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114-697: WPTZ (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Plattsburgh, New York , United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for the Burlington, Vermont –Plattsburgh, New York market . It is owned by Hearst Television alongside Montpelier, Vermont –licensed CW+ affiliate WNNE (channel 31). WPTZ and WNNE share studios on Community Drive in South Burlington, Vermont , with a secondary studio and news bureau on Cornelia Street in Plattsburgh. Through

228-572: A TV network and an individual station within the network is referred to as O&O or affiliate , respectively. Because television station signals use the electromagnetic spectrum, which in the past has been a common, scarce resource, governments often claim authority to regulate them. Broadcast television systems standards vary around the world. Television stations broadcasting over an analog system were typically limited to one television channel , but digital television enables broadcasting via subchannels as well. Television stations usually require

342-620: A barter in some cases. WCVB-TV WCVB-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States , affiliated with ABC and owned by Hearst Television . The station's studios are located on TV Place (off Gould Street near the I-95 / MA 128 /Highland Avenue interchange) in Needham, Massachusetts , and its transmitter is located on Cedar Street, also in Needham, on

456-504: A broadcast license from a government agency which sets the requirements and limitations on the station. In the United States, for example, a television license defines the broadcast range , or geographic area, that the station is limited to, allocates the broadcast frequency of the radio spectrum for that station's transmissions, sets limits on what types of television programs can be programmed for broadcast and requires

570-558: A channel sharing agreement , the two stations transmit using WPTZ's spectrum from an antenna on Vermont's highest peak, Mount Mansfield . The station signed on the air on December 8, 1954, as WIRI, originally licensed to the hamlet of North Pole, New York . It was owned by the Great Northern Broadcasting Company along with Plattsburgh's WIRY radio (1340 AM). The station's first studio facilities were located on Cornelia Street/ Route 3 in Plattsburgh;

684-614: A local marketing agreement (LMA) and shared the analog transmitter on Terry Mountain. Otherwise WPTZ/WNNE, along with then-sister stations in Pensacola, Florida , and Charleston, West Virginia , would have been forced to switch to Fox. Sinclair, in turn, sold WPTZ/WNNE along with the WFFF LMA to Sunrise Television in 1998. Sunrise then decided to swap WPTZ/WNNE, along with Smith Broadcasting -owned KSBW in Salinas, California , to what

798-412: A construction permit to build a new station on channel 5 under the callsign of WCVB-TV after promising to air more local programming than any other station in the United States at the time. The new channel 5 needed to have a different call sign (due to FCC rules at the time that stated that TV and radio stations in the same market, but with different ownership were required to have different call signs). It

912-518: A different license and celebrates station anniversaries using its 1972 sign-on date, it inherited all of WHDH-TV's personnel, including anchorman Jack Hynes and sportscaster Don Gillis , all transferred to WCVB-TV with the termination of the WHDH-TV license. However, WCVB did not inherit its predecessor's CBS affiliation. Boston Broadcasters' plans for a large amount of local programming would have resulted in heavy preemptions of network programming. CBS

1026-654: A distant signal like WBRE, as they do not have the rights to carry any NBC affiliate closest to them. The substitution of WBRE in place of WPTZ lasted until July 19, 2012, when the deal was reached between Hearst and Time Warner. On August 2, 2016, just before the Summer Olympics in Rio , WPTZ changed its logo and on-air branding from "NewsChannel 5" to "NBC 5", a rarity for Hearst, which prefers to brand their stations by call letters and channel numbers rather than their network affiliation. On June 12, 2018, WPTZ announced it

1140-465: A logo showing WPTZ/WNNE offering NBC Weather Plus together as "5&31 Weather Plus". Starting in October, its studios in Plattsburgh underwent extensive renovations. During that time, its broadcasts were from a temporary set while the construction took place. While the studios as a whole were being upgraded, the weather department underwent the most change. In advance of the launch of NBC Weather Plus,

1254-415: A much shorter wavelength, and thus requires a shorter antenna, but also higher power. North American stations can go up to 5000 kW ERP for video and 500 kW audio, or 1000 kW digital. Low channels travel further than high ones at the same power, but UHF does not suffer from as much electromagnetic interference and background "noise" as VHF, making it much more desirable for TV. Despite this, in

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1368-715: A new deal with WBZ. On June 22, 2022, the BAA announced that the marathon would return to WCVB beginning with the 2023 race, in a partnership with ESPN, which carries the event nationally. In addition to the ESPN simulcast, Hearst's other New England stations—WMUR-TV in Manchester; WMTW in Portland; and WPTZ in Plattsburgh, New York – Burlington, Vermont —also air WCVB's coverage of the race. WCVB also airs NBA games involving

1482-513: A new space on Mechanic Street in Lebanon, New Hampshire . On July 27, 2019, WPTZ's Vermont facilities moved from Colchester to South Burlington; the station's newscasts were concurrently relocated to the new facility from the Plattsburgh studio. To coincide with the aforementioned relocation to the new South Burlington facilities, WPTZ became the last station in the market to broadcast newscasts in high definition. The 2008 film Frozen River shows

1596-466: A new stylized "5" logo (which features an arrow curving upward, rendered in negative space , within the "5"). Having debuted when WCVB first began operations in 1972, this logo surpassed WBZ's Group W font logo (which that station used from 1963 to 1996), as the longest-used numeric logo in New England television history in 2005. WCVB currently produces the following programs: While the station

1710-577: A newly created second digital subchannel of the station on October 1, 2012. This also provides WCVB a backup channel to air ABC programming during breaking or pre-planned local news coverage. WCVB-TV ended regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 5, 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 continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 20, using virtual channel 5. As part of

