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| Channels | |
| Branding | TV38 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| WBZ-TV | |
| History | |
First air date | October 12, 1964 (61 years ago) (1964-10-12) |
Former call signs |
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Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | Ticker symbol for former ownerStorer Broadcasting |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 73982 |
| ERP | 163 kW |
| HAAT | 388.3 m (1,274 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 42°18′37″N71°14′12″W / 42.31028°N 71.23667°W /42.31028; -71.23667 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WSBK-TV (channel 38) is a CBS-ownedindependent television station inBoston, Massachusetts, United States. It is owned by theCBS News and Stations group alongsideCBS outletWBZ-TV (channel 4). The two stations share studios onSoldiers Field Road in theAllston–Brighton section of Boston. WSBK-TV's transmitter is located on Cedar Street inNeedham, Massachusetts, on a tower site that was formerly owned by CBS and is now owned byAmerican Tower Corporation (which is shared with transmitters belonging to WBZ-TV,WCVB-TV,WGBH-TV,WBTS-CD, andWGBX-TV).
WSBK is also available viasatellite throughout the United States onDish Network as part of itssuperstation package (which since September 2013, is available only to existing subscribers of the tier).[3] Otherwise, it enjoys cable coverage throughout much of theNew England region, though this has been limited compared to the past when it was more widely distributed.
The firstconstruction permit for channel 38 in Boston was granted in October 1955 to Ajax Enterprises, headed by Herbert Mayer, a former New York City attorney who had founded Empire Coil, aNew Rochelle, New York–based manufacturer of RF coils for television stations and receivers. Mayer went on to own stations inPortland, Oregon (KPTV, the country's first licensed UHF station), andCleveland (WXEL). He sold the cable manufacturer and both television stations toStorer Broadcasting in 1954. Channel 38 was originally slated to have the call sign WHMB; however, after Storer changed the call letters of the Cleveland property toWJW-TV in April 1956, Mayer quickly reclaimed WXEL for the Boston station. WXEL's proposed transmitter inMelrose was never built, and theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) revoked the construction permit and deleted the call sign in November 1960.
The current station signed on the air on October 12, 1964.[4] It was first licensed to theBoston Catholic Television Center under thecall letters WIHS-TV, with the call letters standing for the "IHS" initialism for theChristogram. The station employed a general entertainment format, along with broadcasts of the daily and SundayMass. As WIHS, the station initially programmed a "hybrid" schedule—educational (for the Catholic schools in the Boston area) and religious programs during the morning, and syndicated programs and movies (and by 1966, some shows that the Boston area's network affiliates declined to air) in the afternoon and evening. The station also carried two 15-minute local newscasts each weekday, at 5:45 and 10 pm, which consisted of an announcer reading news headlines into a camera.[5]
The station also made an initial foray into sports, carrying ten regular season away games and all playoff road games from theBoston Celtics that were not carried on network television during the 1964–65 season. However, team management was worried about the lack of penetration of the UHF band, leading to playoff away games being simulcast onWHDH-TV (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 outright. Some college sports (mostly hockey and basketball games) were carried during the WIHS era, which were carried over during the early Storer Broadcasting years.
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The station was purchased by Storer Broadcasting in 1966. A few months after the purchase, the station's call sign was changed to the present WSBK-TV, named after the company'sticker symbol on theNew York Stock Exchange, "SBK". Storer scored its biggest coup in 1967, when it secured broadcast rights to theBoston Bruins from WKBG-TV (channel 56, nowWLVI), and eventually owned the team for a three-year period from 1972 to 1975. During the next few years, as the Bruins became a contender for theNational Hockey League'sStanley Cup championship (led by young superstarBobby Orr), 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 shown on network television.
