WHDH-TV

'WHDH-TV' '''"7 NBC"''' is the NBC affiliate in Boston, Massachusetts. The station's transmitter is located in Newton, Massachusetts, while its studios are located at 7 Bulfinch Place near Government Center in Downtown Boston.
The station is owned by Sunbeam Television and because of this, it is the largest NBC affiliate that is not a network owned and operated station. WHDH is co-owned with WLVI-TV channel 56, Boston's CW affiliate. Sunbeam Television, which is based in Miami, Florida; also owns that market's FOX affiliate, WSVN. WHDH and WSVN share video, news stories, and reporters when covering each other's news.
WHDH offers NBC Weather Plus on the station's DT2 digital subchannel, Comcast digital cable channel 297, and Verizon FiOS digital cable 860.

Contents

History

Newscasts

News Team

Past Personalities

Out-of-market Coverage

See also

References

External links

History

Channel 7 first went on the air on June 21, 1948 as WNAC-TV, the second television station in Boston (twelve days after WBZ-TV). It was owned by General Tire along with WNAC-AM 680 (now WRKO), flagship of the Yankee Network, a New England regional radio network. General Tire had purchased the Yankee Network in 1943. WNAC first broadcasted from studios at 21 Brookline Avenue (which had also been home to WNAC radio and the Yankee Network) before moving to its current facilities at 7 Bullfinch Place near Government Center in 1968.
In 1950, General Tire bought the West Coast regional Don Lee Broadcasting System. Two years later, it bought the Bamberger Broadcasting Service (WOR-AM-FM-TV in New York City) and merged its broadcasting interests into a new division, General Teleradio. General Tire bought RKO Radio Pictures in 1955 after General Tire found RKO's film library would be a perfect programming source for WNAC and its other television stations. The studio was merged into General Teleradio to become RKO Teleradio; after the film studio was dissolved, the business was renamed RKO General in 1959.
WNAC-TV was originally a CBS affiliate, but shared ABC programming with WBZ until 1957 when (the original) WHDH-TV signed on channel 5. It switched affiliations with WHDH in 1961 and joined ABC. [1] It stayed with ABC until 1972, when channel 5 lost its license. The licensees of the station that replaced it, WCVB-TV, planned to air more local programming than any other station in the country, heavily preempting CBS programming in the process. This didn't sit very well with CBS, who immediately moved back to WNAC. However, WNAC utilized the version of the circle 7 logo it had adopted in 1973 until 1977, when ABC complained it was infringing on its trademark, and it began using a Times-Serif-Italic "7". In 1980, a stylish, strip-layered "7" was introduced, which ended up being the last logo redesign under RKO General ownership.
Two legendary Boston TV personalities had shows on WNAC: Louise Morgan, who hosted a talk show and was known as "New England's First Lady of Radio and Television", and Ed McDonnell, who as the costumed (as an astronaut) character "Major Mudd", hosted a popular children's show in the 1960s and early 1970s.
By 1965, RKO General faced numerous investigations into its business and financial practices. Though the FCC renewed the broadcast license for WNAC in 1969, RKO General lost the license in 1981 after General Tire admitted to a stunning litany of corporate misconduct as part of a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Among other things, General Tire admitted that it had committed financial fraud over illegal political contributions and bribes. However, in the FCC hearings, RKO General had withheld evidence of General Tire's misconduct, and had also failed to disclose evidence of accounting errors on its own part. In light of RKO's dishonesty, the FCC stripped RKO of the Boston license and the licenses for WOR-TV in New York and KHJ-TV in Los Angeles. The FCC had previously conditioned renewal of the latter two stations' licenses on WNAC's renewal. An appeals court partially reversed the ruling, finding that the FCC had erred in tying the latter two stations' renewals to WNAC's license. It upheld the WNAC revocation and ordered a rehearing on the other stations.