1824-570: A nightly 10 p.m. newscast which airs on both WNNE and WPTZ-DT3 simultaneously. On June 20, 2016, WPTZ debuted a half-hour noon newscast, became the second television station in the Champlain Valley complete with a 10-minute newscast on WCAX-TV, coinciding with the cancellation of FABLife . On August 2, 2016, following the station rebrand itself as "NBC 5", the newscast branding was now named as NBC 5 News . In August 2018, WPTZ's Upper Valley bureau moved from White River Junction to

1938-492: A now-duplicative and smaller bureau in Colchester, Vermont . WPTZ later relocated the bureau to a new location at 308 Cornelia Street in Plattsburgh, taking over the former Glens Falls National Bank branch and renovating the building to become its new secondary studio in the summer of 2020. On November 19, 2019, WPTZ, WNNE and CBS affiliate WCAX-TV (channel 3) were knocked off the air by a fire at their combined antenna at

2052-402: A part of its commitment to serving the community through extensive local programming, has run a series of different public service campaigns to help educate people on relevant issues and values of the day. Each campaign has had a different theme, ranging from racial unity to family values and achieving success through continued education. Over the last few decades, these campaigns have consisted of

2166-440: A programming block from 1 to 5 am, branded as 5 All Night , which featured a library of older black-and-white movies and a few recent syndicated programs. During station breaks, announcer George Fennel (who never made an on-camera appearance during the block) would make live announcements and read fan mail from the viewing audience, as various 5 All Night logo backdrops were displayed on-screen. His actual first on-air portrait

2280-411: A revamped format, with only on-screen graphics displaying the already-drawn winning numbers for a minute or so. A rotating group of off-screen voiceovers announced the drawings. In the case of the daily Numbers Game, however, a mid-screen shot of the traditional "number wheels" were featured, with the balls resting on the chosen digits. The Numbers Game drawings continued to air at approximately 7:53, while

2394-692: A season). For most of its history, WPTZ's newscasts have been a distant second in the ratings behind long-dominant WCAX-TV. Traditionally, it focused more on the North Country and New York State, while WCAX and WVNY/WFFF tend to cover more from Vermont. In order to cover that state, from the mid-1990s to July 2019, WPTZ operated secondary facilities known as the Vermont Bureau on Roosevelt Highway ( US 2 / US 7 ) in Colchester. At one point, there had been more general assignment reporters based at

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2508-635: A station to broadcast a minimum amount of certain programs types, such as public affairs messages . Another form of television station is non-commercial educational (NCE) and considered public broadcasting . To avoid concentration of media ownership of television stations, government regulations in most countries generally limit the ownership of television stations by television networks or other media operators, but these regulations vary considerably. Some countries have set up nationwide television networks, in which individual television stations act as mere repeaters of nationwide programs . In those countries,

2622-483: A station which broadcasts structured content to an audience or it refers to the organization that operates the station. A terrestrial television transmission can occur via analog television signals or, more recently, via digital television signals. Television stations are differentiated from cable television or other video providers as their content is broadcast via terrestrial radio waves. A group of television stations with common ownership or affiliation are known as

2736-736: A tower shared with several other television and radio stations. Nearby Manchester, New Hampshire , is considered part of the Boston media market, making WCVB-TV part of a nominal duopoly with WMUR-TV (channel 9), that city's ABC affiliate; however, the two stations maintain separate operations. WCVB is also one of six Boston television stations that are carried by satellite provider Bell Satellite TV and fiber optic television provider Bell Fibe TV in Canada. Since 2010, midday and weekend late newscasts, along with World News Now , are overlaid with Canadian paid programming on those providers; however,

2850-425: A variety of ways to generate revenue from television commercials . They may be an independent station or part of a broadcasting network , or some other structure. They can produce some or all of their programs or buy some broadcast syndication programming for or all of it from other stations or independent production companies. Many stations have some sort of television studio , which on major-network stations

2964-838: Is 20% owned by WCVB's corporate parent Hearst Communications; the station also carried any Patriots appearances on Monday Night Football when ABC held the rights to that package). WCVB was also the official station of Boston College Eagles football during Doug Flutie 's historic 1984 season , that of which culminated with Flutie winning the Heisman Trophy . Until 2005 , when the Boston Red Sox were involved in post-season action, WCVB simulcast those games from ESPN ( MLB divisional playoff games have since moved to TBS ); WCVB also aired select Red Sox games through ABC's MLB broadcast contract from 1976 to 1989 . From 1982 through 2006, WCVB telecast live wire-to-wire coverage of

3078-538: Is airing the same program at the same time as WPTZ. Television station The Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow ( TV Station Paul Nipkow ) in Berlin , Germany , was the first regular television service in the world. It was on the air from 22 March 1935, until it was shut down in 1944. The station was named after Paul Gottlieb Nipkow , the inventor of the Nipkow disk . Most often the term "television station" refers to

3192-645: Is believed that Metromedia gave Hearst a right of first refusal offer if WCVB ever went up for sale again. Fox would get its own station in Boston in 1987, when it bought WXNE-TV (channel 25) from the Christian Broadcasting Network and renamed it WFXT (Fox subsequently sold WFXT to the Boston Celtics in 1990, repurchased the station in 1995, and then traded WFXT to Cox Media Group in 2014). In 1971, graphic design firm Wyman & Canaan (now Bill Canaan & Company) developed

3306-467: Is included. Despite adding The CW, there had been no plans made public about WPTZ's then semi-satellite WNNE adding the network in order to increase the broadcasting radius; however, the network was ultimately transferred over to WNNE, five years later, when it entered into a channel-sharing arrangement with WPTZ. Currently, access in the Upper Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire to WNNE and WPTZ-DT3

3420-580: Is live broadcast capable. For statewide news coverage throughout Massachusetts, WCVB shares resources with the two other ABC affiliates in the state: WLNE-TV in New Bedford (which serves Providence, Rhode Island) and WGGB-TV in Springfield . WCAP (980) in Lowell runs audio simulcasts of portions of WCVB's morning and evening newscasts on weekdays. As WCVB's newscasts are titled NewsCenter 5 ,