In 1975, WSBK acquired television rights to theBoston Red Sox; during theteam's first year on channel 38, the Red Sox won theAmerican League pennant. The team remained on WSBK until 1995, and returned for another three-year period from 2003 to 2005. WSBK had broadcast between 90 and 110 Red Sox games a year between 1975 and 1983; about 75 games a year from 1984 to 1995, and a limited number of games (usually 28 to 30 a year) between 2003 and 2005. Although WSBK carried Celtics road playoff games in 1969 (the team having abandoned WKBG at the end of the regular season after seeing the number of regular-season games broadcast by channel 56 during the 1968–69 season shrink compared to the previous year), the station would not carry theNBA team's 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—which during the late 1960s through (to a lesser extent) the 1990s includedcartoons (such asLooney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts and the1960s made-for-TV Popeye cartoons) and sitcoms (such asThe Andy Griffith Show,The Dick Van Dyke Show,Cheers (itself set in Boston and now owned by CBS),M*A*S*H andFrasier), WSBK continued to run some network programs that were preempted by the localNBC (WBZ-TV),ABC (firstWNAC-TV, thenWCVB-TV), and CBS (first WHDH-TV, then WNAC-TV/WNEV-TV) affiliates until 1981. The station also ran several movies a day (one during the day, prime time, and late night). During the 1970s through the mid-1980s, WSBK's cartoon programs were hosted byWillie Whistle, aclown who used a bird-whistle in his mouth to create a distinctive voice he was recognized for.
WSBK's popularity was such that by the mid-1970s, it was available on nearly everycable provider inNew England and as far west asBuffalo, New York, and as far south asLong Island. In the late 1980s, WSBK became a nationalsuperstation when it entered into an agreement with Eastern Microwave to distribute its signal outside of New England. Eastern Microwave also distributed the signal of existing superstationWOR-TV in New York City. WSBK's main selling point was its coverage of the Red Sox, similar to how WOR-TV,WGN-TV in Chicago, andWTBS inAtlanta respectively used their coverage of theNew York Mets,Chicago Cubs andWhite Sox, andAtlanta Braves. WSBK's carriage did not reach the same level as the other stations, but covered large portions of New York, and a handful of cable providers in Florida (which produced the unusual circumstance of Red Sox games being regularly broadcast into part of theNew York Yankees' main market; similarly, Yankees flagship stationWPIX was carried by Boston area cable systems). WSBK's coverage of the Boston Bruins also made it a favorite superstation on Canadian cable providers, along with WOR (at the time, WOR was televising away games of all three New York-area NHL teams, theNew York Islanders, theNew York Rangers and theNew Jersey Devils).
When the FCC'ssyndication exclusivity rules (or "Syndex") were strengthened in the early 1990s, distribution of all out-of-market station signals were hampered. The rule protected stations in local markets from out-of-market competition by superstations that aired identical syndicated programming. Any station could file with cable providers for "protection" and the provider would have to black out the offending station for periods of time. The management of this "blocking" would prove so cumbersome that many cable providers 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 providers by substituting shows that could not be blocked, but the damage had already been done by then.
WSBK began operating on a 24-hour schedule in the late 1970s, only to revert to late-night signoffs by the early 1980s. Besides its status as a sports powerhouse, WSBK made a name for itself when it createdThe Movie Loft, one of the first "hosted movie" franchises on television, long before it became a staple on cable. The program aired syndicated movies with interstitial program elements hosted by Dana Hersey. Part of the program's marketing was that it aired only "unedited" movies.The Movie Loft tested that on several occasions airing movies such asThe Deer Hunter,The Boys in the Band and48 Hrs. without editing for inappropriate content or length. In the mid-1980s, WSBK dropped the midday movie to make room for more sitcoms. For a few years, WSBK signed off at 1 a.m. or 2 am, but began operating 24 hours a day (except on early Monday mornings) by the end of the decade. Although it was one of the strongest independent stations in the nation, WSBK turned down an offer to affiliate with the upstart Fox network in 1986. This may have been because most of the markets in channel 38's cable footprint had enough stations to provide Fox affiliates at the outset, making the prospect of WSBK as a multistate Fox affiliate unattractive to Storer/KKR. The Fox affiliation for the market went to WFXT in 1987 after News Corp. acquired the station from CBN.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts bought WSBK and most of Storer's other stations in 1985. At this time, ownership was officially under the KKR subsidiary of New Boston Television, although Storer was still referenced on-air as being the parent company of WSBK.[6][7] KKR later sold most of its stations toGillett Communications. When Gillett defaulted on some of the financing agreements in the early 1990s, the ownership was restructured and the company was renamed SCI Television. Eventually, SCI ran into fiscal issues, and filed forChapter 11 bankruptcy in 1993. As a result, WSBK was sold in a group deal toNew World Communications that year.
