WBZ-TV

WBZ-TV, virtual channel 4, is a CBS owned-and-operated television station, located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. WBZ-TV's studios and office facilities, shared with sister station WSBK-TV (channel 38), are located in the Allston-Brighton section of Boston, and its transmitter is located in Needham, Massachusetts.

As an NBC affiliate
WBZ-TV began operations on June 9, 1948, as the first commercial television station in Boston and New England. The station was founded by Westinghouse Radio Stations (later to become Westinghouse Broadcasting, also known as Group W), a subsidiary of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, along with WBZ radio (1030 AM). The station immediately joined NBC owing to WBZ radio's long affiliation with NBC Radio. It is the only television station to have been built from the ground up by Westinghouse.

The station was knocked off the air August 31, 1954, when Hurricane Carol toppled the station's self-supporting tower over its studios. A temporary transmitter was installed on a nearby tower and later on the original tower of WNAC-TV (channel 7, now WHDH-TV). In 1957, WBZ-TV began broadcasting from a 1200-foot (366 m) tower in Needham. The tower site is now known as the CBS Digital Television Broadcasting Facility, and is used by several Boston-area television stations, including WGBH-TV (channel 2) and WCVB-TV (channel 5).

Channel 4 nearly lost its NBC affiliation in 1955 when Westinghouse balked at NBC's initial offer to trade sister stations KYW radio and WPTZ-TV (now KYW-TV) in Philadelphia in exchange for the network's radio and television combination in Cleveland, Ohio. In response, NBC threatened to yank its programming from both WBZ-TV and WPTZ unless Westinghouse agreed to the trade. The swap was made in 1956, but Westinghouse immediately complained to the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Justice Department about NBC's extortion. In 1965, the FCC ordered the swap reversed without NBC realizing any profit on the deal.

WBZ-TV (sometimes informally referred to as "BZ" both on- and off-air) was a pioneer in Boston television. In 1948, it began live broadcasts of Boston's two Major League Baseball teams, the Red Sox and the Braves, broadcasts that at first were split with WNAC. It was also the first Boston station to have daily newscasts, starting with the station's very first night on the air.

In the mid-1960s, it adopted the Eyewitness News format that had been pioneered at KYW-TV.

Bob Emery and Boomtown
The station also broadcast many locally-produced programs over the years. One of the most beloved was the long-running Big Brother Bob Emery show, hosted by veteran radio performer Emery, who first did the show on Boston-area radio in 1921 and who in 1947 hosted the first five-times-a-week children's show on network television on DuMont. For nearly two decades, from 1956 until 1974, Rex Trailer hosted a popular weekend-morning children's show called Boomtown. For part of that time, Boomtown originated from an outdoor "western town" set built next to WBZ-TV's studios. In 2005, WBZ aired a special documentary film directed by Michael Bavaro titled "Rex Trailer's Boomtown" featuring old clips and interviews with childhood fans like Jay Leno, Steven Wright, Tom Bergeron, Jimmy Tingle, and many others. The broadcast master in now part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Television & Radio in New York City.

Evening Magazine
In April 1977, Evening Magazine premiered on the station. A weeknight magazine series that originated on sister station KPIX, it spread to all other Group W stations in the late 1970s before its distribution to non-Westinghouse stations as PM Magazine. On WBZ, the original hosting teams were Robin Young and Marty Sender (1977–1980); Sender and Candace Hasey (1980–1981); and Sender and Sara Edwards (1981–1982). Later, Edwards and Barry Nolan became the longest running hosts of the program (1982–1990). Evening enjoyed an over-13-year run, the last nine of which had it compete directly with WCVB's newsmagazine Chronicle. In 1990, due to a decline in the franchise's popularity and tabloid TV magazines heralding bigger ratings and revenue, Group W canceled Evening/PM, with the last WBZ broadcast in December of that year.

From January 1991 to September 1992, WBZ aired a new, locally-produced magazine series in the time slot, The 7:30 Report, that specialized in investigative reports. Randy Price was the principal anchor. Then, from September 1992 until September 2010, WBZ aired Entertainment Tonight (which it had acquired from WHDH-TV) at 7:30pm. That show has been syndicated by CBS since 2006.

Live on 4
WBZ was the first Boston station to have regularly scheduled late-afternoon news. In the 1970s, the station aired First 4 News at 5:30pm, anchored by Gail Harris. On Monday, July 21, 1979, a new format premiered in this time slot; Live on 4, a more infornal program mixing elements of a daytime talk show in with those of a traditional newscast, went on to become a trendsetter in the Boston market in the 1980s. At first anchored by Gail Harris and Chris Mannou, it later had hosting assumed by many others on the WBZ staff, including entertainment reporter Joyce Kulhawik and news anchor Chris Conangla in the mid-1980s. Live on 4 gave a loose preview of the news to be covered more in depth at 6 and 11, with featuring stories on lifestyle, health and entertainment topics, along with live, in-studio guests. The program expanded to an hour (starting at 5pm) in the early '80s.

At one point, WCVB considered launching a competing program that was similarly structured (to be anchored by Peter Mehegan and Mary Richardson, who later became the long-running anchor team on Chronicle), but it was WNEV who made three attempts at a Live on 4-inspired show. First, they premiered the two hour live talk/magazine show Look in the fall of 1982. After a year of disappointing ratings, Look was trimmed to an hour and retitled New England Afternoon. This, too, failed in the Nielsens, and was canceled in 1984. Three years later, WNEV tried the even more news-oriented copy New England News: Live at Five, which essentially became Boston's first proper 5pm newscast, although it still featured the informal structure of Live on 4. Live at Five was a rare success in the ratings for WNEV's news, but in 1988, the format's creator, anchor Dave Wright (who imported it from ATV in Toronto), left the station following a feud between his news producers. WNEV's 5pm news became a completely regular newscast thereafter, with its talent seated on the regular news set.