3534-649: Is no longer as involved in locally produced programming as it once was, it has had some influential programs: From 1990 through 2002, WCVB-TV produced coverage of the Boston Pops Orchestra 's annual Fourth of July concert at the Hatch Memorial Shell ; beginning in 1991, the program was simulcast nationally on cable channel A&E (which is partly owned by Hearst), and also aired on WMUR-TV following Hearst's acquisition of that station in 2001. The concert's producer, David Mugar , moved

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3648-792: Is often used for newscasts or other local programming . There is usually a news department , where journalists gather information. There is also a section where electronic news-gathering (ENG) operations are based, receiving remote broadcasts via remote pickup unit or satellite TV . Outside broadcasting vans, production trucks , or SUVs with electronic field production (EFP) equipment are sent out with reporters , who may also bring back news stories on video tape rather than sending them back live . To keep pace with technology United States television stations have been replacing operators with broadcast automation systems to increase profits in recent years. Some stations (known as repeaters or translators ) only simulcast another, usually

3762-548: Is presented on-screen in a forecasting system known as "First Alert Storm Tracker" (powered by the Super Doppler Network). With the departure of Thom Hallock (whose contract was not renewed by station) on November 23, 2007, WPTZ was left with an all-woman weeknight anchor team. That changed with the arrival of Gus Rosendale. He left WPTZ in 2005 to report at sister station WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh . George Mallet

3876-479: Is solely through digital cable and satellite services. On September 15, 2014, WPTZ separated The CW and MeTV into their own subchannels, 5.2 and 5.3 respectively, but did not add them to WNNE's signal. In April 2016, the over-the-air digital signal of WPTZ-DT2 was upgraded into 720p high definition; thus offering a high definition feed for The CW for the first time in the Burlington–Plattsburgh area (and

3990-479: Is widely carried on cable in the province of Quebec as far north as Saguenay and as far east as Gaspé . In addition, Southern Quebec viewers can also pick up WPTZ's over-the-air signal with a well-placed antenna. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)'s simultaneous substitution rules mandate cable systems to replace WPTZ's signal with that of CFCF-DT , CKMI-DT , or CJNT-DT within their broadcasting areas when one of those stations

4104-633: The Boston Marathon . Though the broadcasts generally rated higher than the competing wire-to-wire coverage on WBZ-TV, the station announced in November 2006 that it would stop carrying the race, as declining viewership and advertising revenue made it difficult for the station to justify providing all-day coverage, despite production costs being shared with WBZ-TV and the Boston Athletic Association (BAA). The BAA then signed

4218-522: The Eyeopener has consistently been the market's most-watched morning newscast, and the 6 a.m. hour often ranks as the most-watched newscast by viewers in the 25–54 demographic. In September 2015, WCVB announced that they would launch a weekend 5 p.m. newscast starting November 8, 2015. On January 11, 2016, WCVB added two additional weekday newscasts, one at 4 p.m. and a second at 7 pm. WCVB president and general manager Bill Fine stated that

4332-506: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began investigating allegations of impropriety in the granting of the television station's construction permit . This touched off a struggle that lasted 15 years. As a result, WHDH-TV never had a license renewal period lasting more than six months at a time (most television licenses at the time lasted for three years). In 1969, a local group, Boston Broadcasters, won

4446-611: The Fox network on October 9. Channel 5 was included in the original deal, but was concurrently spun off to the Hearst Corporation , which had purchased fellow ABC affiliate KMBC-TV in Kansas City, Missouri , from Metromedia in 1982. That station was sold to allow Metromedia to acquire WCVB (to comply with FCC rules in effect at the time that limited the number of VHF stations owned by a single company to only five), and it

4560-771: The SAFER Act , WCVB temporarily kept its analog channel as one of three nightlight stations in the Boston area (alongside WBZ-TV and WGBH-TV ). The station's nightlight service loop consisted of the official public service program from the National Association of Broadcasters , an episode of This Old House (a nationally distributed show on PBS presented by Boston's WGBH-TV), and reruns of segments from WCVB's newscasts; all were dedicated to instructions and questions about switching to digital television for viewers who have not yet upgraded their old analog sets. The station's analog signal then switched off permanently at

4674-534: The electricity bill and emergency backup generators . In North America , full-power stations on band I (channels 2 to 6) are generally limited to 100 kW analog video ( VSB ) and 10 kW analog audio ( FM ), or 45 kW digital ( 8VSB ) ERP. Stations on band III (channels 7 to 13) can go up by 5 dB to 316 kW video, 31.6 kW audio, or 160 kW digital. Low-VHF stations are often subject to long-distance reception just as with FM. There are no stations on Channel 1 . UHF , by comparison, has

WPTZ - Misplaced Pages Continue

4788-478: The 1990 version of Let's Make a Deal , and the Bob Goen version of Wheel of Fortune . NBC was far less tolerant of program preemptions during the entire timeframe where WPTZ preempted programming from that network, but was incredibly unlikely to remove the affiliation from a VHF station that otherwise was highly-rated (and for the most part, most of the programs other than Santa Barbara didn't air for more than

4902-584: The 4 p.m. hour resulting in low ratings, changes were made in November 2016; at this time, the half-hour NewsCenter 5 at 4:00 premiered, and Inside Edition moved to 4:30 pm. As of 2019, Inside Edition has been dropped from the schedule and has moved to WHDH. WCVB now airs 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 hours of local news from 4 to 6:30 pm, with a break from 6:30 to 7 p.m. for ABC World News Tonight (coincidentally, anchored by WCVB alum David Muir since September 2, 2014), then picking up again from 7 to 7:30 p.m. Due to its commitment to local programming,

