Lottery 4 New England

["Mark" <markbeth@netway.com>]

According to today's(4/11)Boston Herald,WBZ-TV CH 4 won the rights to show
the Massachusetts State Lottery drawings live every night starting May
1,thus ending WCVB CH 5's several years of holding the lottery
rights.according to the article,CH 4's bid to the Lottery Commission stated
they would have promotional tie ins with their co-owned radio
stations,although the article only mentioned WBZ radio specifically,I read
it as all their radio properties in Boston will be involved.Also,WBZ-TV
said they would produce(at WBZ's expense)TV specials for the lottery.I
wonder if this will make for better ratings for News 4 New England at
11PM,and during Entertainment Tonight,which both air when lottery drawings
take place.I believe they are at least third place(if not worse)in both
those time slots currently.Will this hurt CH 5's long time dominance of the
11PM news wars,and will Chronicle which airs at 7:30 suffer further
slippage in ratings?They are a decent second behind Jeopardy on CH 7,ET on
CH 4 has always lagged in third place.                                     
                                                                           
         Mark Watson

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