40 years ago - Boston became a 2 newspaper town

[Kevin Vahey]

The worse part of the entire WHDH/WCVB saga was that BBI turned out to
be frauds.

>From the beginning WCVB was shaped by Metromedia and after a decade or
so BBI cashed out. The first WCVB GM was Bob Bennett and he was a
Metromedia guy. Of course Metromedia would cash out to Rupert Murdoch
and FOX decided they could cover Boston with WFXT and sold WCVB off to
Hearst.

BBI did do some great things but the old WHDH-TV was a fine broadcaster.

The whole cross ownership rules were a joke back then ( see Chicago
Tribune with WGN and WPIX )







On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 11:18 PM, Mark Laurence <marklaurence@mac.com> wrote:
> On Jun 17, 2012, at 11:01 PM, Kevin Vahey wrote:
>
>> This is semi-broadcast related but Monday will mark the 40th
>> anniversary of the Boston Herald Traveler ending as they the H-T sold
>> the plant and trademarks to Hearst...
>> I still rank it as the biggest tragedy in Boston broadcast history as
>> the H-T ran a top notch service. Everybody played games with the FCC
>> back then but the H-T angered the wrong people starting with Joe
>> Kennedy.
>
> It might have been the biggest newspaper tragedy, but I'd say Channel 5 got better when it became WCVB. The newspaper's almost-fatal mistake was to take on the identity of the Herald Traveler instead of the Record American.   What a mess, including the convoluted name - Boston Herald Traveler and Record American in the morning, Record American and Boston Herald Traveler in the afternoon.  Eventually they reversed that decision and went tabloid, too late for Hearst to save it but in time for Rupert Murdoch and Wingo.  That was the biggest boost that Boston newspaper competition has had in my lifetime.