5016-504: The 4 p.m. slot, moving there on August 22, 2011; it was replaced in the 9 a.m. timeslot by Live! with Regis and Kelly , which moved to the station after a 23-year run on WHDH. Oprah , meanwhile, moved to weekday mornings at 1:05 a.m. for the remaining weeks of its run. On January 11, 2016, WCVB moved The Meredith Vieira Show from 3 p.m. to 1:07 am, where it remained until it concluded its run in September. On

5130-569: The Boston Celtics via the league's contract with ABC . The station has aired the Celtics' victories in the 2008 and 2024 NBA Finals and their 2010 and 2022 NBA Finals appearances. WCVB presently broadcasts 43 hours, 55 minutes of locally produced newscasts each week (with 6 hours, 35 minutes each weekday, five hours on Saturdays and six hours on Sundays). The station operates an Aérospatiale AS350B helicopter entitled "Sky 5" that

5244-486: The CW affiliation previously held by the 5.2 subchannel; this was a result of WNNE shutting down operations on its pre-auction channel and commencing channel-sharing operations, effective July 22, 2018. On July 20, Hearst Television announced that WNNE would become a CW affiliate following the move. Concurrent with the move, the 5.2 subchannel was remapped to WNNE's virtual channel 31.1 under channel-sharing operations. This resolves

5358-559: The U.S., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is taking another large portion of this band (channels 52 to 69) away, in contrast to the rest of the world, which has been taking VHF instead. This means that some stations left on VHF are harder to receive after the analog shutdown . Since at least 1974, there are no stations on channel 37 in North America for radio astronomy purposes. Most television stations are commercial broadcasting enterprises which are structured in

5472-540: The Watertown market's first full-time NBC affiliate. Like the other network stations that serve Plattsburgh and Burlington, WPTZ has a large audience in southern Quebec , Canada. This includes Montreal , a city with ten times as many people as all of WPTZ's entire American viewing area. For many years, station promos and IDs have read "North Pole–Plattsburgh–Burlington–Montreal" or "Plattsburgh–Burlington–Montreal" to acknowledge its large cable viewership in Canada. WPTZ

5586-484: The annual MDA Labor Day Telethon (before the program's 2013 move to ABC as a short-form broadcast, although it did stay on WCVB; the program would be discontinued after the 2014 edition) and the 2004 preemption of Saving Private Ryan (one of several ABC stations that preempted the film out of concern over the graphic war battle scenes and profanity that were left intact in the uncut ABC telecast and fear of resulting FCC fines) for another movie, Far and Away . Until

5700-405: The characters Ray Eddy ( Melissa Leo ) and her son T. J. ( Charlie McDermott ) watching a nighttime WPTZ weather report of an incoming Canadian clipper system. WPTZ shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 5, on February 17, 2009, the original date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which

5814-487: The concerns raised years before regarding a lack of access to the WPTZ sub-channels for WNNE viewers, yet it also limits viewers in the Upper Valley to cable and satellite viewing options for NBC programming. In the 1980s, WPTZ preempted select NBC shows, including NBC News Overnight (due to the station signing off overnight), GO! , Hot Potato , The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour , Santa Barbara , Trialwatch ,

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5928-403: The current NewsCenter 5 brand. Since then, WCVB has been known for exceptional news coverage and has consistently been at the top of the news ratings since the early 1980s. Through the next couple decades, the station boasted the most-watched news team of Chet Curtis and Natalie Jacobson who married each other while serving as co-anchors. However, by the late 1990s and early 2000s, the station

6042-513: The debut of the station's hour-long 5 p.m. newscast. In both time periods, Oprah always held first place among the program's competitors, and consistently kept WCVB's neighboring newscasts at number one. Winfrey's decision to end her daytime talk show in May 2011 resulted in many stations scrambling to replace it with equally strong programming. The Ellen DeGeneres Show —which WCVB had aired at 9 a.m. since 2005—was chosen to replace Oprah in

6156-647: The digital multicast network through 2015. As part of the renewal, Hearst also signed agreements to add the network as digital subchannels of WCVB-TV and sister stations KCRA-TV in Sacramento, WBAL-TV in Baltimore , KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City and WXII-TV in Winston-Salem, North Carolina . As WCVB did not operate any additional digital multicast feeds outside of main channel 5.1, MeTV was added on

6270-417: The end of each show, that night's three players would return to play a bonus round. Each would place a cylinder on a numbered space from 1 to 12. A motorized cube would then be let go, to knock the cylinders down. After 30 seconds, any player that had a cylinder still standing won the cash amount (ranging from $ 7,500 to $ 200,000) associated with their number choice. The $ 200,000 prize was won several times during

6384-651: The entire Champlain Valley and beyond) and a second high definition feed for The CW in Massena (the other being WWTI-DT2 of Watertown, which has been broadcasting its digital over-the-air signal in 720p high definition since August 17, 2012). In May 2016, Comcast began carrying WPTZ-DT2's high definition feed on digital channel 706 for Burlington (as well as Upper Connecticut River Valley ) viewers and Charter began carrying WPTZ-DT2's high definition feed on digital channel 711 for Plattsburgh viewers. On July 22, 2018, WNNE assumed

6498-405: The first stations owned by Hearst to make the upgrade). This change resulted in the debut of a new newscast set designed by FX Group and on-air graphics. However, channel 5 kept Hearst Television's standardized music package. On September 7, 2010, WCVB expanded its weekday morning newscast to 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 hours, with its start time moved to 4:30 am. Four days later on September 11, 2010,

6612-481: The first time since 1998 that WCVB swept all of its newscast timeslots. Only WFXT's 10 p.m. news drew more viewers than any of the "big three" affiliates' late evening newscasts. That victory was short-lived, however, as WHDH regained the lead at 11 p.m. during the May 2007 sweeps, after another close battle. WBZ-TV led in the 11 p.m. timeslot from late 2007 to early 2010 with WCVB maintaining second place in that timeslot during that period. WCVB has since regained

