First on New England One - It seems as if NBC will not be putting up a fight in the negotiations with Sunbeam television for the affiliation renewal for WHDH-TV.
Speculation that NBC would yank its affiliation with WHDH has been going on for months and NBC has made no secret that it would love an owned and operated NBC affiliate in Boston. The current affiliation agreement between NBC and WHDH ends in December 2016.
Sources have told New England One that preparations are being made to move the NBC affiliation away from an Ed Ansin-owned WHDH-TV. Additionally, a source inside WHDH has told New England One that NBC has decided not to renew its agreement with WHDH. On December 23, 2015, Ansin confirmed to The Boston Globe that NBC told the station in September that it would not be renewing its affiliation agreement. Ansin also said that NBC offered Sunbeam $200 million to buy WHDH's broadcast license and broadcast facility. $200 million is a drop in the bucket compared to what Ansin could get if he offers one or both of his stations up in the upcoming FCC incentive auction. The FCC estimates that broadcast stations in the Boston market could sell for $420 to $540 million.
“They are trying to steal our station,” Ansin said of NBC. In a clear sign that Ansin has resigned himself to losing the station he has owned since 1993, he said he would consider selling WHDH, but only if NBC's offer were north of $500 million and included the sale of WLVI in the deal.
“It’s not that I want to sell,” Ansin said to the Globe, but he would look at an offer if the price was right. “Would I consider it? I guess I would have to.”
A source inside WHDH tells New England One that staff at the station were not made aware of the news in advance of Ansin's interview with the Boston Globe, and they had to read about the news when everyone else did.
The bad blood between NBC and Sunbeam Television dates back to 1987 when NBC bought WTVJ-TV in Miami. Sunbeam's station WSVN-TV was the NBC affiliate at the time. CBS was interested in buying WSVN at the time, but Ansin refused saying "There's a general feeling that everything has its price, but, fundamentally, I'm not interested in selling."
Ansin mounted a battle with the FCC and NBC to try and prevent the network from buying WTVJ, and taking the affiliation away from WSVN when its affiliation agreement expired. Like WHDH, NBC was not happy with WSVN. At the time, WSVN heavily preempted the network's daytime lineup, as well as an occasional prime time show. Eventually, Ansin lost his battle and NBC officially moved to WTVJ in January 1989, and WSVN picked up its FOX affiliation on the same day.
In 2009, WHDH got into a public battle with NBC over the networks plan for a nightly 10pm show hosted by Jay Leno that would replace scripted programming. Instead, the station said that it would air news at 10pm. "We feel we have a real opportunity with running the news at 10 p.m.," Ansin told the Boston Globe at the time. "We don't think the Leno show is going to be effective in prime time, it will be detrimental to our 11 o'clock. It will be very adverse to our finances."
NBC was furious, and threatened to strip WHDH of NBC. "WHDH's move is a flagrant violation of the terms of their contract with NBC," said NBC TV Network President John Eck in a statement. "If they persist, we will strip WHDH of its NBC affiliation. We have a number of other strong options in the Boston market, including using our existing broadcast license to launch an NBC-owned and operated station."
Eventually, the station reversed course and bowed to NBC's demands and agreed to run the Leno show, though, they did turn out to be right. WHDH's 11pm news dropped from second place to third, down 20 percent during the November 2009 sweeps period. NBC later canceled the Jay Leno show, and moved him back to late-night.
Back to the present, Sunbeam is now in a precarious situation. Unlike Miami in 1989, there are no big affiliation options in Boston. CBS already owns WBZ, Cox just bought FOX25 and signed a long-term affiliation agreement, and ABC is happy with powerhouse WCVB.
Losing the affiliation of NBC will significantly affect the value of WHDH, much like the value of WISH-TV in Indianapolis was affected when CBS took its affiliation away and moved it to another station. The value was affected significantly enough to force LIN Media to drop the price of the company in its merger with Media General.
At this point, NBC holds all the cards in the affiliation switch. It already owns New England Cable News as well as WNEU-TV, Telemundo Boston. Of course the best outcome for NBC would be in forcing Ansin to sell WHDH, but that isn't very likely as the station already has a contingency plan in place to swap the CW affiliation over to WHDH if they lose NBC. But that isn't certain either... the affiliation agreement for the CW on WLVI is up in August 2016. The ownership of the CW Network is split 50/50 between CBS and Warner Brothers. With CBS owning WBZ, there is no doubt that they would like to drop MyNetwork TV from WSBK in lieu of bringing the CW to a owned and operated station.
So what will happen?
NBC will move the NBC affiliation to WNEU-TV 60 which is now the home of Telemundo Boston, and could easily move Telemundo to a digital sub-channel. The downside of this is reception... the WNEU transmitter is located in Goffstown, NH and the signal is not strong in the entire Boston market. However, most people watch TV via cable, so this not might affect a lot of people. The only possibility of NBC staying on WHDH is if Ansin sells to NBC.
NECN is also currently in the process of renovating their building and infrastructure to full HD capacity.
The move will not affect NECN, it will only enhance the brand and align it with a network affiliated broadcast station. Earlier rumors that NBC would move the affiliation to NECN itself were false. Broadcast stations have certain rights for cable/satellite coverage that NBC would lose if NECN were to become the NBC station. Never mind that the NBC affiliation would be tied to Boston itself, as other areas that NECN is in have their own NBC stations.
NBC is already quietly building its news team for the new station, and has repeatedly declined comment.
Pete Bouchard, who resigned from WHDH-TV on December 15, would be a part of that new team.
Also unconfirmed, we've been told from various sources that Maria Stephanos has been hired to be the main anchor and face of NBC Boston. However, Maria's agent Lisa Hall tells New England One that she has not yet "made any decisions about where she is going next. For now, she is enjoying her time off with her family."
Only time will tell how serious NBC is, but hiring Pete Bouchard seems to be the first shot fired at WHDH. The second shot is NBC's lowball offer for WHDH.
It will certainly be an interesting few months!
7 News/NBC News Promo/WHDH-TV