RKO appealed this decision, but after almost two years of legal action agreed to a settlement in 1982. It agreed to sell channel 7 to New England Television, a merger of two of the original rivals to the station's license controlled by Boston grocery magnate David Mugar. The transfer took effect on May 22, 1982. At that time, the station's call letters were changed to WNEV and the "7" logo was dropped in favor of a new ''SE7EN'' logo. This logo would change to one of a number 7 made up of seven dots in 1987.
In 1990, Mugar bought WHDH (850 AM, now WEEI) and renamed the TV station WHDH-TV. Those call letters had previously been used by what is now WCVB Channel 5 from 1957 until 1972. In fact, the call letter change took place on March 19, 1990--18 years to the day they had last been used on Channel 5. In June 1993, WHDH-TV was sold to Sunbeam Television of Miami (controlled by Ed Ansin), who still owns the station today. Shortly afterward, it adopted its present circle 7 logo, the same one also used by WSVN.
Over the years, channel 7 as WNAC had preempted little network programming. As WNEV, the station prempted programming in moderation, in favor of more locally-produced shows. The preempted programs often aired on WHLL (now WUNI-TV). From 1989 to 1990, the station delayed ''CBS Morning News'' in favor of a children's show called ''Ready To Go''. In late 1993, ''CBS News This Morning'' was dropped and picked up by WABU (now WBPX). WHDH then began an expanded morning local newscast. When the station became a NBC affiliate, WHDH ran the entire NBC lineup.
WNEV/WHDH also had exclusive rights to Lottery Live, broadcasting the state lottery games six nights a week from the fall of 1987 until February 1994. Originally hosted on WNEV by Andi Waugh, she was replaced within a year and a half by Dawn Hayes, who began her long run as host during this era. For the majority of its time (or heyday) on Channel 7, both drawings of the evening were played during the last two commercial breaks of ''Jeopardy!''. The daily Numbers Game drawing would always air at 7:52 (following the conclusion of "Double Jeopardy!") , while the specialty game of the evening (Megabuck$, Mass Ca$h, Mass Millions, etc) would air at 7:58. Weekend hosts for this era included Linda Ward, Linda Frantangela, and Jill Stark (who sometimes filled in for Hayes on weekdays from 1993-94). After WHDH changed ownership in 1993, the games were subsequently moved over to WCVB-TV Ch. 5.
WHDH stayed with CBS until January 2, 1995, when WBZ took over the CBS affiliation as part of a group deal between CBS and WBZ's owner, Group W. Fox considered an affiliation deal with WHDH. However, WHDH opted to become the NBC affiliate.
Between 1996 and 1997, WHDH also produced a mid-morning weekday newsmagazine for the NBC network called ''Real Life''. [2]
In May of 2006, WHDH began offering NBC Weather Plus.
On September 14, 2006, it was announced that Tribune Broadcasting would sell WLVI, Boston's CW affiliate, to Sunbeam Television, owners of WHDH and WSVN, for $117.3 million dollars, after much speculation that Sunbeam would buy WLVI. [3] The sale was approved by the FCC in late November giving Boston its second television duopoly (the other is WBZ-TV and WSBK-TV). WLVI moved from its Dorchester studios to WHDH in Downtown Boston.

