WWJE-DT
WWJE-DT is a television station licensed to Derry, New Hampshire, United States, serving the Boston area as an affiliate of True Crime Network. It is owned by TelevisaUnivision alongside Univision-owned station WUNI. The two stations share main studios and transmitter facilities on Parmenter Road in Hudson, Massachusetts. WWJE is operated separately from WUNI's joint sales agreement with Entravision Communications–owned UniMás affiliate WUTF-TV.
WWJE formerly broadcast local newscasts from a studio located in Concord, branded as the NH1 News Network or NH1 News. Besides WBIN, sister radio station WNNH also used the NH1 News branding from August 2015 to August 2017. WBIN-TV was one of only two television stations based in the state of New Hampshire to broadcast local newscasts, as much of the state is part of the Boston media market. On February 17, 2017, WBIN canceled its newscasts as part of a wind-down of the station's operations following the sale of its spectrum in the Federal Communications Commission 's incentive auction.
The station shut down its channel 35 transmitter on Merrill Hill in Hudson, New Hampshire, on September 15, 2017, and began operating on channel 27 through a channel sharing agreement with channel 66 ; the WBIN-TV license was subsequently sold by Carlisle One Media, a company controlled by Bill Binnie, to WUNI's owner, Univision Communications.
History
Prior history of channel 50 in Boston
The channel 50 allocation in the Boston market originally belonged to WXPO-TV, which launched in October 1969. It operated from two studios: its offices and master production facilities were located on Dutton Street in downtown Lowell, Massachusetts; however, its transmitter and "main" studio was on Governor Dinsmore Road in Windham, New Hampshire, to comply with FCC regulations requiring that a station's transmitter be located within of its city of license.However, the station's coverage in many parts of Greater Boston was spotty at best. The station's Lowell studios were located less than from the transmitter of WLLH, making high-quality production impossible during the day due to RF interference with the cameras. Advertisers were scared off when the Lowell Sun blacklisted anyone who bought commercials on the station. Bills went unpaid for several months. By early 1970, 90% of the station's staff was removed from the payroll, although many continued with the station, believing it could pull through. The Lowell studio was closed down that spring; finally, in June the power company pulled the plug at the Windham studios during a Maverick rerun, taking WXPO off the air.
On July 17, 1973, channel 50 returned to the air with a test transmission, with plans to return the station to the air later that year, possibly as New Hampshire's CBS affiliate. Those plans never materialized, and the WXPO-TV license was deleted in 1975.
WNDS
The current iteration of channel 50 signed on the air on September 5, 1983, as WNDS, an independent station known on-air as "The Winds of New England." It was owned by CTV of Derry, a company not related to the CTV Television Network in Canada. The program included some cartoons like Scooby-Doo and Super Friends in the morning hours, religious shows like The 700 Club late in the morning, sitcoms on midday afternoons, cartoons for an hour or so after 3 p.m., more sitcoms in the evenings and late nights, and a movie in prime time. Sitcoms came from the Viacom and Paramount libraries, including such well-known series as I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley and The Andy Griffith Show, among others.The station acquired some of the programming assets of WNHT in 1989 after that station shut down on March 31; the deal did not include the channel 21 license or WNHT's CBS affiliation. In the 1990s, the station increased cartoons a bit and began running more recent sitcoms and drama shows.
In 1996, WNDS added programming from the Global Shopping Network overnights. In January 1997, the station began running Global Shopping Network programming 15 hours a day, with entertainment programming continuing from 3 to 11 p.m. On April 5, 1997, GSN began programming the station full-time with a 24-hour home shopping format as part of a planned purchase of the station. However, GSN soon ran into financial problems; after it missed a payment for the station, CTV of Derry canceled the sale and reverted WNDS to its previous general entertainment format that June. CTV held onto channel 50 until 2004, when it sold the station to Shooting Star Broadcasting.
WZMY-TV
Soon after assuming control, in August 2005, Shooting Star Broadcasting announced that WNDS would change its call letters to WZMY-TV and its branding to "My TV". At that time, the station overhauled its schedule, based on viewer responses on the old WNDS website. The changes were implemented on-air on September 26, 2005.On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of a new network called MyNetworkTV, which created in response to another upstart network that was also set to launch that September, The CW.
