Boston

NBC 10 Boston/WBTS announced today that Lauren Melendez will join the team on October 17 as a weekend morning co-anchor alongside NBC10 Boston’s Jeff Saperstone. “We are excited to welcome Lauren to […]

Female veterans of Boston news stations worry that a push for a “sexed up” look for women on camera is distracting from important stories and burdens them unfairly. The issue flared up this week when former WCVB anchor Heather Unruh, who recently left the station after 15 years, said on New England Living online magazine that women are “encouraged” to dress more provocatively on air.

While the results for WBZ, WCVB, WHDH and WBTS stayed the same for the most part, WFXT saw its ratings decline in some key time periods. The ratings were called into question after WFXT experienced a sudden rise in ratings toward the end of the February book. The four other stations noticed the anomaly and filed formal complaints with Nielsen.

TV spending is flat but expected to pick up come fall, with the return of NFL football, including the hugely popular New England Patriots, and high-demand primetime programming.

Record-setting political ad spending this year in Boston kept the market tight through election day, and it remains that way as stations deliver makegoods and holiday retail advertising begins to flow in.

No one should be surprised that news viewing fell in Boston (DMA No. 7) a year after a May 2013 sweep crammed with news of the fallout from the Boston […]

Political spending is strong in Boston nearly every year, and in 2014 there’s a gubernatorial election that will provide the biggest spark. The market is expecting a flood of political campaign dollars, adding to an already-healthy media economy.

Advertisers paid four to five times the normal rates for World Series spots. Political is also a hot category with a tight mayoral race driving ad spending. The race has made buying TV in Boston somewhat unpredictable this fall.

Two constants have kept Boston a healthy media market in 2013: sports and politics. While most of the country took a break from politics following last year’s presidential election, Boston did not. Massachusetts held a special election for a U.S. Senate seat on June 25, and the run-up to that election drove TV ad spending in Boston during the first half of the year.

Almost immediately after Monday’s tragic bombings at the Boston Marathon, the city’s cellular networks collapsed. The Associated Press initially reported what many of us suspected, that law enforcement officials had requested a communications blackout to prevent the remote detonation of additional explosives. But the claim was soon redacted as the truth became clear. It didn’t take government fiat to shut down the cellular networks. They fell apart all on their own.

Blizzards knocked off programming and knocked out power to many households, which has stations scrambling to make up for low delivery. Pricing’s down.

The Boston media market has been healthy in 2012, and stations hope that will continue into 2013. But right now first quarter is looking like a buyer’s market. There is plenty of TV inventory available for first quarter and pricing is down slightly, in contrast to Boston’s very busy fourth quarter.

It’s a sweeps month bonanza for Boston TV stations — the mammoth hurricane rocketing toward the East Coast is expected to draw big audiences during one of the most critical ratings periods of the year.

The TV ad race is tightening, with demand and pricing on the rise as a close Senate race, ballot issues and the presidential election start to eat up inventory.

The move, approved the City Council, would require removal of all obsolete dishes. It would also ban new installations from facades and other walls facing the street, unless an installer can prove there is no other place to get a signal. Dishes would have to be placed on roofs, in the rear or on the sides of buildings.

The marketing push, which targets business travelers, is tied to the carrier’s announcement April 14 that it now offers 100 daily nonstop flights from Boston’s Logan airport. The new spots will air on all of Boston’s network affiliate broadcast stations, as well as regional cable networks such as NECN and NESN.

The two former Multicultural Television stations are being sold by the trust that took control of them after they ran into financial trouble. The buying group is headed by Ted Bartley. The price was approximately $20 million, according to sources.

CBS Local Media today announced the appointments of market communications directors in two of its markets. This new position, CBS says, is an expanded role, with responsibility as spokesperson for […]

There were tense moments over the skies of Boston Tuesday evening. Right around 6 p.m., WCVB’s Sky 5 experienced mechanical problems while flying over the city. The chopper was forced to make a “hard landing” on Boston Common, but fortunately both the pilot and photographer on board were safe.

The overwhelming trend for TV stations has been to add morning newscasts earlier, not later. However, Sunbeam’s Boston ABC affiliate plans on bucking the trend by adding an hour of news from 9 to 10 a.m. beginning in September 2011.