In 1994, New Worldmade a landmark deal withFox 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 existing affiliateWFXT (channel 25), which Fox would acquire soon afterward. (WSBK would not have been beneficial to Fox, as it was a UHF station—the New World stations that switched to Fox had broadcast on VHF channels between 2 and 13—and, also unlike its sister stations, it did not have a news department.) Channel 38 was then sold to theParamount Stations Group, controlled byParamount Pictures (which would become a subsidiary ofViacom that same year) and became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN) on January 16, 1995; that June, the longtime "TV 38" branding was retired and changed to "UPN 38".[8] In 1996, Viacom acquired a 50% ownership stake in the network fromChris-Craft Industries, which effectively made WSBK-TV a UPNowned-and-operated station.
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Originally, WSBK continued to essentially program under the conventions of an independent station as UPN would not run five nights a week of programming until 1998. While the affiliation did not result in immediate changes to the rest of its lineup outside of prime time, WSBK began incorporating more talk and reality shows by 1997, with older shows being gradually phased out.The Movie Loft was discontinued as a result of host Dana Hersey's retirement, as well as declining ratings for the program as the movie packages that the station acquired were of a lesser quality than in previous years. WSBK later revived the genre withThe UPN 38 Movie House, hosted by actor and comedian Brian Frates andMovie Night (co-hosted by Dan and Dave Andelman); in the early 2000s, it also attempted a revival ofThe Movie Loft hosted bySkip Kelly. The station also began to decrease its telecasts of local professional sports events. For some time after affiliating with UPN, WSBK continued to air primarily cartoons and classic sitcoms. In late 1999, WSBK was lowered to only a morning cartoon block, a major amount of talk andreality shows during the midday and afternoon hours, and more recent sitcoms in the evening along with UPN shows. The station stopped carrying cartoons in 2003, around the same time that UPN discontinued theDisney's One Too 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. Movies were also cut back, and were generally relegated to weekends only. However, one tradition that remained on WSBK was the Sunday morning run ofThe Three Stooges (until 2022, as detailed further below).
In 2000, after Viacom merged withthe previous CBS Corporation—which created aduopoly with WBZ-TV, WSBK moved out of its longtime home on Leo Birmingham Parkway in Brighton and integrated its operations into WBZ-TV's facility nearby. The former WSBK studio facility is now occupied by four Boston radio stations that, until 2017, were owned by former corporate sibling CBS Radio (nowAudacy). Under CBS, WSBK began sharing some first-run syndicated programs with WBZ-TV. In 2001, WSBK became the Boston home for the game showsWheel of Fortune andJeopardy!—unusual for a UPN or independent station (Wheel andJeopardy! had previously run on WHDH-TV).[9] In 2009, both shows moved to WBZ-TV, swapping stations withThe Insider andEntertainment Tonight, with management citing the game shows' older-skewing demographics as more closely fitting WBZ, and the younger audiences for the entertainment news programs more closely fitting WSBK.[10]
On January 24, 2006,CBS Corporation (which spun off from Viacom two months earlier) and theWarner Bros. unit ofTime Warner announced that the two companies would shut downThe WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network calledThe CW.[11][12] Even though WSBK is owned by The CW's part-owner CBS, then-WB affiliate WLVI—owned at the time byTribune Broadcasting (which sold that station to WHDH ownerSunbeam Television that September)—was announced as The CW's Boston outlet through an affiliation agreement that signed 16 of Tribune's 19 WB stations as charter affiliates. It would not have been an upset if WSBK had been chosen as Boston's CW affiliate, as representatives for The CW had been on record as preferring the "strongest" WB and UPN affiliates, and Boston was one of the few markets where the WB and UPN affiliates both had relatively strong viewership.
On February 22, 2006,News Corporation announced the launch ofMyNetworkTV, another new broadcast television network to be operated by itsFox Television Stations andTwentieth Television divisions.[13][14] WSBK was considered the favorite to become the network's Boston affiliate, butCBS Television Stations announced that May, that channel 38, along withWBFS-TV in Miami, would instead become independent stations.[15] Although WBFS ultimately signed with MyNetworkTV, the MyNetworkTV affiliation in the Boston market eventually went toDerry, New Hampshire-based independent station WZMY-TV (channel 50, nowWWJE-DT).
