article

WBZ-TV, CBS 4, is the CBS television owned-and-operated station serving the Boston, Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire television markets. The station's transmitter is located in Needham, Massachusetts while the studios are located on Soldiers Field Road in Boston's Allston/Brighton neighborhood. Before becoming a CBS affiliate on January 2, 1995, the station was a NBC affiliate. WBZ-TV is sister station to WSBK, Boston's UPN, and WLWC, Providence's UPN/The WB (to become The CW) and all are operated out of WBZ's studios. Also operating at the same location are radio stations WODS FM, aka "Oldies 103.3", WBCN 104.1 FM, and WBZ-AM NewsRadio 1030. CBS News also has its New England news headquarters in the WBZ-TV building.

History

WBZ-TV, Channel 4, was the first commercial television station in New England when it signed on in June 9, 1948. It beat WNHC-TV in New Haven (now WTNH) to the air by just six days for the honor of being the first commercial TV station in the region and beat WNAC-TV (now WHDH-TV) by twelve days for the honor of being Boston's first commercial television station. Owned by the Group W Broadcasting division of Westinghouse along with WBZ radio, WBZ-TV immediately joined NBC, although it shared ABC programming with WNAC-TV until the original WHDH-TV (now WCVB) signed on in 1957. Additionally, WBZ (along with WNAC) broadcast a handful of programs from the now-defunct DuMont Network until 1953. The station was knocked-off the air on 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 WNAC-TV's (now WHDH-TV) original tower. In 1957, WBZ-TV began broadcasting from a 1200-foot (366-meter) tower in Needham, Massachusetts. The tower site is now known as the CBS digital television facility which is used by several Boston-area television stations, including WGBH-TV and WCVB-TV.

WBZ-TV was a pioneer in Boston television. In 1948, it began live broadcasts of Boston's two Major League Baseball teams at the time, the Boston Red Sox and the old 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. In the mid-1960s, it adopted the Eyewitness News format that had been pioneered at sister station KYW-TV in Philadelphia. It led the news ratings in Boston for many years until WCVB-TV passed it in the mid-1970s.

The station also broadcast many locally produced programs over the years. One of the most beloved was the long-runing 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's studios.

Another long-running local program on WBZ was Evening Magazine in the 1970s and 1980s. The original co-hosts of "Evening Magazine" were Robin Young and Marty Sender; later, Barry Nolan and Sara Edwards co-hosted the show. WBZ also broadcast a live early-afternoon talk show called People Are Talking in the 1980s and early 1990s. 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.

WBZ did dabble in local sports over the years. Besides the Braves (1948 until they moved to Milwaukee prior to the 1953 season) and the Red Sox (1948-1957; 1972-1974, and a handful of games in 2003 and 2004), WBZ also broadcast the Boston Celtics from 1972-73 through 1984-85. In 1980, WBZ 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. Rival WCVB likewise also mounts a live wire-to-wire broadcast of each year's race.

Over the past few years, WBZ and parent CBS have joined forces for a live telecast of the annual Boston Pops' July 4th concert at Boston's Hatch Shell along the Charles River. The entire concert is broadcast live by WBZ. The CBS network joins the show in progress at 10 p.m. Eastern time to show the Pops' signature versions of "1812 Overture" and "Stars And Stripes Forever", as well as the fireworks over the Charles.

As a NBC affiliate, the station was known to preempt several hours of network programming a day—a common practice among Group W stations. 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, though NBC would end such programming in 1992. Despite the preemptions, NBC was generally satisfied with WBZ-TV, which was one of NBC's strongest affiliates.

A partnership struck between Westinghouse and CBS in late 1994 led to WBZ-TV switching its affiliation to CBS. The station ended its nearly 47-year affiliation with NBC on January 2, 1995. As a CBS affiliate, the station did not preempt any CBS programming as per Westinghouse's agreement with CBS. WHDH-TV, the former CBS affiliate, picked up the NBC affiliation. When Westinghouse Electric Company 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 due to substantial signal overlap between WBZ-TV (whose city-grade signal covers most of Rhode Island) and WPRI-TV (whose city-grade signal reaches most of the Boston metropolitan area), as FCC regulations at the time did not allow common ownership of two or more television stations with overlapping city-grade signals.