Since WZMY had already filed a trademark in mid-2005 for use of the "MyTV" name, it was speculated that WZMY would take legal action against News Corporation over its similar name. Ultimately on July 21, 2006, WZMY's My TV Club newsletter announced that the station would become the region's MyNetworkTV affiliate – giving channel 50 the first network affiliation in its history – this was later revealed on July 24 to the media and visitors to WZMY's website, and to the general public on July 26. Until the announcements were made, Boston and Southern New Hampshire had been the largest market where MyNetworkTV had not yet signed a full-time affiliate. With WZMY affiliating with MyNetworkTV upon the network's launch on September 5, 2006, the station continued to use its "My TV" branding, though the logo was changed to reflect MyNetworkTV's logo scheme.
In December 2009, the station laid off seven employees as part of strategy change to streamline operations and change some of the programming options to be more hyperlocal. Operation of WZMY was taken over by New Age Media, LLC, making it a sister station to WPXT and WPME in Portland, Maine. The station added a digital subchannel affiliated with Universal Sports in June 2010.
WBIN-TV
On March 3, 2011, Portsmouth-based Carlisle One Media, Inc., a company controlled by Bill Binnie, announced that it had reached an agreement to purchase WZMY-TV. The sale was completed on May 17; ten days later, the call letters were changed to WBIN-TV. It also dropped the "My TV New England" branding, choosing to refer to itself using its call letters.Binnie originally indicated that WBIN-TV would retain its affiliations with MyNetworkTV and Universal Sports; however, the station announced on June 15 that it would leave MyNetworkTV and become an independent again as part of an increased local emphasis, with the service's programming moving to WSBK-TV on September 19, while Universal Sports restructured itself into a cable- and satellite-only channel in January 2012, then shut down in October 2015. Nonetheless, the station added an additional subchannel, carrying TheCoolTV, in October 2011; additionally, it replaced Universal Sports with Live Well Network on January 1, 2012. In July 2012, WBIN-TV terminated its affiliation with TheCoolTV; it was replaced with WeatherNation TV on January 14, 2013. The station also made moves to strengthen its programming, including the addition of Entertainment Tonight and The Insider on September 10, 2012. In December 2014, Grit replaced WeatherNation TV on their DT3 sub-channel. In January 2015, Live Well Network was replaced with "WBIN Classics" on the DT2 sub-channel, featuring original programming as well as programming from the Antenna TV network.
WBIN was the flagship of Binnie Media, a group that also included WYCN-LP in Nashua and 16 northern New England radio stations formerly owned by Nassau Broadcasting Partners.
Spectrum sale; relaunch as WWJE-DT
On February 17, 2017, Binnie Media announced that WBIN-TV had sold its spectrum in the FCC's spectrum incentive auction for $68.2 million; concurrently, the station's "remaining television license rights" would be acquired by an undisclosed "major television group" for an estimated $10–30 million in what it described as a "channel-sharing sale". In a statement, Bill Binnie said that the sale "makes WBIN-TV one of the most valuable media properties in the history of New Hampshire media." Binnie Media also announced that WBIN-TV would "cease broadcasting in the coming months", with proceeds from the sale going toward the acquisition of additional digital, outdoor, and radio assets.On May 4, 2017, WBIN-TV filed to channel-share with WUTF-DT. In the channel sharing agreement, reached on January 11, 2016, the stations agreed to grant put and call rights that could result in WUTF's owner, Univision Local Media, acquiring the WBIN license; under the terms of the agreement, Univision would be required to change WBIN-TV's call letters as a condition of the sale. Univision exercised its option to buy the WBIN-TV license for $16,764,133.70 on May 8, 2017. WBIN-TV ceased broadcasting on channel 35 on September 15, 2017, and began to share channel 27 with WUTF-DT; as of 2017, only WBIN's main channel is broadcast using virtual channel 50. WBIN-TV began phasing out its syndicated programming following the announcement of the spectrum sale; by December 2017, the station's schedule consisted primarily of Antenna TV programming, with the talk show Harry serving as its last syndicated program. Univision's purchase of the station was completed on December 21, 2017; the station then became a Justice Network affiliate. The call letters were changed to WWJE-DT on January 12, 2018.
Antenna TV was absent from the Boston TV market until it was picked up by WCRN-LD on May 5, 2020. Grit is now carried on the primary channel of WDPX-TV.