WHDH

History

WNAC-TV's fight for survival and transition (1948–1982)

The original occupant of the channel 7 allocation in Boston was WNAC-TV, which commenced operations on June 21, 1948, as Boston's second commercial station. Originally a CBS affiliate, the station switched to ABC in 1961, but rejoined CBS in 1972.

By 1965, WNAC-TV's owner, RKO General, faced numerous investigations into its business and financial practices. Though the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) renewed WNAC-TV's license in 1969, RKO General lost the license in 1981 after its parent company, General Tire, admitted to a litany of corporate misconduct—which among other things, included the admission that General Tire had committed financial fraud over illegal political contributions and bribes—as part of a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 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 KHJ-TV in Los Angeles and WOR-TV in New York City. The FCC had previously conditioned renewal of the latter two stations' licenses on WNAC-TV's renewal. An appeals court partially reversed the ruling, finding that RKO's dishonesty alone merited having the WNAC-TV license removed. However, it held that the FCC had overreached in tying the other two license renewals to WNAC-TV's renewal, and ordered new hearings.

Though RKO continued to appeal the decision, in late February 1982 the FCC granted the New England Television Corporation (NETV, a merger of two of the original rivals to the station's license controlled by Boston grocery magnate David Mugar) a construction permit to build a new station on channel 7. Two months later in April, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear RKO's appeal, leaving the firm with no further recourse but to accept the Commission's decision and surrender WNAC-TV's license. RKO then sold the station's non-license physical assets, including its studio on Bulfinch Place and transmitter/tower site in suburban Newton, to NETV. RKO General formally surrendered the WNAC-TV license at midnight on May 21, 1982; the station signed off as WNAC-TV for the final time about an hour later.

As WNEV-TV (1982–1990)

NETV took over channel 7 nearly five hours later under a new license, signing on the new WNEV-TV at 5:55 a.m. ET that morning (however, the present WHDH does claim WNAC's previous history as its own; a similar situation exists locally with the present-day WCVB and the original WHDH). Behind the imaging theme "There's a New Day Dawning", WNEV-TV dropped WNAC-TV's strip-layered "7" logo in favor of a new stylized "SE7EN" logo. However, the new station inherited WNAC-TV's CBS affiliation and syndicated program contracts, and most of the former WNAC-TV staff—including news reporter and anchor Mike Taibbi, who signed the station on the air in a brief ceremony prior to WNEV-TV's first program, CBS' Summer Semester.

NETV's mission from the start was to allocate programming hours to innovative, in-house productions, in much the same way that Boston Broadcasters did when it launched WCVB-TV on channel 5 ten years earlier. Notable productions that premiered early on were Look (1982–1984), which began as a two-hour (4 p.m. to 6 p.m.) late afternoon talk and lifestyle show that led into WNEV's 6 p.m. newscast. Despite a powerful effort at an entertaining and informative program, and praise from critics, Look was a ratings failure; for its second year, the show was cut back to an hour and renamed New England Afternoon before being dropped. WNEV continued to produce talk programs, first with Morning/Live (1984–1987), a half-hour weekday morning talk show hosted by Susan Sikora, and later with the similarly structured Talk of the Town (1988), hosted by Matt Lauer. Nancy Merrill, former host of WBZ-TV's People Are Talking, headlined two talk shows on WNEV, the weekend late night entry Merrill at Midnight (1986–87) and the weekday morning program Nancy Merrill (1987–88).

NETV also made it an immediate purpose to further diversify the station's workforce, both on-air and behind the scenes. Within WNEV's first couple of years, there was an increase of news reporters and anchors of color joining the station (notably including anchor Lester Strong and reporter Amalia Barreda). The commitment to diversity extended itself to a series of new public affairs shows that each targeted a specific ethnic group: Urban Update (with an African-American focus and which still continues to air on WHDH), Revista Hispana, Asian Focus and Jewish Perspective. Other public affairs and newsmagazines launched by WNEV included a Sunday morning religious affairs program, Higher Ground, the weekend talk and advice show Boston Common, the Saturday night newsmagazine Our Times, and Studio 7, which focused on the arts.