6726-841: The following: The station's signal is multiplexed : WCVB is one of a handful of ABC-affiliated stations and one of several Hearst-owned ABC affiliates that broadcast their high-definition signals in 1080i rather than the 720p format of most other ABC stations. This includes WCVB's ABC-affiliated sister stations WMUR-TV in nearby Manchester, New Hampshire, WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh, KMBC-TV in Kansas City, and KETV in Omaha , as well as stations not owned by Hearst in eight other markets. On July 24, 2012, Hearst Television renewed its affiliation agreement with MeTV to maintain existing affiliations with eight Hearst-owned stations currently carrying

6840-420: The highest point available in the transmission area, such as on a summit , the top of a high skyscraper , or on a tall radio tower . To get a signal from the master control room to the transmitter, a studio/transmitter link (STL) is used. The link can be either by radio or T1 / E1 . A transmitter/studio link (TSL) may also send telemetry back to the station, but this may be embedded in subcarriers of

6954-505: The last ten minutes of Chronicle in 2009. On August 15, 2011, daily drawings ended their second stint on WCVB, and moved exclusively to the Massachusetts Lottery website; the station continues to air Mega Millions or Powerball featuring larger jackpots, at the discretion of the station. In 1987, United Press International awarded WCVB "Best Sports Reporting" in the nation. For fourteen years, WCVB's Mike Lynch hosted

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7068-674: The late 1990s, WCVB broadcast the 1954 film White Christmas annually during the holiday season, preempting ABC network programming. On October 30, 2014, WCVB preempted ABC's broadcast of the Halloween special It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown to air a Steve Harvey special. Great Pumpkin aired on sister station WMUR. WCVB was originally in the running to become the Massachusetts State Lottery 's host station in late 1986, when WBZ-TV relinquished

7182-529: The latter has carried the normal WCVB-TV feed in recent years. The channel 5 allocation in Boston was first occupied by the original WHDH-TV, which signed on the air on November 26, 1957. The station was owned by the Boston Herald-Traveler Corporation, along with WHDH radio (850 AM, now WEEI ; and 94.5 FM, now WJMN ). It was originally an ABC affiliate, but switched to CBS in 1961. However, almost as soon as it signed on,

7296-471: The lead at 11 p.m. On May 14, 2007, starting with the 5 p.m. newscast, WCVB began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition , although the majority of the field reports remained in 4:3 standard definition for a few months. The station was the first in the Boston market, as well as New England, to make the transition (the duopoly of KCRA-TV and KQCA in Sacramento, California , were

7410-400: The local television station has no station identification and, from a consumer's point of view, there is no practical distinction between a network and a station, with only small regional changes in programming, such as local television news . To broadcast its programs, a television station requires operators to operate equipment, a transmitter or radio antenna , which is often located at

7524-452: The lottery rights to WNEV-TV (channel 7), which began broadcasting the drawings and all other related broadcast property in August 1987. In 1993, when WHDH-TV (the former WNEV-TV) was purchased by Sunbeam Television , the lottery did not renew the station's contract for another cycle. It was announced soon after that WCVB would acquire the rights. From March 7, 1994, to May 19, 1998, WCVB was

7638-419: The main broadcast. Stations which retransmit or simulcast another may simply pick-up that station over-the-air , or via STL or satellite. The license usually specifies which other station it is allowed to carry. VHF stations often have very tall antennas due to their long wavelength , but require much less effective radiated power (ERP), and therefore use much less transmitter power output , also saving on

7752-407: The main studios in Plattsburgh. However in more recent times, additional reporters based at the Vermont Bureau have been hired. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, WNNE operated its own news department and aired local newscasts. This was progressively cut back after being bought by Heritage, eventually resulting in the elimination of a full news operation in 2007. Later, the only visual difference between

7866-473: The new channel 5, forcing the station to rent tower space for its transmitter from WBZ-TV (channel 4); during the final months of its operation, WHDH-TV was court-ordered to sign off daily at 1 a.m. so that WCVB-TV could test its equipment. WCVB purchased a former International Harvester sales and service facility in Needham to serve as its studio facility along Route 128 , which the station continues to operate from to this day. Although WCVB operates under

7980-413: The newscast expansion "...addresses an expressed need of Boston's viewers by providing additional options to receive NewsCenter 5 at new times". In February 2016, WCVB announced that it would also add a nightly prime time newscast at 10 p.m. on its MeTV subchannel, The 10 O'Clock News on MeTV Boston , beginning February 29, 2016. The 10 p.m. newscast was cut to a half-hour on March 26, 2016; at

8094-486: The official station for Lottery Live , the weeknight broadcasts of the Massachusetts State Lottery drawings. Unlike predecessor host station WHDH, where both Lottery Live weeknight drawings aired between 7:50 and 8 pm, WCVB chose to air the daily Numbers Game at 7:53 (during Chronicle ) while the featured game (e.g., Mass Millions ) aired earlier at 6:50 (during NewsCenter 5 at 6:00 during

8208-451: The other 80%), along with its use predating ESPN's 1979 existence. However, there is no overlap in content or appearance between WCVB's sportscasts and the ESPN program beyond the latter's occasional use of WCVB video with credit for press conference and interview segments. Concurrent with WCVB's sign-on on March 19, 1972, the station began its news operations as News 5 . This branding was used until 1973 when its newscasts were retitled under

8322-442: The program to WBZ-TV and CBS in 2003. On September 8, 1987, WCVB became the Boston home of The Oprah Winfrey Show , having outbid WBZ-TV (which aired the show at 9 a.m. during its first season) for the long-term local syndication rights. For 24 years, Oprah served as the lead-in to WCVB's evening newscasts, first for the 6 p.m. edition of NewsCenter 5 from 1987 to 1994, then moving to 4 p.m. on September 5, 1994, upon