Newscasts

As WNAC-TV, the station had been among the first to use the music called "Move Closer to Your World" in 1970. Two years later, the station's news director moved to WPVI-TV in Philadelphia and took the theme with him, where it became famous. It was also during that time that a young news personality by the name of Chuck Scarborough assumed the role of lead anchor at the WNAC news department. Scarborough would later move on to WNBC in New York, where he remains today, and be prominently featured on NBC's national news.
For many years, WNAC-TV was a distant third behind WBZ-TV and WCVB. However, due to Scarborough's presence and those of other up-and-coming journalists, the station had begun to be fairly competitive with WCVB and WBZ in the early 1970s. For a brief period in 1974, WNAC's 6pm newscast actually catapulted from third place to first, thanks in part to its new hit lead-in, ''Candlepins For Cash'', a local bowling show which had premiered the previous year. However, WNAC's news operation wasn't able to maintain this momentum for long; the RKO fiasco caused a sharp drop in the ratings.
By the time New England Television bought the station, a massive attempt to bring Channel 7 as WNEV out of the ratings basement occurred with the infamous "dream team" headed by Tom Ellis and Robin Young. Ellis had previously maintained WBZ's dominance in the news market and then helped WCVB reach number one during his tenure there (1979-82). Young, on the other hand, had no hard news experience but was well-known to Boston viewers as former co-host of ''Evening Magazine''. Despite a massive influx of capital and marketing (a highly-financed promotional campaign employed the refrain "Feel Good About That"), the "dream team" failed to take the market by storm. What would follow for WNEV's news in the next few years was more shakeups, both in talent and identity due to ongoing sagging ratings, and the eventual firing of Ellis in 1986 (Young would stay on another year). WNEV/WHDH would spend the rest of its years under Mugar in the ratings basement, but it did gain a new solid lead newsman in R.D. Sahl, who became lead anchor in 1986 and gained a following with his various co-anchors, including Kate Sullivan (1987-1990) and Margie Reedy (early 1990s). In addition, Channel 7's news identity constantly changed under Mugar, changing from NEWSE7EN (1982-84) to The New England News (1984-1988) to News 7 New England (1988-1990) to News 7 (1990-1994).
Amid all the local prominent journalists who attempted to leverage WNEV's news, a few future national talents had brief stints at the station in the 1980s. Bill O'Reilly, long before his national exposure on ''Inside Edition'' and Fox News Channel's ''The O'Reilly Factor'', co-anchored NEWSE7EN Weekend in 1982-83. Soon after, O'Reilly also became the host of the station's weekday afternoon talk/lifestyle program, ''New England Afternoon'' (which replaced the ill-fated two-hour magazine show ''Look'', cancelled after its first season). His successor on the weekend newscast was Paula Zahn, now a well-renowned newswoman of many TV networks, who co-anchored with Lester Strong from 1983-85. Later, for six months during 1988, future ''Today'' host Matt Lauer hosted WNEV's mid-morning talk show ''Talk of the Town''. Then in the early 90s, two more would later hit the big time: Edye Tarbox, who was an anchor/reporter at WHDH from 1990-92, now goes by the name E.D. Hill and has been at Fox News Channel since 1999. Rehema Ellis, who anchored and reported at WHDH in the same period, is now with NBC News.
However, there were abrupt changes when Sunbeam bought the station in 1993. New station owner Ed Ansin brought Joel Cheatwood, the creator of WSVN in Miami's fast-paced news format, to Boston. Most of the station's prominent newscasters, including R.D. Sahl, wanted nothing to do with Cheatwood and promptly resigned. Cheatwood introduced a considerably watered-down version of the WSVN format. However, it was still shocking by Boston standards.
Nevertheless, the new format soon rejuvenated WHDH's ratings, especially after switching to NBC. For most of the last decade, WHDH has waged a spirited battle for first behind long-dominant WCVB. In 2002, WHDH was noted as having the best newscast in the U.S. in a study published by the Columbia Journalism Review. In previous studies, the station was deemed as having one of the worst newscasts.

The station operates a Bell LongRanger 206L news helicopter entitled ''Sky 7''. The station's radar is presented on-air as "Storm Scan Doppler", with a signal coming from the radar at the NWS Local Forecast Office in Taunton.
As of August 2006, WHDH airs the Boston area's only weekday 4 and 4:30 PM newscasts. Before this point, WBZ-TV also broadcasted news at this time.
As of December 19, 2006, WHDH began producing WLVI's 10:00 p.m. newscast, under the name ''7 News at 10 on CW 56''.
WHDH shares its resources with WJAR, the NBC affiliate for the state of Rhode Island and New Bedford, for news coverage of Southeastern Massachusetts. WWLP, the NBC affiliate for Springfield and Holyoke, shares its resources with WHDH for news coverage of Western Massachusetts.