WHDH radio (1990–1992)

Throughout the 1980s, WNEV-TV frequently partnered with WHDH radio (850 AM, now WEEI) for public events such as Project Bread and the Walk For Hunger, as well as for other initiatives. NETV would eventually purchase WHDH on August 7, 1989. In January 1990, Mugar announced that on March 12 of that year, WNEV would change its call letters to WHDH-TV, in order to correspond with its sister radio operation. The WHDH-TV call sign was previously used by the original occupant of channel 5, under the ownership of the Boston Herald-Traveler, from 1957 to 1972. It was Mugar's plan to create, once again, a second major television/radio duopoly, primarily in news, to compete with the long-standing combo of WBZ radio and WBZ-TV. Boston Mayor Ray Flynn declared March 12, 1990, as "WHDH Day" in Boston, celebrating the joining of the radio and television stations. On that day, personalities from WHDH-TV spoke as guests on WHDH radio.

The dual operation, which began with much fanfare and leverage, proved to be too costly for Mugar and company. NETV gradually slid into a deficit, prompting cutbacks on in-house programming as well as in the television station's news department; the most notable effect being the elimination of WHDH-TV's 5 p.m. newscast for two years beginning in 1991. With channel 7's news ratings in third place, minimal help from CBS (which had been in a ratings slump since the end of the 1987–88 television season) and declining profits, Mugar was eventually prompted to sell the WHDH stations. The radio station was sold to Atlantic Ventures in 1992.

Sale to Sunbeam

By 1991, the relationship between majority owner David Mugar and minority owner Robert Kraft had become strained. Kraft, who became owner of the New England Patriots in 1994, exercised an option that forced Mugar to purchase his shares for an estimated $25 million. This, along with the nearly $100 million debt he held from the 1986 buyout and falling advertising revenues left Mugar strapped for cash. On April 22, 1993, David Mugar entered into an agreement to sell WHDH to Miami-based Sunbeam Television, a company led by Worcester native Edmund Ansin. The purchase was completed in late July.

Shortly afterward, Ansin brought in news director Joel Cheatwood from his Miami flagship station WSVN. Cheatwood had become infamous in Miami for his changes to WSVN's news operation, which focused on visually intensive, fast-paced newscasts with heavy emphasis on tabloid journalism, particularly covering crime (WSVN—which was an NBC affiliate from its 1956 sign-on until it joined Fox in 1989—adopted the format developed by Cheatwood in order to buoy viewership for its newscasts, which like WHDH, had languished in third place for several years). Cheatwood planned to perform similar changes at WHDH. Cheatwood ultimately adopted a considerably watered-down version of WSVN's format (see below), but still retained many of WSVN's features, including a faster-paced format, increased use of graphics and visuals, and more on-the-scene reporting. It even adopted WSVN's version of the Circle 7 logo. While critics were concerned that WHDH would lose even more viewers if it were to adopt WSVN's format entirely, WHDH quickly rebounded to become the number one newscast in Boston for a period.

As an NBC affiliate (1995–2017)

In 1994, WBZ-TV's owner, Westinghouse Broadcasting entered into a groupwide affiliation deal with CBS, which resulted in three Group W stations that were affiliated with networks other than CBS—NBC affiliates WBZ-TV, and KYW-TV in Philadelphia, and ABC affiliate WJZ-TV in Baltimore—switching to the network. Fox, already associated with Sunbeam through its affiliation with WSVN, considered an affiliation deal with WHDH (even before the Group W announcement, channel 7 had reportedly been considering dropping CBS for Fox); however, on August 2, 1994, WHDH-TV announced that it had agreed to affiliate with NBC instead of Fox, in part citing NBC's stronger news and sports programming. Fox ultimately chose to acquire its existing affiliate, WFXT (channel 25). WHDH became Boston's NBC affiliate on January 2, 1995, replacing WBZ-TV (which had been with the network for 46 years). The final CBS program to air on channel 7 was the made-for-TV movie A Father for Charlie at 9 p.m. Eastern Time on January 1, 1995.

During its time with NBC, channel 7 cleared the network's entire programming schedule (an exception was the network's early morning newscast at the time of the switch, NBC News at Sunrise, which ended on September 6, 1999; its successor, Early Today, was carried by WHDH for the remainder of its NBC affiliation). Between 1996 and 1997, WHDH produced a mid-morning weekday newsmagazine for the NBC network called Real Life. After the switch to NBC, WHDH became one of the few stations in the country to have had a primary affiliation with all of the Big Three networks. On September 14, 2006, Tribune Broadcasting sold CW affiliate WLVI-TV (channel 56) to Sunbeam Television for $117.3 million. The sale was approved by the FCC in late November of that year, creating Boston's second television duopoly (the other one being WBZ-TV and WSBK-TV, channel 38). WLVI moved its operations from its Dorchester studios to WHDH's facilities in downtown Boston.