8436-567: The program's three-year run on WCVB. It also served as the runoff program for the various contests associated with the Massachusetts Lottery. One such contest featured contestants playing for a cruise for 20, a Chevrolet Blazer SUV , and $ 25,000 a year for life. Bonus Bonanza was canceled shortly before WCVB's lottery contract ended, airing its final episode in March 1998. The nightly lottery drawings moved back to WBZ-TV two months later on May 20, 1998. The drawings returned to WCVB in August 2004 in

8550-476: The programmes seen on its owner's flagship station, and have no television studio or production facilities of their own. This is common in developing countries . Low-power stations typically also fall into this category worldwide. Most stations which are not simulcast produce their own station identifications . TV stations may also advertise on or provide weather (or news) services to local radio stations , particularly co-owned sister stations . This may be

8664-439: The rights. In the months leading up to the winning bid, WCVB management had asked Janet Langhart to host the nightly lottery drawings if the station won the contract. Langhart was reportedly angered by the proposition, accusing WCVB of trying to minimize her from the role of respected journalist and talk show host, and also inferring a racial motivation behind the offer (Langhart is African American). Ultimately, WCVB lost its bid for

8778-405: The road and broadcasting from locations outside of the Boston area and around the world. Good Day! , along with The Morning Exchange on Cleveland 's WEWS-TV , served as a prototype for the format of ABC's Good Morning America . Good Day! lasted until 1991. During the 1970s, WCVB-TV was the first television station in southern New England to run a 24-hour program schedule. The station ran

8892-412: The same day, Ellen moved to 3 pm, and Inside Edition was moved to the 4 p.m. slot, from the 7 p.m. slot it had held since September 1994. This then freed up 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. for two new newscasts. The 4:30 newscast was stated to be a fast-paced rundown of the day's news, while the 7 p.m. newscast covers longer-length stories of special interest. With the scheduling of

9006-532: The same time Hearst took over WPTZ/WNNE when the LMA with WPTZ was terminated. On June 23, 1999, WPTZ petitioned the FCC to change its community of license (COL) from North Pole to Plattsburgh. The station cited the area's declining population as the reason for the change. The 2000 United States Census did not even count North Pole as a separate community, instead folding it into Lake Placid . The community-of-license change

9120-499: The southeastern part of the market. During the analog era, WPTZ was the only station in the market that did not operate any translators. WNNE's master control was transferred to WPTZ in 2000. Heritage sold all of its broadcasting properties to the Sinclair Broadcast Group in 1997 prior to its merger with News Corporation . The sale protected new Fox affiliate WFFF-TV , which was initially operated by WPTZ under

9234-486: The specialty games ran at 11:10 on weeknights. In 2008, for the first time in the Lottery's broadcast history, midday Numbers Game drawings were introduced, with the results running at the bottom of the screen, at 12:50 p.m. weekdays, during Who Wants to Be a Millionaire . The weeknight Numbers Game drawings became part of NewsCenter 5 Prime Time Update , a five-minute news and weather segment that began airing within

9348-797: The spring and summer of 1994, and during ABC's World News Tonight in the months thereafter). In early 1995, the specialty games moved to 11:10 p.m. (later 11:20) during NewsCenter 5 Tonight . Dawn Hayes, who emceed the drawings on WHDH, was retained as host. Frequent substitute hosts for Hayes on WCVB were Kristen Daly (later a news reporter/anchor for WABU and WLVI ) and Nancy O'Neil, wife of former Red Sox pitcher Dennis Eckersley . The Massachusetts Lottery (in association with Jonathan Goodson ) also backed an hour-long Saturday night game show, Bonus Bonanza , which debuted on February 4, 1995. Hayes served as co-host with Brian Tracey. Bonus Bonanza had randomly drawn contestants play elimination games (similar to The Price Is Right ) to win big cash prizes. At

9462-453: The station announced they were going to revamp their set. After a few weeks of broadcasting from a temporary set put together in the newsroom, the new set debuted. The old set was completely removed and a new set was constructed by FX Group. The set was a major departure from their prior set, which debuted in 2006. One major change made was the elimination of the newsroom as the backdrop for the anchor desk. Also on September 29, 2014, WPTZ debuted

9576-419: The station relocated its studios to a new building located on Old Moffitt Road in Plattsburgh. Rollins merged with Heritage Broadcasting in 1987 to form Heritage Media . In 1990, Heritage Media purchased Hartford, Vermont –based WNNE , which had been a separate station with its own news department. With Heritage's purchase, WNNE was made into a semi-satellite of WPTZ, significantly improving WPTZ's coverage in

9690-458: The station was quick to preempt programs, including underperforming ABC prime time shows. Most of the time, these programs were picked up by independent stations such as WQTV (channel 68, now WBPX-TV ) or Worcester -based WHLL (channel 27, now WUTF-TV ). Since the mid-1990s, WCVB has carried ABC's entire programming schedule, although it occasionally preempts network programming in favor of locally produced specials and movies. Notable examples are

9804-502: The station's call letters to the present WPTZ (for Plattsburgh); the WPTZ call had recently been dropped by the channel 3 facility in Philadelphia (which is now CBS-owned KYW-TV) following its controversial trade by Westinghouse Broadcasting to NBC earlier in that year. Until September 1965, WPTZ was the only station in its market to broadcast network color programs. WPTZ's first studio color cameras were acquired in 1971. In 1979,

9918-462: The station's sports segments are likewise branded as SportsCenter 5 ; weather segments were similarly branded as WeatherCenter 5 prior to 2001. WCVB is believed to be the only local station permitted to use the SportsCenter name, owned by ESPN, for its sportscasts, owing to its ownership by Hearst (which owns 20% of ESPN) and affiliation with ABC (whose parent, The Walt Disney Company , owns

