WSBK-TV was a former UPN television station for eastern Massachusetts, United States and southern New Hampshire that is licensed to Boston. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 39 (previously 38) from a transmitter along the Needham and Wellesley town line southwest of the MA 9 and I-95 / MA 128 interchange. Owned by the CBS Corporation, the station is sister to CBS owned-and-operated affiliate WBZ-TV. The two share studios on Soldiers Field Road in the Brighton section of Boston.
History[]
In 1994, New World made a landmark deal with Fox to switch most of its CBS, ABC, and NBC affiliated stations to Fox. WSBK remained an independent station and was eventually put up for sale again to protect WFXT, which Fox would acquire soon afterward. The station was then sold to Paramount Stations Group (which would become a subsidiary of Viacom that same year) and became a charter UPN affiliate in 1995; that June, the longtime "TV 38" branding was retired in favor of "UPN 38".[2] Originally, the station continued to run the same type of programming with UPN's schedule added. The Movie Loft was put to rest because Dana Hersey retired, the movie packages were not of the quality they had been before and ratings for the show had dropped. WSBK later revived the genre with The UPN 38 Movie House, hosted by actor and comedian Brian Frates; in the early 2000s, it also attempted a revival of The Movie Loft hosted by Skip Kelly. The station also began to lose its relationship with the local sports teams.
For some time after affiliating with UPN, WSBK continued to air primarily cartoons and classic sitcoms. By 1997, however, the station began mixing in more talk and reality shows, with older shows being gradually phased out. WSBK eliminated afternoon cartoons by 2000, and morning cartoons disappeared in 2003, when UPN discontinued the Disney's Animation Weekdays block. By 2002, the station was running a blend of talk shows, court shows, and reality shows from 9 a.m. through the late afternoon, with recent off network sitcoms continuing in the evenings.
In 2001, after Viacom's merger with the previous CBS Corporation, WSBK moved its studios and offices to WBZ-TV's building. The former WSBK building now occupies some of corporate sibling CBS Radio's Boston radio stations. Under CBS, WSBK began sharing some first run syndicated shows with WBZ-TV. In 2005, 4KidsTV runs WSBK-TV every Saturday morning from 7 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. until September 15, 2006.