MyTV joins MyNetwork

[Dan Strassberg]

Early in the life of Channel 9, George B Storer (best known as an (AM) radio
mogul) wanted to buy WMUR-TV and move its transmitting tower to Georgetown
MA on the North Shore, making the station into a Boston-maket station.
Untill the Channel 5 competition was straigtened out, Channel 9 would have
been Boston's third network affiliate and presumably would have retained the
ABC affiliation because ABC was then decidedly the least desirable network
and the northerly transmitter site would have made Channel 9 the market's
poorest VHF facility. (Proximity to Channel 10 in Providence precluded a
site closer to Boston.) I'm not sure which of many possible reasons was
responsible for the demise of the Channel 9 move, but I'm sure that Scott
and/or Donna can enlighten us.

--
Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@att.net
eFax 707-215-6367

----- Original Message -----
From: "A. Joseph Ross" <joe@attorneyross.com>
To: "Doug Drown" <revdoug1@verizon.net>
Cc: <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2006 12:43 PM
Subject: Re: MyTV joins MyNetwork


> On 22 Jul 2006 at 14:58, Doug Drown wrote:
>
> > Good question --- and one which raises a couple more.  I understand
> > that WMUR-TV was originally a CBS affiliate, but switched to ABC back
> > around 1960 or thereabouts.  The station has changed hands twice in
> > the past thirty years; with each change in ownership, have the other
> > networks tried to wrest it away from that ABC affiliation?  And . . .
> > Why ABC?  It gives the network a very advantageous toehold in the
> > state.  (I guess if I were an exec with Disney/ABC, I'd have my answer
> > right there.)
>
> When we moved to Bedford, MA in 1957, WMUR-TV was even then an ABC
> affiliate.  I don't think it's ever been anything else.  At that
> time, before channel 5 was on the air in Boston, and long before
> channel 6 in New Bedford, it was the only ABC-affiliated station
> around, and its signal reached at least the northern suburbs of
> Boston (in the early 70s, I used to be able to get it rather well in
> Brookline, at the apartment where I lived at that time).
>
> At the time, ABC also had a lighter schedule than the other two
> networks  -- for awhile they had hardly any daytime programming at
> all -- which left room for local and syndicated programming.  Even
> after Channel 5 came on, Channel 9 often had programming that wasn't
> available anywhere else in the Boston area.
>
> --
> A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
>  15 Court Square, Suite 210                 Fax 617.742.7581
> Boston, MA 02108-2503                    http://www.attorneyross.com
>
>