On April 2, 2009, WHDH announced that it would not air The Jay Leno Show, when it debuted on NBC in September 2009, electing to replace it with a simulcast of the 10 p.m. newscast that WHDH began producing for WLVI in order to better compete with Fox affiliate WFXT. The network quickly dismissed any move of Leno to any time slot other than 10 p.m., stating that WHDH's plan was a "flagrant" violation of the station's contract with the network and that it would consider moving the NBC affiliation to another Boston area station, either by creating an owned-and-operated station through an "existing broadcast license" in the market owned by NBC or by seeking inquiries from other stations in the market to acquire the affiliation. WHDH began removing all references to the proposed 10 p.m. newscast from its website the next day, and on April 13, 2009, the station announced that it had decided to comply and air The Jay Leno Show instead.

Loss of NBC affiliation

It was reported on August 31, 2015, that NBC Owned Television Stations was considering the possibility of purchasing WHDH; NBCUniversal already had a strong presence in the market through its ownership of New England Cable News (NECN), CSN New England, and Telemundo station WNEU (channel 60), while WHDH's NBC affiliation was set to expire at the end of 2016. Meredith Corporation and Nexstar Broadcasting Group were also reportedly interested in purchasing the station. NBCUniversal and Sunbeam denied these rumors. Sunbeam's Executive Vice President and former WHDH general manager Chris Wayland, stated that the company "fully [expects]" that it would renew WHDH's affiliation. The Boston Globe noted a history of hostility between NBC and Sunbeam, including its objection to NBC's late-1980s purchase of WTVJ in Miami to displace its own WSVN (which later defected to Fox), and the aforementioned conflicts surrounding The Jay Leno Show. On October 1, 2015, The Boston Globe reported that NBC had considered moving the affiliation to NECN, a cable channel, rather than to an over-the-air channel, although the company declined to comment.

On December 15, 2015, New England One reported, citing internal sources, that NBCUniversal had declined to renew its affiliation with WHDH, and was beginning the process of building an English-language news operation at WNEU for its assumption of the affiliation. It also reported that WHDH meteorologist Pete Bouchard, who had left the station around the same time, had been poached by NBC for WNEU. Following the report, Paul Magnes, WHDH's vice president and general manager, told the Boston Herald that the station still expected the NBC affiliation to be renewed.

Sunbeam owner Ed Ansin subsequently confirmed to The Boston Globe that NBC had informed him in September 2015, that channel 7's affiliation would not be renewed, and offered to buy the station for $200 million; however, he said that he would not consider any offers worth less than $500 million, and that any sale of WHDH would also include WLVI. Ansin said that NBC was "trying to steal our station", and confirmed that the network was threatening to shift its programming to WNEU, but that he still predicted that WHDH would retain its NBC affiliation. Ansin believed that NBCUniversal's main motivation for these moves were to create further synergies with WNEU and New England Cable News for the purposes of advertising sales. Initial reports suggested that if WHDH were to lose NBC programming, Sunbeam would move the CW affiliation currently held by WLVI to channel 7. However, Ansin subsequently stated that WHDH would be operated as a news-intensive independent station if the NBC affiliation was lost; additionally, WLVI's own affiliation with The CW (a ten-year agreement made in 2006 with then-owner Tribune Broadcasting) was up for renewal in August 2016, and there was a possibility that CBS (who, along with Time Warner, at the time had co-ownership of The CW) could transfer the CW affiliation to WSBK-TV (then-affiliated with MyNetworkTV) if WLVI was unable to renew.

Programming

Preempted programming

As a CBS affiliate, the station preempted programming in moderation, in favor of more locally produced shows. From 1989 to 1990, the station delayed the first hour of CBS This Morning in favor of the children's show Ready To Go. In February 1994, CBS This Morning was dropped and picked up by WABU (channel 68, now WBPX-TV). WHDH then began airing an expanded local morning newscast.

Special events

On July 4, 2018, WHDH began to simulcast the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular yearly with Bloomberg Television, returning the event to local television after a one-year absence. It also broadcast A Boston Pops Salute to Our Heroes, which was produced in lieu of the 2020 edition of the event due to its cancellation as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The national broadcast of the concert moved to The CW in 2025, and then CNN in 2026 (with coverage incorporated into its larger The Fourth in America special, and the full event streaming on the CNN app), but WHDH has continued to air the event in the Boston area.

