, WGBH-TV/DT, WGBX-TV/DT, and WSBK-TV's HDTV transmitter. In fact, the tower and site are owned by CBS itself. Its signal covers Greater Boston, southern New Hampshire, northern Rhode Island, and northeastern Connecticut. WBZ is also one of six local Boston TV stations seen in Canada on the Bell ExpressVu satellite provider, and is also seen on most cable systems in Atlantic Canada.

Newscasts

WBZ operates a Bell LongRanger 206LIV called "SkyEye". In addition to its main studios, the station operates two news bureaus. The "Worcester Bureau" is located on Main Street in that city. The "Manchester Bureau" is located on Elm Street in that city.
The station's weather radar, known as "WBZ Doppler Live", is located at Worcester Regional Airport. Along with other CBS-owned stations, WBZ offers a web-only "@ Your Desk" newscast available live and on-demand.
WBZ produces a weeknight 9 PM newscast for sister station WSBK.

Newscast Names

★ Eyewitness News (1965-93)

★ WBZ News 4 (1993-96)

★ News 4 New England (1996-2000)

★ WBZ 4 News (2000-04)

★ CBS 4 News (2004-07)

★ WBZ News (2007-present)

News Team

'Anchors'

★ Scott Wahle - weekday mornings and Noon

★ Paula Ebben - weekday mornings and Noon

★ Sara Underwood - weeknights at 5, 5:30, and 9 PM (on WSBK)

★ Jack Williams - weeknights at 6 and 11 PM

★ Lisa Hughes - weeknights at 6 and 11 PM

★ Ken MacLeod - weekends (also reporter)

★ Kate Merrill - weekend mornings (also reporter)

★ Dawn Hasbrouck - weekend evenings (also reporter)
'Meteorologists'

★ Ken Barlow (AMS certified) - Weeknight Meteorologist

★ Barry Burbank (AMS certified) - Weekday Morning and Noon Meteorologist

★ Mish Michaels (AMS certified)- Field Meteorologist, Environmental Reporter, & Fill-In Meteorologist

★ Sarah Wroblewski - Weather Producer and Fill-In Meteorologist

★ Buzz Lopez - Weather Producer and Fill-In Meteorologist

★ Ellen Ferrara (AMS certified) - Fill-In Meteorologist (Employed by WBZ WX Graphics Vendor WSI of Andover, MA)
'Sports'

★ Bob Lobel - Director seen Mondays trough Thursdays at 6, 9 (on WSBK), and 11 PM

★ Steve Burton - Fridays and Saturdays at 6 and 11 PM (also Fridays at 9 PM on WSBK)

★ Dan Roche - sports reporter (also fill in sports anchor)

★ Alice Cook - sports reporter
'Reporters'

★ Karen Anderson - based at the "Manchester Bureau"

★ Ron Sanders - based at the "Worcester Bureau"

★ Joe Shortsleeve - Chief Correspondent

★ Joe Bergantino - investigative reporter

★ Kathy Curran - also investigative reporter

★ Jon Keller - Political Editor

★ Joyce Kulhawik - Arts & Entertainment Editor

★ Paul Burton

★ Sera Congi

★ Eileen Curran

★ Beth Germano

★ Christina Hager

★ Dan Rea

★ David Robichaud

★ Peg Rusconi

★ Bill Shields

★ Jim Smith
'Traffic'

★ Rich Kirkland - weekday mornings

★ Scott Pike - weeknights at 5 and 5:30 PM

★ Bruce Adams - weekend mornings
'Hosts'

★ Dr. Mallika Marshall - ''HealthWatch'' segment (also medical editor and with CBS News)

★ Yadires Nova-Salcedo - ''Centro''

★ Liz Walker - ''Sunday with Liz Walker''

Past Personalities

★ Teri Adler - reporter (2005-2007)

★ Charles Austin - reporter (1972-2003)

★ Steve Aveson - ''Evening Magazine'' feature correspondent (1981-1986)

★ Suzanne Bates - anchor/reporter (1987-2000, now owns communications firm [5])

★ Melissa Bell - Weekend Meteorologist

★ Len Berman - sports anchor (1973-1978, now at WNBC-TV in New York)

★ Josh Binswanger - anchor/reporter (1994-1998 and 2001-2005)

★ Jeanne Blake - science and health editor (1985-1991)

★ Clark Booth - reporter (1967-1975)

★ Jack Borden - anchor (1959-1980)

★ David Brudnoy - commentator (1993-2004, deceased)

★ Kim Carrigan - anchor (2001-2004, now at WFXT)

★ Ed Carroll - chief meteorologist (1993-2005, now at WGGB-TV in Springfield, Massachusetts)

★ Terry Carter - the first black news anchor on local television news (1965-1968)

★ Virginia Cha - anchor (1995-2000) Now at CNN

★ Jack Chase - anchor (1953-1982, deceased)