10032-518: The stations were different channel bugs during newscasts. Occasionally when WNNE had technical problems, WPTZ's logo peeked through. In addition to the Upper Valley and Vermont bureaus, WPTZ airs national news from Hearst Television's Washington, D.C. bureau. It employs several reporters who give live reports to the various Hearst affiliates. Although WPTZ and WNNE do not own or operate weather radars of their own, they use live NOAA National Weather Service radar data from several regional sites. It

10146-715: The time, all four of Boston's local news operations, along with New Hampshire's WBIN-TV , had 10 p.m. newscasts in some form, and ratings issues played into the reduction. Beginning with the noon newscast on April 5, 2018, WCVB implemented an updated version of Hearst Television's standardized graphics package for its newscasts, which are now optimized for the full 16:9 letterboxed format. The group-wide roll-out began with Orlando sister station WESH (NBC) in January and ended with sister stations WTAE in Pittsburgh and KMBC in Kansas City (both of which, like WCVB, are also ABC affiliates) on April 23, 2018. Since 1972, WCVB-TV, as

10260-507: The transmitter facility. The cause of the fire was unknown. The outage affected over-the-air and satellite viewers; cable subscribers continued to receive the three stations via direct fiber feeds, while Vidéotron in Quebec temporarily replaced WPTZ with Detroit NBC affiliate WDIV-TV . In September 2006, WPTZ established a daily web video forecast as part of a major revamping of its website. The feature, called "Weather Plus Update", introduced

10374-669: The transmitter was located on Terry Mountain in Peru, New York . The station would have had the call letters WIRY-TV to match its radio sister, but at the time Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations did not allow two stations to share the same base call letters if they were licensed to different cities. The station has been a primary NBC affiliate since its inception; it carried secondary affiliations with ABC until 1968 when WVNY (channel 22) signed on, and with DuMont until that network ceased operations in 1956. Rollins Telecasting purchased channel 5 in 1956. The new owners changed

10488-433: The weather center was expanded to make room for new combined WPTZ/WNNE weather graphics and logos. The remodeling was completed by late-November. WPTZ launched Weather Plus on a new second digital subchannel on November 15 after debuting a new digital signal from Mount Mansfield a day earlier. The service was never offered on WNNE's digital signal even though this had been airing since July 20, 2005. On digital cable, WPTZ-DT2

10602-477: The weekend morning newscast was expanded to three hours, running from 5 a.m. to 8 am. In spring 2013, well-known and popular meteorologist Cindy Fitzgibbon joined WCVB as a weatherperson. Anchor JC Monahan moved to Chronicle and anchor of the 5 p.m. news. Fitzgibbon was on WFXT's morning newscast for nearly a decade, and now appears on the NewsCenter 5 EyeOpener and noon newscasts. In recent years,

10716-724: The weekly New England Patriots show Patriots Preview and Patriots All Access with exclusive one on one sit down interviews with Bill Parcells , Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick . Until 2009 , WCVB's sports department produced Patriots preseason games. These telecasts were also seen on sister station WMTW in Portland, Maine , and WNAC-TV in Providence, Rhode Island . In addition, WCVB formerly preempted ABC programming to air all Patriots games that aired as part of ESPN Sunday Night Football . Presently, this occurs during ESPN Monday Night Football Patriots game telecasts (ESPN

10830-524: Was also critical of the combination of the Herald-Traveler and WHDH-AM-FM-TV. Herald-Traveler Corporation fought the decision in court, but lost in 1972 and Boston Broadcasters was awarded a full license. The local group was led by acoustic expert Leo Beranek . The original WHDH-TV signed off for the last time on March 18, 1972, and was replaced by the new WCVB-TV early the next morning. The Herald-Traveler refused to hand over its facilities to

10944-447: Was approved by the FCC on January 5, 2011. For some time before then, the station had dropped North Pole from its legal station identifications . On July 9, 2012, WPTZ's parent company Hearst Television was involved in a dispute with Time Warner Cable , leading to WPTZ being pulled from Time Warner Cable and temporarily replaced with Nexstar Broadcasting Group station WBRE-TV of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania ; Time Warner opted for such

11058-575: Was carried on Comcast digital channel 169 (serving the Upper Valley), Telecom digital channel 305, and Time Warner Cable digital channel 854. It was never offered on legacy Charter systems in New York State. In December 2008, NBC shut down the national Weather Plus service after its parent company, NBCUniversal , purchased The Weather Channel . WPTZ continued to air a locally-derived version of Weather Plus until August 31, 2009, when it

11172-476: Was chief meteorologist at WLVI until that station's news department shut down two months prior as a result of its purchase by WHDH parent Sunbeam Television, was hired by WCVB as the weekend evening meteorologist. For the February 2007 sweeps ratings period, WCVB placed first in every local news timeslot it competed in. Channel 5 even displaced WHDH in total viewers and the 25–54 demographic at 11 pm, marking

11286-561: Was displayed as part of a donation pledge drive for the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon . The portrait had been covered from view and as the tally had reached a certain amount, a piece of the portrait would be revealed to the viewers until it was completely uncovered, revealing what Fennel looked like. Another staple of 5 All Night was Simon's Sanctorum , a program similar to Elvira's Movie Macabre that showcased old black-and-white horror movies; it

11400-428: Was entrenched with WBZ-TV, and in any event was even less tolerant of preemptions than CBS. More or less by default, WCVB affiliated with ABC. Making good on its promise, WCVB aired more local programming than any other television station in the nation throughout the 1970s and 1980s. One of its local programs, Good Day! , which first premiered in 1973 as Good Morning! , broke ground by taking its entire production on