Lottery

WNEV/WHDH had exclusive rights to Lottery Live, broadcasting the Massachusetts State Lottery games six nights a week from August 31, 1987, to March 6, 1994. Motivated to cultivate an identity to the station that would indirectly help its last-place news ratings, WNEV acquired the lottery from WBZ-TV, which had announced late in 1986 that it would no longer show the games. The arrival of the lottery games was promoted heavily, and went hand-in-hand with the station's on-air image change that fall; the new dotted-7 logo that was adopted during that time had a dual meaning, in that the dots were to represent lottery balls.

A contest was held by WNEV in August 1987, just under a month before the games moved to the station, to scout for their own lottery host (Tom Bergeron, who hosted Lottery Live on WBZ-TV, did not continue in the role because he remained at that station in other capacities). The auditions were held in front of an audience of 200 at Boston's Westin Hotel at Copley Place, in which the finalists were narrowed down to 16. The winner was Lynn-Andrea Waugh, familiarly known as "Andi", a 29-year-old red-haired model who had no prior on-air experience. Despite being well received by viewers due to her effervescent personality and striking good looks, Ms. Waugh never completely overcame her noticeable nervousness after taking to the air. Waugh abandoned her hosting spot upon the expiration of her contract in August 1988. She was replaced with Dawn Hayes, who had been the runner-up in the lottery host competition. Hayes, who was equally as appealing but with a polished, confident on-air presence, began her long run as host during this era.

During Lottery Live's entire run on channel 7, the daily Numbers Game drawing aired at 7:52 p.m. (following the conclusion of the "Double Jeopardy!" round of Jeopardy!), while the specialty game of the evening (e.g., Mass Ca$h) originally aired during the CBS prime time lineup at 9:50 p.m. (retaining the airtime the specialty games had on WBZ). From 1991 until the end of channel 7's lottery contract in 1994, the specialty games were moved down to a 7:58 p.m. airtime, following the closing credits of Jeopardy!. Weekend lottery hosts during the channel 7 era included Linda Ward, Linda Frantangela (both prior to 1993) and Jill Stark (1993–94), who all substituted on weekdays as well when Hayes was absent. WNEV/WHDH also aired prime time game show specials produced by the Massachusetts State Lottery, usually a few times a year, that were broadcast either from the station's studios at 7 Bulfinch Place or at other public venues across Boston.

Sports programming

WHDH became the primary station for the New England Patriots in 1995, as the Patriots played in the American Football Conference of the NFL, which had a deal with NBC for the network to air AFC games (thus Boston was not as important a market for Fox in regard to getting a VHF affiliate). When the AFC package moved to CBS in 1998, this role was reclaimed by WBZ-TV. From 2006 to 2016, the station aired Patriots games when they were featured on NBC Sunday Night Football (the station aired the Patriots' Super Bowl XLIX victory in 2015 and their Super Bowl XLVI appearance in 2012). Also, WHDH aired selected Red Sox games from 1990 to 1993 as a CBS station via that network's MLB over-the-air broadcast contract, and again through NBC's limited rights to MLB's postseason from 1995 to 2000. WNEV/WHDH has also aired Boston Celtics games, first via CBS' broadcast contract with the NBA from 1982 to 1990 (continuing what WNAC-TV had aired since 1973; their NBA Finals victories in 1984 and 1986 were aired on WNEV), and again through NBC from 1995 to 2002. From 2006 to 2016, the station also aired Boston Bruins games via the NHL on NBC, including their victory in the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals.

Between 1992 and 2016, WHDH aired a total of twelve Olympic Games; the first two events in 1992 and 1994 were aired while the station was affiliated with CBS, with the remaining ten games airing while the station was affiliated with NBC (WBZ-TV aired its last Olympic broadcast in 1998).

In 2025, WHDH reached an agreement to air four Boston Red Sox spring training games during the 2025 season. The games streamed on NESN 360.

News operation

WHDH presently broadcasts 77+1⁄2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 12 hours, 35 minutes each weekday; 6 hours, 35 minutes on Saturdays; and eight hours on Sundays). In addition, the station produces Urban Update, a discussion program focusing on issues affecting the area's Black community, and Honda Sports Xtra, a weekly half-hour sports highlight program. The station operates a Bell LongRanger 206L news helicopter named "Sky 7". The station's weather radar is presented on-air as "Storm Scan Doppler" with a signal coming from the radar at the National Weather Service local forecast office in Taunton.

The station, in partnership with MetroNetworks, launched the TrafficTracker truck during the 2004 Democratic National Convention, which was held in Boston. With traffic reporter Marshall Hook behind the wheel of one of the station's live vehicles, WHDH became the only station in the market to produce live traffic reports from the road. The station continues to use the TrafficTracker during snowstorms, including the December 13, 2007, storm that resulted in paralyzing commutes that, in some cases, exceeded seven hours.