★ Pauline Chou - reporter (Now a CBS Correspondent)

★ Jack Cole - anchor (1972-1975)

★ Chris Conangla - anchor (1983-1987)

★ Kerry Connolly - anchor (2001-2004)

★ John Dougherty - anchor/reporter (1988-1999)

★ Mike Dowling - sports anchor/reporter (1984-1985, now at WCVB-TV)

★ Ysabel Duron - reporter (1979-1980, now at KRON-TV in San Francisco)

★ Sara Edwards - ''Evening Magazine'' co-host/entertainment reporter (1984-1991, now at CN8)

★ Tom Ellis - anchor (1968-1975, now at NECN)

★ Carmen Fields - reporter (1986-1987)

★ Robin Hamilton - anchor/reporter (?-2006)

★ Gail Harris - anchor/reporter (1977-1981)

★ Linda Harris - reporter (1977-1985)

★ Candace Hasey - "Evening Magazine" co-host (1982-1983?)

★ John Henning - senior correspondent/political reporter (1981-2007)

★ Andy Hiller - political reporter (1977-1993, now at WHDH-TV)

★ Jack Hynes - anchor (1955-1956)

★ Dennis Kauff - reporter (1982-1985, deceased)

★ Kasey Kaufman - anchor/reporter (1986-2007)

★ Don Kent - veteran meteorologist (1955-1983)

★ Sharon King - consumer reporter/talk show host (1970s-1982?)

★ Gary LaPierre - anchor (retired from WBZ Radio in 2006)

★ Buzz Litrell - Former Host of People are Talking (late 1980's)

★ Shelli Lockhart - anchor/reporter (2001-2006, now at WDAF-TV in Kansas City)

★ Paula Lyons - consumer reporter (1994-2003)

★ Chris May - anchor (2006-2007, now at KYW-TV in Philadelphia)

★ Arch McDonald - WBZ-TV's first anchorman (1948-1979, deceased)

★ Norm MacDonald - weekend weather (1964-1975)

★ Mike Macklin - reporter/anchor (1984-1994)

★ Chris Marrou - anchor (1980-1981, now at KENS-TV in San Antonio)

★ Jennifer McLogan - anchor/reporter (1979-1982, now at WCBS-TV in New York)

★ Peter Mehegan - anchor/reporter (1967-1981, now at WCVB)

★ Pat Mitchell - anchor/reporter/host (1972-1977) (former PBS-TV President)

★ Sean Mooney - anchor/reporter (1997-1999)

★ Pam Moore - anchor/reporter (1986-1991, now at KRON-TV in San Francisco)

★ Dave Murray - meteorologist (1986-1989, now at KTVI in St. Louis)

★ Bob Neumeier - sports anchor/reporter (1981-2001, now at NBC Sports)

★ Barry Nolan - ''Evening Magazine'' co-host/reporter (1980-1989, now at CN8)

★ Hampton Pearson - Now at CBS (1985-1990)

★ Uma Pemmaraju - anchor/reporter (1988-1996, now at Fox News Channel)

★ Tony Pepper - anchor (1974-1981)

★ Randy Price - anchor (1983-1995, now at WHDH-TV)

★ Bill Rappleye - reporter (1992-1996) Now at WJAR-TV

★ Nancy Russo - meteorologist (1989-1992)

★ Walt Sanders - reporter (1967-1995)

★ Carolyn Sawyer - reporter (1990-1992 and 1997-2004)

★ Marty Sender - ''Evening Magazine'' co-host (1977-1980)

★ Bruce Schwoegler - longtime chief meteorologist (1968-2001)

★ Shelby Scott - first female anchor and reporter for WBZ (1965-1996)

★ Don Shane - sports anchor/reporter (1983-1989, now at WXYZ-TV in Detroit)

★ Dick Stockton (1973-1976) Now CBS & Fox Sports

★ Mary Stuart - Arts & Entertainment (1978-1982 ?)

★ Sarah-Ann Shaw - reporter (1969-2000)

★ Lauren Thierry - anchor/reporter (1989-1991)

★ Roger Twibell - sports anchor (1978-1981, now at ESPN)

★ Jack Walton - reporter

★ Jim Watkins - ''Evening Magazine'' host/reporter (1989-1991, now at WPIX-TV)

★ Ted Wayman - anchor/reporter (1990-2006)

★ Jack White - investigative reporter (1979-1981, deceased)

★ David Wittman - anchor (1982-1991, now at WOIO-TV in Cleveland)

★ Sharon Wright - consumer/investigative reporter (1981-1986, now at WMAQ-TV in Chicago)

★ Robin Young - ''Evening Magazine'' co-host (1977-1982, now at WBUR)

External Links

★ Station Website

★ WSBK Website

★ CBS Website

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