| ATSC 3.0 station | |
|---|---|
 | |
 | |
| |
| City | Marlborough, Massachusetts |
| Channels | |
| Branding | Univision Boston;Noticias Nueva Inglaterra |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
|
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
|
| Operator | Entravision Communications viaJSA |
| WWJE-DT,WUTF-TV | |
| History | |
First air date | February 12, 1985; 40 years ago (1985-02-12) |
Former call signs |
|
Former channel number(s) |
|
| |
Call sign meaning | Univision or Univision Nueva Inglaterra (New England) |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 60551 |
| ERP | 400kW |
| HAAT | 356 m (1,168 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 42°23′2.7″N71°29′35.3″W / 42.384083°N 71.493139°W /42.384083; -71.493139 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | noticiasya |
WUNI (channel 66) is atelevision station licensed toMarlborough, Massachusetts, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-languageUnivision network to theBoston area. It isowned byTelevisaUnivision alongsideTrue Crime Network affiliateWWJE-DT (channel 50);Entravision Communications operates WUNI under ajoint sales agreement (JSA), making itsister toUniMás affiliateWUTF-TV (channel 27). WUNI and WWJE share studios and transmitter facilities on Parmenter Road inHudson; under the JSA,master control and some internal operations of WUNI are based at WUTF's studios on 4th Avenue inNeedham.
The station first signed on the air on February 12, 1985,[2] as WVJV-TV (branded as "V-66, the Beat of Boston"[3]), maintaining amusic video format at a time when they were a major part of the Americanculture (this was just four years afterMTV launched in August 1981). The station was originally owned by longtime New England radio broadcastersJohn Garabedian (who later became host of the nationally syndicated radio showOpen House Party) andArnie "Woo-Woo" Ginsburg. Garabedian also owned WGTR (1060 AM, nowWQOM); both WVJV and WGTR operated from studios inNatick. The music format combined videos fromprogressive rock (as heard onWBCN) andpop contemporary (as heard onWXKS-FM). Irrespective of themust-carry rule requiring cable systems to carry the station, many cable systems freely chose to carry WVJV instead ofVH1. WVJV was also the first station in the Boston area to transmit instereo.[4]
Garabedian had hoped to launch a nationalover-the-air music video network (predating the existence ofThe Box) to compete against MTV, if WVJV had succeeded.[5] However, although channel 66 received a sizable number of viewers, the station struggled to retain them for long periods of time, and by mid-1986, the station's advertising sales were insufficient to ensure the station's long-term viability; additionally, attempts to broaden the station's programming to include shows on sports and other topics proved unsuccessful.[5] Consequently, WVJV was sold to theHome Shopping Network later that year, with the station transitioning to HSN's shopping programs soon afterwards on September 21, 1986;[5] acallsign change to WHSH followed the next year. For the next thirteen years, WHSH continued to run HSN programming, with some local feature segments in-between.
A documentary film about V66 titledLife on the V: The Story of V66,[6] produced by Christian de Rezendes and Eric Green,[5] premiered at the Independent Film Festival of Boston on April 29, 2014.[7][8]
In 1999,Barry Diller, owner of HSN and its broadcast armUSA Broadcasting (formerly Silver King Television), began plans to turn his stations into trueindependents under the "CityVision" banner. After switching stations inMiami,Atlanta, andDallas–Fort Worth, this format was implemented in Boston on Channel 66 as WHUB-TV[9] (from Boston's nickname "The Hub"), with the "Hub 66" branding and a main slogan echoingThe Standells' "Dirty Water" ("Ahhh, Boston you're our home").
The station under the "CityVision" format aired primarilysyndicated and first-run programming including sitcom reruns of shows likeCheers andTaxi, drama reruns of shows likeStar Trek: The Next Generation, cartoons, and movies under theHubFlix banner. Like other "CityVision" stations, the station also obtained live sports rights specificallyBoston Universityice hockey games[10] (previously held byWABU/WBPX), as well as the annualBeanpot tournament.[10]
Plans were set to convert the entire chain of USAB stations to the "CityVision" format, but at the end of 2000, USA Broadcasting scrapped all plans and put all its stations up for sale with WHUB reverting to HSN affiliation in the interim period to cut costs.Disney/ABC and Univision Communications were both in the running to become the owner of WHUB with Disney planning on aligning withHearst-owned ABC affiliateWCVB-TV; however, Univision outbid them in a close race,[11] with plans immediately announced to make the station (and all but three USAB stations) a charter affiliate of what would become Telefutura (originally referred to as Univision Duo and later rebranded asUniMás in 2013);[11] The station's five-month run made it one of the shortest-run independent-formatted stations in the country[12][13] (a few 1950s UHF independent stations, such as the three-month-longWBES-TV, had shorter).[14]
AT&T Broadband obtained some of WHUB's programming for its AT&T 3 channel[13][15] including the 2001 Beanpot,[13] (which WHUB never telecast after reverting to HSN;[12][13] the tournament has since moved toNESN); AT&T 3 would be replaced byCN8 New England in 2003 which, itself, would shut down in January 2009.
