NBC to drop Boston TV affiliate


Details

Michelle Clancy

| 10 January 2016




NBC is dropping its affiliation with Boston's local TV station WHDH when its contract ends and instead will launch a network-owned station in the city by next January.



A network memo says it will build a local news team in Boston, and already has a head start with operations of New England Cable News and Telemundo there.

WHDH owner Ed Ansin has gone to his senator, Edward Markey (D-MA), with concerns about the public interest and promises a legal fight over the decision. “I have a feeling a year from now we will still be the NBC affiliate," Ansin says. "That’s how serious we think the violations are.”

Ansin, who has sparred with NBC over the years, said the network told him it might move programming to New Hampshire station WNEU-TV. He's concerned whether it violates the public interest to move NBC programming to a station that reaches half the viewers as WHDH.