WSBK-TV officially reverted to the "TV 38" branding on September 6, 2006, and also revived its formerEntertaining Boston slogan; the station continued to carry UPN programming until the network shut down on September 15. After the station reverted to independent status, WSBK's prime time lineup was filled by first-run syndicated programs (initially a second run ofDr. Phil at 8 p.m. and a second run ofJeopardy! at 9 pm), and a WBZ-produced 9:30 p.m. newscast.[15] The station adopted a new ad campaign entitledHello in September 2009, where the majority of station promotion is centered around the word "hello"; this new campaign also brought forth a mascot called theTV 38 Blockhead.[16]
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On June 15, 2011, WBIN-TV (the former WZMY-TV) announced that it would end its affiliation with MyNetworkTV that September to become an independent station.[17] CBS Television Stations subsequently signed an affiliation agreement with the programming service five days later, on June 20, 2011, to move its Boston area affiliation to WSBK.[18] It is believed that CBS' initial decision to deny its larger UPN stations affiliation agreements with MyNetworkTV was in retaliation against Fox for refusing to affiliate any of its UPN affiliates in markets where CBS Corporation or Tribune did not already sign deals to carry The CW with that network. WSBK affiliated with MyNetworkTV on September 19, 2011 (joining Miami sister station WBFS-TV as one of two CBS-owned stations to maintain an affiliation with the service). The station's branding was amended to "myTV38", in accordance to the new affiliation.
On September 19, 2022, WSBK-TV reverted to being an independent station, ending its affiliation with MyNetworkTV and leaving the programming service without an outlet in the Boston market. In preparation for the move, earlier in the month, the station returned itsTV38 moniker for the third time, along with its post-UPN "circle 38" logo. Also, in September 2022, the 50-year contract to air the Three Stooges' film shorts expired; WSBK wanted to renew the contract or sign a new one, butSony Pictures (owner of the Stooges' shorts) refused; there have not been New Year's Eve Three Stooges marathons since December 31, 2021.[citation needed] (Three Stooges shorts continue to air in Boston on theMeTV-affiliated 5.2 subchannel of WCVB.)
WSBK-TV occasionally takes on the responsibility of airing CBS network programming whenever WBZ-TV runs extended breaking news coverage or special programming. Examples of this practice include during theBoston Marathon, and more recently in 2009, duringNew England Patriots preseason games as well as the funerals of SenatorTed Kennedy and his sisterEunice Kennedy Shriver.
In terms of sports, WSBK was the longtime television home of the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins. WSBK became the Red Sox's over-air flagship station in 1975 and remained so for 20 years until it lost the broadcast rights to WABU (channel 68, nowWBPX-TV) in 1996.[19] After a seven-season hiatus, WSBK (in partnership with sister station WBZ-TV) resumed its role as the Red Sox flagship station, replacing WFXT, in 2003;[20] however, channel 38 only broadcast the team's Friday night games. Most games were carried by theNew England Sports Network (NESN), which aired the Friday night games outside of the Boston television market, effectivelyblacking out WSBK in these areas (the Red Sox hold an 80% ownership interest in NESN). Among the nationally prominent announcers that have performed play-by-play duties for the station's Red Sox games includeDick Stockton andSean McDonough. WBZ stopped broadcasting the games after the 2004 season, and WSBK would cease airing games itself following the 2005 season, rendering the team's game telecasts cable-exclusive.
WSBK was also the over-the-air flagship of the Boston Bruins for more than 30 years. Its broadcasts were considered important enough to the station, especially in the 1970s when the Bruins were one of the perennially elite teams in the National Hockey League and enormously popular in Boston, that WSBK's then-owners Storer Broadcasting purchased and owned the Bruins for several years. The announcers for most of the Bruins games were hall-of-famerFred Cusick (onplay-by-play) andJohnny Peirson (oncolor commentary), who was later succeeded byDave Shea and former BruinDerek Sanderson;Dale Arnold called the play-by-play in later years. 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.[21]
In addition, WSBK became the over-the-air home of the Boston Celtics in 1993, replacing WFXT (which the team had owned at that time).[22] It lost the broadcast rights in 1998 to WABU.[23] All Celtics games not on national television are now broadcast onNBC Sports Boston. From 2005 until 2019, WSBK carriedAtlantic Coast Conferencecollege football andbasketball games produced and syndicated byRaycom Sports (through itsACC Network package), afterBoston College's move to the conference created regional interest for the ACC; the package ended as a result ofESPN launching anACC Network cable channel.