News Team

'Anchors'

★ Jonathan Hall - weekday mornings and Noon (also reporter)

★ Anne Allred - weekday mornings and Noon (also reporter)

★ Matt Lorch - weeknights at 4, 4:30, 5:30, and 10 PM (on WLVI) (also reporter)

★ Kim Khazei - weeknights at 4, 4:30, 5:30 PM (also weeknight 10 (on WLVI) and 11 PM reporter)

★ Randy Price - weeknights at 5, 6, and 11 PM

★ Frances Rivera - weeknights at 5, 6, 10 (on WLVI), and 11 PM

★ Adam Williams - weekend mornings (also reporter)

★ Christa Delcamp - weekend mornings

★ Brandon Rudat - weekend evenings (also reporter)

★ Lauren Przybyl - weekend evenings (also reporter)
'Meteorologists'

★ Pete Bouchard (AMS certified) - Chief seen weeknights

★ Dylan Dreyer (AMS certified) - weekday mornings and Noon

★ Jeremy Reiner (CBM certified) - weekends
'Sports'

★ Joe Amorosino - Director seen weeknights at 6, 10 (on WLVI), and 11 PM (and host of "7 Sports Xtra")

★ Larry Ridley - weekend evenings (also sports reporter)

★ Dave Briggs - sports reporter (also fill in sports anchor)
'''7 FastTrak Traffic'''

★ Marshall Hook - weeknights from 4 to 6 PM

★ Karen Kiley - weekday morings

★ John Ryder - fill in

★ Jim Ryan - fill in
'Reporters'

★ Byron Barnett - also host of "Urban Update"

★ Steve Cooper - also fill in anchor

★ Dan Hausle - also fill in anchor

★ Andy Hiller - Political Editor

★ Dr. Deanna Lites - health reporter

★ Hank Phillippi Ryan - investigative reporter

★ Janet Wu - also fill in anchor

★ Romeo - entertainment reporter seen weeknights at 10 PM on WLVI

★ Sorboni Banerjee

★ Victoria Block

★ Lori Bordonaro

★ Linda Ergas

★ Grant Greenberg

★ Michelle Relerford

★ Ryan Schulteis

★ Victoria Warren

Past Personalities

★ Katy Abel - parenting beat reporter (1992-1999)

★ Teri Adler - reporter (1997-2005, now working in real estate) [4])

★ Garry Armstrong - reporter (1971-2002)

★ Caterina Bandini - anchor (1995-2006)

★ Susan Banks - anchor (1981-1982)

★ Amalia Barreda - reporter (1982-1992, now at WCVB)

★ Linda Blackman - reporter (1975-1977, now a motivational speaker [5])

★ David Brudnoy - commentator (1973-1983, deceased)

★ Susan Burke - anchor/reporter (1981-1983) then at WCVB (1983-1992)

★ Terry Casey - Fill-in and Senior Weather Producer (1994-2007) Now at WCVB-TV

★ Kim Carrigan - anchor (1994-2000, now at WFXT)

★ Christine Caswell - reporter (1994-2000)

★ Liz Claman - weekend anchor/reporter (1994-2000, now at CNBC)

★ Eric Clemons - sports anchor/reporter (1991-1994,

★ Jack Cole - anchor (1975-1981, deceased)

★ John Dennis - longtime sports anchor (1977-1997, now at WEEI-AM)

★ Jack Edwards - sports reporter/anchor (1988-1991, now at NESN)

★ Sara Edwards - arts & entertainment reporter (1991-2003, now at CN8)

★ Rehema Ellis - weekend anchor/reporter/''Urban Update'' host (1985-1993, now at NBC News)

★ Tom Ellis - anchor (1982-1986, now at NECN)

★ Dr Fred Ward - weather (1971-1979)

★ Debbie Enblom - entertainment reporter (1989-1991)

★ Bob Faw - reporter (1970, now at NBC News)

★ Carmen Fields - reporter/host of ''Higher Ground'' (1979-1986, now working in public relations for KeySpan)

★ Bob Gamere - Sports anchor and host of Candlepins for Cash (1975-1982)

★ Gary Gillis - sports anchor/reporter (1983-2004)

★ Jeff Glor - anchor/reporter (2003-2007, now national correspondent for The Early Show)

★ Todd Gross - chief meteorologist (1984-2005, now at KTVX-TV)

★ Peter Henderson - reporter (1987-1994)

★ Sean Hennessey - reporter/anchor (1996-2007) Now at WCBS-TV

★ John Henning - anchor (1977-1981)

★ Brad Holbrook - anchor/reporter (1980-1982)

★ Kristy Kim - morning anchor/reporter (1997-2001, now Kristy Lee at NECN)

★ Nichelle King - weekend anchor/reporter (2005-2007)

