Boston metro: the relationship between WCVB and WXNE (now WFXT)

[Steve N.]

I don't know how many of you have noticed this, but it seems to me that WCVB may have been LMA-ing non-religious time on what was then WXNE. Some examples:

1. WCVB did a news report in October 1977 trumpeting the arrival of a brand new TV station on the Friday before Columbus Day, and let's face it, what TV station celebrates the arrival of competition?

2. A lot of WCVB's programming (Bonanza, The Big Valley, Mission: Impossible) was on WXNE by the fall of 1978.

3. Rex Trailer's "Boomtown" was on WXNE, and was directed by G. David Sanborn, who was over at WCVB at the time.

4. Much of the Worldvision and Taft/H-B cartoons (before Taft bought Worldvision) was on WXNE, with two exceptions (one of them glaring): "The Funky Phantom" was the only one from the "Fun World" package not seen on WXNE, and "Hanna-Barbera's World Of Super Adventure" was seen on WCVB instead of WXNE. The reason: WXNE owner Pat Robertson wanted no programming referring to ghosts on his airwaves, except for that referring to the Holy Ghost. (BTW, that meant no "Casper" or "Scooby-Doo" either - "Casper" showed up on WFXT just months after Robertson sold WXNE to Fox.)