To reflect its pending affiliation change, channel 66 changed call letters to WFUB (likely[weasel words] standing for "Telefutura Boston") in November 2001.[16] However, just one month later, the station changed the callsign again to WUTF[17][18] with both changes occurring during the interim period of HSN programming. It was not until January 14, 2002, that channel 66 joined Telefutura, offering a general Spanish-language entertainment format withmovies,serials, sports andchildren's programming. Telefutura later rebranded asUniMás on January 7, 2013.
On December 4, 2017, as part of a multi-market realignment, the programming and call signs of WUTF and sister station WUNI were swapped: WUTF and its UniMás programming moved to the Entravision-owned facility using digital channel 29 and virtual channel 27, while Univision's digital channel 27 and virtual channel 66 facility became the new home of WUNI.[19]
On November 30, 2022, it was announced that WUNI would convert to ATSC 3.0.[20]
WUNI presently broadcasts2+1⁄2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with a half-hour each on weekdays; the station does not produce a late evening newscast on any night nor any news programs on Saturdays and Sundays).
On April 1, 2003, WUNI on channel 27 launched a half-hour local newscast,Noticias Univision Nueva Inglaterra (Univision News New England), at 6 p.m. Sara Suarez was brought from Univision'sDenverowned-and-operated stationKCEC to serve as anchor andnews director. Angel Salcedo, who hosted WUNI's public affairs programEnfoque Latino for several years, was chosen as Suarez's co-anchor. However, Salcedo left the station shortly afterwards, leaving Suarez as the sole anchor until Carlos Ruben Zapata was hired as Salcedo's replacement. In 2005, Zapata left the station and eventually hired Eduardo Guerrero as co-anchor late that year. Before the newscast debuted, the station signed a news share agreement withNew England Cable News, in which the regional cable news channel provided news footage. In addition, several commercial spots for NECN aired on WUNI and WUTF-TV, targeted at both stations' Hispanic audience.
The agreement with NECN expired in mid-2005; WUNI then signed a content sharing agreement withCBS owned-and-operated stationWBZ-TV (channel 4). WBZ is acknowledged with an on-air credit when news footage supplied by the station appears on WUNI's newscasts, as well as at the end of the broadcast, before the copyright tag.
In April 2007, WUNI began producing news updates under the titleDespierta Boston (which was anchored by Maria Gonzalez), during Univision's morning news/talk programDespierta América at 25 minutes past the hour from 7 to 9 a.m. The station used a modified version of theDespierta América logo branding, while using an alteration of the graphics and music package used on the 6 p.m. newscast. WhileDespierta Boston was relatively successful, economic problems led to Entravision discontinuing the morning updates in early 2009. The station also laid off Eduardo Guerrero (once again resulting in Sara Suarez anchoring solo) and 10-year veteran sports journalist Omar Cabrera.
On July 14, 2007, the station began airing the weekend edition of then-Univision-ownedSan Juan, Puerto Rico, stationWLII's newscastLas Noticias Univision; this was subsequently dropped.[citation needed]
The station's ATSC 1.0 channels are carried on themultiplexed signals of other Boston television stations:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming | ATSC 1.0 host |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 66.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WUNI | Univision | WNEU |
| 66.2 | 480i | Bounce | Bounce TV | WFXT | |
| 66.3 | GetTV | get | |||
| 66.4 | Court TV | Court TV | WSBK-TV | ||
| 66.5 | NVSN | Nuestra Visión (soon) | WGBH-TV |
WUNI (as WUTF) shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 66, 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 moved its digital signal from its pre-transition UHF channel 23 to channel 27, usingvirtual channel 66.[22]
| License | Channel | Res. | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WUNI | 2.1 | 1080p | WGBH*NX | PBS (WGBH-TV) |
| 4.1 | WBZ*NX | CBS (WBZ-TV) | ||
| 5.1 | WCVB*NX | ABC (WCVB-TV) | ||
| 15.1 | WBTS*NX | NBC (WBTS-CD) | ||
| 25.1 | WFXT*NX | Fox (WFXT) | ||
| 66.1 | WUNI*NX | Univision | ||
| WWJE-DT | 50.1 | 480p | WWJE*NX | True Crime Network (viaWCVB-TV) |
| Corporate directors |
|  | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. television networks |
| ||||||||
| Mexican television networks |
| ||||||||
| International networks |
| ||||||||
| Uforia Audio Network |
| ||||||||
| Univision Television Group |
| ||||||||
| Studios |
| ||||||||
| Univision Online | |||||||||
| Other holdings | |||||||||
| Defunct/former assets | |||||||||
| |||||||||