★ Gene Lavanchy - sports anchor (1993-2003, now at WFXT)

★ Mike Lawrence - reporter (1982-1998)

★ Roy Leonard - anchor (1958-1967)

★ Harvey Leonard - longtime chief meteorologist (1977-2002, now at WCVB)

★ Maurice Lewis - anchor (1972-1979)

★ Phil Lipof - anchor/reporter (2001-2006, now at WABC-TV)

★ Mike Macklin - reporter (1994-2007)

★ Chris May- anchor until 2006 now at WBZ

★ Darlene McCarthy - noon anchor (1992-1997)

★ Mish Michaels - meteorologist (1992-1999, now at WBZ-TV)

★ Bill O'Reilly - weekend anchor (1982-1983); now at Fox News Channel

★ Margie Reedy - anchor (1990-1993) recently at NECN

★ Mary Richardson - anchor (1978-1980, now at WCVB)

★ R.D. Sahl - anchor (1983-1994, now at NECN)

★ Ron Sanders - reporter (1979-1998, now at WBZ-TV)

★ Chuck Scarborough - anchor (1972-1974); now at WNBC in New York

★ Samantha Stevenson - anchor/reporter (1971-1973)

★ Lester Strong - anchor/''Urban Update'' host (1984-2000)

★ Kate Sullivan - anchor (1984-1990)

★ Mike Taibbi - investigative reporter (1977-1983, now at NBC News)

★ Edye Tarbox - anchor/reporter (1990-1992, now E.D. Hill at Fox News Channel)

★ Garvin Thomas - reporter (1997-2002, now at KNTV in San Francisco/San Jose, CA)

★ Jilda Unruh - investigative reporter (1994-1997)

★ Lyn Vaughn - anchor/reporter (1979-1983)

★ Mark Wile- Weekend anchor/ reporter (1985-1989)

★ Diana Williams - anchor (1987-1990, now at WABC-TV in New York)

★ Diane Willis - anchor (1983-1986) now in Missouri

★ Chikage Windler - meteorologist (2000's, now at KSTP in the Twin Cities)

★ Dave Wright - anchor (1986-1988) later at ATV in Nova Scotia, now retired

★ Robin Young - anchor (1982-1987, now at WBUR-FM)

★ Paula Zahn - anchor/reporter (1983-1985) Now at CNN

★ Steve Sheppard - reporter (1971-1979)

★ Eddie Andelman - sports critic at large (1974-1979)

★ Dave Rodman - reporter (1970-1977)

★ Ken Wayne - reporter (1971-1979)

★ Ted O'Brien - anchor (1974-1982 Newsroom 7)

★ Stuart Siorka - weather (1972-1979) deceased

★ Craig Stevens - weekend anchor/reporter (1997-1999) now anchor at sister-station WSVN-TV Miami

★ Kate Lurie - weekend anchor/reporter (1998-2000) PR consultant

★ Cynthia Vega - freelance reporter (1998-1999) now at WFAA-TV Dallas

Out-of-market Coverage

WHDH-TV is one of six local Boston TV stations seen in Canada on the Bell ExpressVu satellite provider, and is also carried via the Anik F1 satellite to several Canadian cable companies, particularly in Atlantic Canada. Other cable systems also carry WHDH, such as Citizens Cable Television in the Thousand Islands region of New York, and Bermuda CableVision.

See also

★ Circle 7 logo

★ RKO Pictures

★ WSVN

★ WLVI

References

★ Gallant, Joseph. WNAC-TV/WNEV-TV/WHDH-TV: The Colorful History of Boston's Channel 7 (February 1998). ''TheProvidenceChannel.com''.

★ LaBrecque, Ron. Can Glitz be Good? - Shaking up news in Boston (July/August 1996). ''Columbia Journalism Review''.

★ WHDH-TV (3-27-2005). ''The Boston TV Dial''.

External links

★ WHDH website

★ Photos of WHDH's news set

★ WHDH Technical glitch forces newscast to end early 8/16/06

★ Boston Herald article from 8/18/06 -- Unlucky 7 rapped for scrapping newscast

★ Boston Herald article from 7/2/2006--These faces just in

★