For many years, WBZ-TV was the city's top-rated local news station. In the 1980's, WCVB became dominant in the Boston news race, but WBZ managed to remain a strong second in the ratings until the 1995 affiliation swap. 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. 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 p.m. 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, after Ed Carroll left the station in October 2005 after failing to get a new contract, the station hired Ken Barlow from KARE-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to replace him as chief meteorologist.

Channel 4 has changed its news and station branding continuously, from "Eyewitness News" to "WBZ News 4" to "News 4 New England" to "WBZ 4 News". On February 1, 2004, WBZ changed to the current "CBS 4" identity, as per the CBS Mandate, though this may end soon with new general manager Ed Piette (formerly of WCCO-TV, which does not follow the mandate) hinting that the station may bring back the WBZ calls in the station's branding. *

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 facilities at 1170 Soldiers Field Road in the Allston section of Boston.

Logos

In the early 1960's, 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".

Image:oldwbzlogo.jpg|WBZ's stylized "4" logo (1965-Sept. 1996) Image:News4.jpg|Original "News 4 New England" logo (Sept. 1996-Jan. 1998) Image:WBZcircle4logo.jpg|Circle 4 logo (Jan. 1998-Sept. 2003) Image:WBZ.jpg|Crescent 4 Logo (Sept. 2003-Jan. 2004) Image:Cbs4_logo.jpg|The first CBS4 logo, a black and gold version of the current logo(Jan. 2004-Jan. 2005) Image:WBZCBS4.PNG|Current logo (Jan. 2005-Present)

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-TV's coverage area overlaps with several other CBS affiliates, including WPRI in Providence, Rhode Island, WGME in Portland, Maine, WSHM in Springfield, Massachusetts, WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut, and WCAX in Burlington, Vermont. The station 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 and eastern Quebec.

Newscasts

The station operates a Bell LongRanger 206LIV called SkyEye 4. In addition to its Boston studios, WBZ-TV once operated a studio in Manchester, New Hampshire in the 90s, however, it is now closed. The station opened a studio in Worcester on July 20, 2005. The Worcester studio is anchored by Ron Sanders. The station's radar is called "CBS 4 First Alert Doppler". Along with other CBS O&O stations, WBZ offers a web-only newscast called "CBS 4 At Your Desk", shown weekdays.

Weekdays

  • CBS 4 News In the Morning - 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m.
  • CBS 4 News Live @ Noon - 12:00 p.m. to 12:30 p.m.
  • Live @ 4:00 - 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
  • CBS 4 News Live @ 5:00 - 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
  • CBS 4 News Live @ 6:00 - 6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
  • CBS 4 News Live @ 11:00 - 11:00 p.m. to 11:35 p.m.

Saturday

  • CBS 4 News In the Morning - 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m.
  • CBS 4 News Live @ 6:00 - 6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
  • CBS 4 News Live @ 11:00 - 11:00 p.m. to 11:35 p.m.

Sunday

  • CBS 4 News In the Morning - 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.; 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
  • Sunday with Liz Walker - 11:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
  • CBS 4 News Live @ 6:30 - 6:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
  • CBS 4 News Live @ 11:00 - 11:00 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.
  • Sports Final with Bob Lobel - 11:30 p.m. to 12:05 a.m.

Staff

On-Air Talent

Administration

See also

References

External links

Television stations in Massachusetts | CBS network affiliates | CBS Corporation television stations | Channel 4 TV stations in the United States | Westinghouse Broadcasting

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "WBZ-TV".

Home Page • arts • business • computers • games • health • hospitals • home • kids & teens • news • physicians • recreation• reference • regional • science • shopping • society • sports • world