In2007,Major League Soccer announced that WSBK would become the exclusive carrier of theNew England Revolution, replacing WLVI and FSN New England. After three seasons, the Revolution moved their non-nationally televised games to Comcast SportsNet New England (the former FSN New England and current NBC Sports Boston) in 2010;[24] in2021, the club moved its telecasts back to WSBK as part of a partnership with sister station WBZ-TV.[25] WSBK and WBZ lost their local rights to Revolution games in 2023, when all MLS broadcasts shifted over toMLS Season Pass, a new subscription service hosted onApple TV.
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 continued through 2012; as of 2013[update], the six statewide state championship games air on Comcast SportsNet New England.[26] Starting in 2009, audio-only simulcasts of these games began airing on then-sister radio stationWBZ-FM (98.5 MHz). The station previously aired sports replay programs calledRed Sox This Week andPatriots This Week during their respective seasons; the latter program has since moved to Comcast SportsNet New England. The station broadcasts the "Fifth Quarter" postgame shows after 4:25 p.m. ET Patriots' games (due partly to WBZ's network commitments with CBS to broadcast60 Minutes), as well as 1 p.m. Patriots games on weeks in which CBS is airing a doubleheader.
One of WSBK's most remembered past programs was the informative and often amusing seriesAsk the Manager, created by then-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-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 program's producer, Cliff Allen, was often referred to when off-camera, but did substitute as letter reader on many occasions. Allen died just weeks beforeAsk the Manager broadcast its final show in January 1999; the series finale was dedicated to his memory. Though it was long hampered by poor viewership, the show became a cult favorite. There were other attempts at local programs on WSBK through the years with shows such asWe Don't Knock,A.M. Boston, andHersey's Hollywood.
From May 2001 to August 2004, WSBK had rights toLottery Live, the nightly broadcasts of theMassachusetts State Lottery 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 three years prior to the move. When WSBK's contract expired, the lottery drawings were moved to WCVB-TV (channel 5).
WSBK broadcastsPhantom Gourmet on weekends depending on the station's programming commitments; a half-hour version of the show has also aired at noon on weekdays since 2009; reruns began to air in prime time in 2022 with the MyNetworkTV disaffiliation. In 2007, WSBK revivedCommunity Auditions, the local talent competition program that had run on WBZ-TV from 1965 to 1986. With series creator and former host Dave Maynard as a consultant (until his death in February 2012), the newCommunity Auditions was hosted byWJMN (94.5 FM) radio DJ Ramiro, with former WBZ entertainment reporterJoyce Kulhawik,WMJX (106.7 FM)'s Candy O'Terry andWODS (103.3 FM)'s J.J. Wright as judges. Originally airing Fridays at 9:30 p.m. during its first four years, WSBK moved the program to Saturdays at midnight for a few months in the fall of 2011, before shifting it to Sundays at noon in February 2012.Community Auditions was also syndicated toWWLP inSpringfield andWPXT inPortland, Maine, and was rebroadcast on WBZ-TV on Saturdays at midnight and Sundays at 1 a.m.
As WIHS-TV, the station had a small news operation, featuring former WBZ-TV anchor Victor Best.[27] After becoming WSBK-TV, the station considered producing a local, in-house 10 p.m. newscast in the 1970s. However, Storer received indications that such a venture would get low ratings and lose money, leading it to conclude that there was no market for a local 10 p.m. newscast in Boston. As a result, unlike most top-rated independents in markets of its size, channel 38 never had a news department in its incarnation as WSBK.
In 1980, WSBK did begin running a nationally syndicated newscast for independent stations,Independent Network News, which was produced by New York City's WPIX and distributed by its owner Tribune Broadcasting.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. newscast on WLVI-TV. In January 1986, the weeknightINN broadcasts moved to WLVI, airing after that station's 10 p.m. news—beforeINN was dropped by the station after one year (it was not acquired by another station in the Boston market).