The station maintains NBC-era resource coverage agreements with other regional stations. WHDH shares its resources with WJAR, the NBC affiliate in Providence, Rhode Island, for news coverage of southeastern Massachusetts. WWLP, the NBC affiliate in Springfield, shares its resources with WHDH for news coverage of western areas of the state.

WNAC-TV had spent the better part of its history as the lowest-rated major-network affiliate in Boston, and one of the weakest large-market CBS affiliates in the country. When New England Television began operating the station, it embarked on a massive attempt to bring channel 7 out of the ratings basement. David Mugar and company soon announced the infamous "dream team" of newscasters, headed by Tom Ellis and Robin Young. Ellis had previously maintained WBZ-TV's dominance in the news market, and then helped WCVB reach #1 in the ratings during his tenure there from 1978 to 1982. Young, on the other hand, had no hard news experience but was well-known to Boston viewers as former co-host of Evening Magazine. The new partnership, as well as the completely restructured news department as a whole, received heavy promotion in the months leading to the official launch of the finalized WNEV news product (accompanied by a launch image campaign, "There's A New Day Dawning"). The newsroom facility, built feverishly over the summer of 1982, was cited by The Boston Globe as being the most technologically advanced out of all three network stations in the market. There was considerable reporting on the high salaries (a total of roughly $1 million a year) the new station was offering Ellis and Young. On the night of Ellis and Young's debut, September 13, 1982, WNEV beat WCVB and WBZ in the evening news ratings. The curiosity of Boston viewers only lasted a week in large numbers; the following week, channel 7 crumbled back to a distant third.

Technical information and subchannels

WHDH and WLVI broadcast from a tower in Newton, Massachusetts. The stations' signals are multiplexed:

Digital subchannel 7.2 originally carried NBC Weather Plus starting in May 2006, until NBC discontinued the network in November 2008. On February 2, 2009, WHDH-DT2 began carrying programming from This TV. Via digital cable, channel 7.2 is offered on Comcast channel 936 and Verizon FiOS channel 460.

Analog-to-digital conversion

WHDH shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 7 on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 42 to VHF channel 7.

Because of a large number of complaints regarding the inability of viewers to receive over-the-air programming on channel 7, WHDH requested and received temporary authority from the FCC on June 16, 2009, to simulcast its programming on UHF channel 42, in addition to VHF channel 7. Although stations in other major markets have similar problems, WHDH is the only station in the Boston area market which changed its digital channel due to the June 2009 transition, requiring a channel map rescan to receive the station. WHDH was also one of three area stations, along with WMUR-TV (channel 9) and WWDP (channel 46), to broadcast in VHF post-transition, requiring either a traditional indoor antenna within Boston proper, or in outer areas at minimum an outdoor antenna.

On September 15, 2009, the FCC issued a Report & Order, approving WHDH's move from channel 7 to channel 42. After the station filed its minor change application for a construction permit, stating the channel move, on November 9, 2009, WHDH terminated operations on VHF channel 7 and now permanently operates solely on channel 42 (mapping to virtual channel 7 via PSIP). The equipment for the channel 7 digital transmitter was shipped to Miami for use by sister station WSVN, which continues to broadcast on VHF 7 with few complaints due to South Florida's less-varied terrain. On June 1, 2010, WHDH filed an application to operate at the power level of 1 million watts. The application was approved on December 14, 2010.

The station shifted to physical channel 35 in the late-2010s spectrum allocation, with Sunbeam selling WLVI's spectrum and placing that station in a channel sharing agreement with WHDH, which started on January 8, 2018, with the move to 35 occurring in 2019.

Coverage in Canada

WHDH was one of six Boston area television stations that are carried on Canadian providers Bell Satellite TV and Bell Fibe TV and was authorized as an American over-the-air station eligible for national distribution. It was also available via the Anik F1 satellite to several Canadian cable providers, particularly in Atlantic Canada. Other cable systems also carried WHDH, such as Citizens Cable Television in the Thousand Islands region of New York State and Bermuda CableVision.

WYCN-LD (as WBTS-LD) was authorized to provide NBC service over Canadian pay-TV on December 20, 2016. Most providers carrying WHDH, including Bell Canada-owned providers and Eastlink, replaced it with WBTS effective January 1, 2017, coinciding with end of WHDH's NBC affiliation; despite this, as of December 22, 2020, WHDH remains on the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)'s list of eligible non-Canadian services and stations that can be distributed in the country.