Re: Channel 9 to Boston

[Dan.Strassberg@att.net]

Your question suggested a great question for our historians. I remember, about 
half a century ago, before I came to Boston, some group owner proposed buying 
channel 9 and moving it into the Boston market. I think this proposal dates to 
the time when many companies, including CBS, were trying to obtain a 
construction permit for Channel 5. CBS, which wanted to build WEEI-TV, was 
actually the first company to propose a transmitter site in the Newton-Needham 
area. I think one of the applicants--maybe Storer Broadcasting--decided that it 
might be easier to buy and relocate Channel 9 than to continue on as one of the 
many parties in the competitive hearing process for channel 5.

Can anyone identify the time frame with greater precision, the company that 
proposed the move, and the North Shore community that the company proposed as 
the new COL. (It WAS NOT one of the larger communities, such as Beverly; I 
think it was a community close to Rowley, but not Rowley.) If I recall, there 
were technical considerations that made a move all the way to Boston 
impossible. I think the issue was minimum spacing to Channel 10 in Providence. 
This proposal was made decades before NIMBYism became an "in" thing, so I think 
the 1000+-ft tower might just have been possible in that affluent suburban area.

And no, I DON'T know the answers to these questions.
--
dan.strassberg@att.net
617-558-4205
eFax 707-215-6367

> My wife asked me to pose these questions:
> 
> 1.  Is Mariellen (sp) Burns (Boston PD spokesperson) the same
> person as used to be on Channel 9 and Channel 4?
> 
> 2.  Why do channel 9 people end up on boston stations
> other than channel 5?