WSBK finally launched a 10 p.m. local newscast on October 25, 1993, by way of the WBZ-producedWBZ News 4 on TV 38, competing against both WLVI and aNew England Cable News (NECN)-produced program on WFXT;[28] this program was canceled on August 6, 1995, soon after the sale of WSBK to Paramount, as it was felt that theWBZ News 4 branding was incompatible with the then-new "UPN 38" brand.[29] Rumors soon spread that NECN would move its 10 p.m. newscast from WFXT to WSBK;[29] on October 2, 1995, the day after NECN's contract with WFXT expired, the regional news channel began producingUPN 38 Prime News. Lila Orbach was the original sole anchor, reprising her role on the WFXT newscast, eventually, Margie Reedy and R. D. Sahl (who were formerly paired as anchors during their tenures at WHDH-TV) took over for the remainder of its run. This newscast generally trailed both WLVI's program and, starting in 1996, an in-house newscast on WFXT; on October 4, 1998, WSBK discontinuedUPN 38 Prime News to refocus towards sports and entertainment shows (around the same time, sister UPN stationsKSTW inSeattle andWTOG inTampa canceled their own in-house newscasts, whileKMAX-TV inSacramento downsized to focus on morning news), though NECN continued to produce news updates within Bruins telecasts during the1998–1999 season.[30] The station replaced the 10 p.m. newscast with a two-hour late-evening comedy lineup (includingCheers andMad About You), promoted in the fall of 1998 asLaughter Dark.
After Viacom merged with CBS, putting WSBK and WBZ-TV under the same ownership, WBZ once again began producing a newscast for the station starting in 2001. On September 3, WSBK debuted a 7 p.m. newscast;[31] initially calledTHE 7 O'Clock News on UPN 38 (always emphasizing "the"), it was later rebranded asWBZ 4 News at 7 O'Clock. This newscast was replaced on March 29, 2002, by a new 10 p.m. newscast, titledNightcast at 10 on UPN 38, which launched on April 1.[32] On September 16, 2002, an hour-long extension of WBZ-TV's weekday morning newscast was added at 7 am, known asThe Morning News on UPN 38.[31]
WSBK droppedNightcast on January 16, 2005,[33] and turned its attention to the morning newscast, which was relaunched asThe 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 Morning Show aired its last broadcast on June 30, 2006,The Daily Buzz was dropped at the same time (it would return to the market in January 2011 on WLVI, and later moved to WBIN-TV).
When WSBK became an independent station for the second time, WBZ-TV began to produce a weeknight newscast calledTV 38 News at 9:30, the newscast was then moved up a half-hour to 9 p.m. on April 23, 2007, retitled asTV 38 News at 9, and switching time slots with a second run ofJeopardy! On August 25, 2008, the newscast became known asWBZ News on TV 38 (on occasion, it is also referred to asWBZ News at 9); it now mirrors the news programs that air on WBZ-TV, as had been the case with 10 p.m. broadcast that WBZ produced in the mid-1990s and the former 7 p.m. newscast. On December 12, 2008, the newscast began to be broadcast inhigh definition after WBZ upgraded its newscasts to the format. For a period starting in late-August 2009, WSBK also ran a rebroadcast of WBZ-TV's noon newscast at 12:30 pm; this was subsequently replaced withJudge Judy. When the station joined MyNetworkTV, WSBK moved the prime time newscast back to 10 p.m. on September 19, 2011;[34] the newscast is now referred to asWBZ News at 10. On September 29, 2014, the 10 p.m. newscast was now an hour long.[35] As of August 29, 2016, the newscast is being seen at 8 pm. On September 24, 2019, as part of the launch ofCBSN Boston, the 8 p.m. newscast was moved to that service, while retaining a simulcast on WSBK-TV.[36] On July 18, 2022, a 10 newscast was reintroduced under theCBS News Now format; the 8 p.m. newscast was not affected.[37] On August 31, 2023, the 10 p.m. newscast was cancelled, following the end of theCBS News Now format across CBS-owned duopoly stations and standalone CW affiliates that became independent the next day; as replacement, on September 1, a new 9 p.m. newscast from WBZ News was introduced to WSBK, serving as extension to the 8 p.m. newscast.
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 38.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WSBK-TV | Independent |
| 38.2 | 480i | WSBK.2 | Heroes & Icons | |
| 38.3 | WSBK.3 | QVC | ||
| 38.4 | WSBK.4 | QVC2 | ||
| 38.5 | WSBK.5 | Movies! | ||
| 66.4 | 480i | 16:9 | CourtTV | Court TV (WUNI) |
WSBK-TV shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 38, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 39,[39][40] usingvirtual channel 38.
All games will be televised on Comcast SportsNet and will be aired on the radio at 98.5 The Sports Hub.
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