11514-447: Was hired to take his place shortly thereafter. In August 2009, the station introduced a new format and title to its weeknight newscast at 11. The re-formatted show called NewsChannel 5 Nightcast features more fast-paced and edgier news. Despite its logo which includes "HD", the newscasts were aired in pillar-boxed 4:3 standard definition and it was the only station in the market to not have upgraded local news to high definition. WPTZ

11628-399: Was hosted by a character named Simon (portrayed by Gary Newton), who often referred to his viewing audience as to being "moths lured to a flame" and "Dearly Devoted". Simon's costume consisted of an old top hat, and fluorescent green facial makeup with black circles painted around each eye and gloves that had the fingers cut out of them. To add to an extra eerie effect, a fluorescent black light

11742-433: Was in a period of transition as it saw major competition from a resurgent WHDH-TV. At the same time, the station, known for the longevity and stability of its on-air staff, saw the end of its longtime anchor team of Curtis and Jacobson (as well as their marriage, which ended in divorce at the same time). Jacobson continued to anchor at channel 5, while Curtis left for regional cable news channel New England Cable News , which

11856-470: Was joined by former rival Harvey Leonard who left WHDH to become co-chief meteorologist with Albert. Widely regarded as two of Boston's top meteorologists, Leonard and Albert were honored by the Associated Press in 2005 for "Best Weathercast in New England". Leonard became the sole chief meteorologist following Albert's retirement in February 2009. In February 2007, meteorologist Mike Wankum, who

11970-475: Was jointly owned by Hearst until Comcast bought out its stake in the channel in 2009. Jacobson retired from WCVB on July 18, 2007. In mid-October 2001, WCVB launched its weather radar , "StormTrak 5 Live Doppler", currently known as "Storm Team 5 HD Doppler", becoming the first station in the market to operate its own radar. It is located west of Boston in Hopkinton . In 2002, chief meteorologist Dick Albert

12084-691: Was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 14, using virtual channel 5. It was one of the first stations owned by Hearst to cease analog broadcasting (then-Hearst sister station KITV in Honolulu, Hawaii , was the other). WPTZ previously served as the default NBC affiliate for northern areas of the nearby Watertown, New York, market (most notably Massena ), while WSTM-TV in Syracuse served Watertown proper. Both WPTZ and WSTM-TV lost those statuses on December 1, 2016, when WVNC-LD signed on as

12198-535: Was moving to a brand new broadcast facility in South Burlington, Vermont , in a building that contains both a data center for Keurig Green Mountain and the main offices of Ben & Jerry's . The move took place in July 2019, when WPTZ began broadcasting newscasts in high definition. WPTZ continued to maintain the Television Drive facility for several months in Plattsburgh as a secondary studio, while closing

12312-522: Was not pleased with the prospect of being subjected to numerous preemptions of its programs in the nation's fifth-largest market at the time (as of 2016, it is the seventh-largest ), especially since WCVB would have inherited WHDH's status as CBS's second-largest affiliate and largest on the East Coast. It refused to have anything to do with WCVB, and moved its programming back to WNAC-TV, which had been Boston's original CBS affiliate from 1948 to 1960. NBC

12426-628: Was one of six remaining stations owned by Hearst that has yet to make the upgrade to 16:9 enhanced definition widescreen or full HD, until on April 26, 2011, when WPTZ started airing newscasts in widescreen. However, unlike the newscasts on WCAX-TV and WFFF-TV/WVNY, the WPTZ newscasts at the time were not in true HD—just SD widescreen. In August 2013, WPTZ started airing the area's very first weekend morning news. NewsChannel 5 Today airs on Saturdays from 5 to 7 a.m. and on Sundays from 6 to 8 a.m. This beats WCAX-TV, which had previously announced that they would add weekend morning news. In April 2014,

12540-484: Was replaced with This TV . This marked the network's first foray into the Plattsburgh and Burlington area along with St. Lawrence County in New York and eastern portions of the adjacent Watertown market where WPTZ has long served as the default NBC affiliate on cable. WPTZ-DT2 remained on the three digital cable systems (with a change on Comcast systems to channel 302) while being added to Charter digital channel 296. It

12654-545: Was separated into its own subchannel. While it airs The CW's schedule in-pattern, The Bill Cunningham Show , which aired weekdays at 3 p.m. on many CW affiliates until its cancellation in 2016 , was delayed to 12:30 a.m. until the launch of a separate MeTV subchannel. Since the main WPTZ channel also serves as one of the default NBC affiliates for Massena, New York (along with WSTM-TV in Syracuse ), that area now has access to two CW affiliates when Watertown's WWTI-DT2

12768-622: Was still not carried on a subchannel of WNNE. On January 2, 2013, This TV was replaced on 5.2 by its sister network, MeTV (Memorable Entertainment Television). Both networks were owned at the time by Weigel Broadcasting ( Tribune Broadcasting has since taken over This TV). On March 4, 2013, WPTZ's second digital subchannel assumed the CW affiliation for the Plattsburgh–Burlington market from WFFF-DT2. It continued to air MeTV programming outside CW network slots until September 2014, when MeTV

12882-612: Was then known as Hearst-Argyle Television in return for WNAC-TV in Providence, Rhode Island , and WDTN in Dayton, Ohio ; both of those stations were forced to be divested by Hearst-Argyle due to significant signal overlap with WCVB-TV in Boston and WLWT in Cincinnati (the FCC did not allow common ownership of two stations with overlapping coverage areas until 2000). The swap became official on July 2, 1998. WFFF began operating as an independently-owned and controlled station around

12996-563: Was used to enhance the makeup effect on Simon's face and eyes. His eyes actually glowed by the use of fluorescent paint on a pair of special contact lenses. Boston Broadcasters sold WCVB to Metromedia in 1982 for $ 220 million, the costliest sale ever made for a local station at the time. In 1986, Metromedia sold its television stations to the News Corporation (then-owners of the 20th Century Fox film studio), which later used Metromedia's group of independent stations to launch

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