WHDH Boston

Sunbeam-owned WHDH Boston (DMA 9) has installed Solid State Logic’s latest generation of dedicated broadcast audio production system at its facility, replacing an SSL C100 console that had been in continuous operation for nearly 14 years. The new System T comprises a Tempest T25 256-path processing engine and a three-bay, 48-fader S500 control surface, complete […]

Was NBC’s decision to drop Ed Ansin’s WHDH as its Boston affiliate a big mistake? A little more than a year after the bitter divorce, the new NBC10 Boston’s newscasts are struggling to gain an audience, while Ansin’s Channel 7 is often first or second in key time slots.

WHDH Boston is looking for a maintenance technician. WWBT NBC 12 in Richmond, Va., needs an IT specialist. To see all job openings, visit our Media Job Center here.

Graham NBC affiliate KPRC Houston is searching for an executive planning editor. Raycom NBC affil WWBT Richmond, Va., needs a senior digital sales specialist. Sunbeam’s WHDH Boston is looking for a director of administration & finance.  To see all job openings visit our Media Job Center here.

Following WHDH’s loss of its NBC affiliation at the beginning of the year, Ed Ansin’s station has gone news-heavy. He hopes he’ll have as good a result as he had years ago when his Miami station suffered a similar fate. So far, ratings are down from a year ago, but media analysts aren’t writing off the station in the long term. “Competing stations expected WHDH to nosedive in the ratings and that station has really managed to hold on to a good chunk of their news viewership,” says U.S. International Media’s Mary Rossi.

Spurned by NBC, which wanted to own its own station in the market, now-independent WHDH Boston has responded by offering 87 hours of local news a week. (Plus Family Feud.)

Producing the most news in Boston has come at a cost after Sunbeam’s WHDH lost its NBC affiliation on Jan. 1. Since then, WHDH has covered at least three breaking news events with expanded coverage — a winter snowstorm; the airport shooting in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; and the Presidential Inauguration. With the special coverage and the expanded newscasts, news crews have been required to work six day work weeks and double shifts.

Beginning New Year’s Day, it will air more than 87 hours of news a week, with newscasts added in the morning and evening and on weekends. 

AT&T has resolved a retrans dispute that kept the Olympics off DirecTV in Boston. The deal restored DirecTV access to Sunbeam TV-owned Boston NBC affiliate WHDH, as well as CW affiliate WLVI. The two were blacked out on DirecTV’s program guide in mid-July.

DirecTV and Sunbeam Television have ended a stalemate in Miami-Fort Lauderdale that has kept the local Fox affiliate blacked out on the satellite service since mid-July, but the two companies remain at odds on retrans renewals deals for Sunbeam’s Boston NBC and CW affils, WHDH and WLVI.

Sunbeam Corp. — whose WHDH Boston is slated to lose its NBC affiliation at year’s end — stands to take another hit if it fails to reach a new carriage agreement with Dish Network by the end of the week. Sunbeam has been warning viewers­ of WHDH and its CW-­affiliate WLVI that those stations will go dark on Dish after July 29 if it fails to come to new terms with the country’s No. 2 satellite provider.

In Boston, local NBC affiliates WHDH Channel 7 and WLVI Channel 56 went dark following a breakdown between station executives and AT&T-owned DirecTV on July 15th. In Miami, Fox affiliate WSVN Channel 7 was blacked out over a similar dispute. The stations are all owned by Sunbeam Television.

After having his suit against NBC over loss of NBC affiliation dismissed last month by a federal appeals court judge, WHDH Boston owner Ed Ansin on Wednesday announced: “We filed a notice of appeal with the federal court. We believe the judge got it all wrong, so we are reviewing our options for an appeal.”

Preston Padden was once a network exec whose job was to keep affiliates in line. Today, he’s seeing things differently. The relationship is way out of whack, he says. The networks have too much clout. I tend to agree, but, unlike Padden, I don’t think a solution is to be found in FCC oversight. One alternative may be for small affils to take a page from cable’s book and form a co-op to negotiate collectively with the networks.

WHDH Boston’s bid to hang onto its NBC affiliation was tossed out of court by a federal judge who said the station fell victim to “doing business in a competitive and unsentimental marketplace.” The suit, which argued that Comcast violated federal and state law when it decided to drop the Sunbeam Television-owned station, lasted less than four months.

WHDH Boston and NBC wrangled in court with conflicting versions of whether the station has a right to keep carrying the network, as NBC’s parent company seeks to set up a new Boston-area Peacock affiliate.

Comcast wants a federal court to throw out WHDH Boston’s lawsuit against the cable giant over its refusal to extend the station’s NBC affiliation, arguing that WHDH signed a contract that expires in January and must live by its terms. WHDH filed the lawsuit in March, claiming the move violated antitrust law and Comcast’s agreement with affiliates.

Sunbeam Television on Wednesday announced changes in its national sales management at WHDH (NBC) and WLVI (CW) Boston (DMA 8), effective immediately. (WHDH is losing its NBC affiliation at the end of this year.) Morgan Guthrie has been named national sales manager for WHDH. She has been an account executive at WHDH since September of 2011. Gutherie […]

Former broadcast lobbyist Preston Padden: “ATSC-3 and SFN’s may be the just what broadcasting needs to prosper in the future. Certainly there are smart and dedicated women and men working hard to make these technologies a reality. However, I would offer a few cautions.” Also, “The [affiliation] dispute between NBC and [WHDH’s] Ed Ansin is unfortunate on many levels. If I was running a network today, I would want him as a part of my distribution platform.”

NBC has announced that it is not renewing its affiliation for WHDH Boston at the end of this year so that it can launch its own station in the market, but WHDH owner Ed Ansin isn’t accepting the news. He’s taken NBC and parent Comcast to court and is convinced he has a strong case for reversing the move. By Ansin’s own reckoning, hundreds of millions in station value are at stake.

The Sunbeam Television-owned Boston station says the loss of its NBC affiliation violates its agreement with the network as well as the conditions of Comcast’s acquisition of NBC. NBC calls it a “meritless lawsuit.”