With syndicated news and tabloid programming becoming more the norm in the late '80s and early '90s, Live on 4, like Evening Magazine, was starting to become of lesser importance to Group W. In 1991, after a 12-year-run, Live on 4 bid farewell in favor of popular syndicated entries like A Current Affair. WBZ would turn the 5:30 half-hour over to Eyewitness News, which would eventually expand into 5pm in 1993.

People Are Talking
People Are Talking, (1980–1993) a live early-afternoon talk show aired on WBZ, as it did on some other Westinghouse stations. In Boston, it was originally hosted by Nancy Merrill and later by Buzz Luttrell, but the best-known host was the program's last, Tom Bergeron.

Miscellaneous
WBZ carried The Oprah Winfrey Show during its first nationally syndicated year (1986–1987), where it aired mornings. Despite its overnight success, WBZ had little interest in keeping the show as a part of its schedule (partially because the station wanted to give priority to the upcoming Group W-distributed talk show, The Wil Shriner Show). The following September,Oprah moved to a 5pm time slot on WCVB, where it became an institution (later moving to 4pm in 1994) and will continue to air until the show's 25-year run ends on September 9, 2011.

 NBC has traditionally been less tolerant of preemptions than the other networks and had to find alternate independent stations to air whatever programs that BZ did not air. Despite this, NBC was generally satisfied with WBZ-TV, which was one of NBC's strongest affiliates. As a sidebar, sister station KYW-TV in Philadelphia (then NBC's largest affiliate) also heavily preempted NBC programming, but it spent most of the 1980s and 1990s as NBC's weakest major-market affiliate.As an NBC affiliate, the station was known to preempt several hours of network programming a day — a common practice among Group W stations. This was significant, since WBZ-TV was NBC's second-largest affiliate in the Eastern Time Zone. It primarily preempted several daytime morning programs. On January 3, 1983, when People Are Talking expanded to one hour, WBZ-TV dropped NBC's Another World,which would move to WQTV (now WBPX) until the fall of 1987, when the show moved to WHLL (now WUNI-TV) and later to WMFP in the early 1990s. The station also dropped many Saturday morning cartoons in 1990, even though NBC later abandoned such programming in favor of live-action, teen-oriented shows, such as Saved by the Bell.

In the early 1980s, WBZ-TV lost its longtime spot as Boston's highest-rated news station to WCVB, but even then was a strong second for more than a decade. Its evening news team — anchors Liz Walker and Jack Williams, meteorologist Bruce Schwoegler and sportscaster Bob Lobel — was the longest-running news team in New England from 1980 until Walker moved to the noon newscasts in 2000. Other personalities who came to channel 4 during this time were entertainment reporter Joyce Kulhawik and political reporter John Henning. Williams is still at channel 4 today; Walker gave up anchoring duties in 2005 and hosted a Sunday morning talk show for several years before leaving the station in October 2008.

Transition
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">In 1994, sister station WJZ-TV in Baltimore lost its affiliation with ABC after that network announced a deal with the E.W. Scripps Company to switch all but two of Scripps' television stations (including its Baltimore outlet, WMAR-TV) to ABC. Westinghouse felt betrayed by ABC's decision, and as a safeguard began shopping for affiliation deals for the entire Group W television unit. Group W eventually struck an agreement to switch WBZ-TV, KYW-TV, and WJZ-TV to CBS (Westinghouse's two other stations, in Pittsburgh and San Francisco, were already CBS affiliates).

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">The Boston market's third network affiliation switch took place on January 2, 1995. After a 47-year relationship with NBC, channel 4 became the third station in Boston to align with CBS. The network had originally affiliated with WNAC-TV in 1948, then moved to channel 5 (then known as WHDH-TV) in 1961. It then returned to WNAC-TV (the current WHDH-TV) in 1972 and stayed there until the switch. As a CBS affiliate, WBZ-TV airs the entire CBS schedule with no pre-emptions except for local news emergencies, as per Westinghouse's agreement with CBS.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">When Westinghouse merged with CBS outright in early 1996, WBZ-TV became a CBS-owned and operated station. As a condition of the merger, CBS had to sell recently-acquiredWPRI-TV (channel 12) in Providence, Rhode Island. Channel 4 provides at least grade B coverage of all of Rhode Island, and city-grade coverage of Providence itself as well as Fall Riverand New Bedford. At the time, the FCC normally did not allow common ownership of two stations with overlapping signals, and wouldn't even consider a waiver for stations with overlapping city-grade signals.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">In 1996, WBZ-TV became the first former Group W station to drop the classic Group W font.

As a CBS-owned station
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Although the station tends to rank #1 in daytime and primetime ratings, Channel 4's local news ratings have suffered since the switch in network affiliations. This is partly because at the time of the switch, CBS was well behind NBC in the network ratings. Taken as a whole, its local news is the lowest rated of Boston's "Big 3" affiliates, having dipped behind a resurgent WHDH-TV as well. In January 2006, attempting to bolster its local news ratings, Channel 4 reinstated its 5 pm news and dismissed its former lead anchor Josh Binswanger, leading to the return of long-time anchor Jack Williams to the prime-time newscasts. In addition, Ed Carroll's contract was not renewed and in October 2005 the station hired Ken Barlow fromKARE-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to replace him as chief meteorologist.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">In late August 2006, WBZ-TV ended its 4 pm weekday newscast and hired anchor Chris May from WHDH-TV. May, along with Sara Underwood, anchored the 5 p.m. weekday news on WBZ-TV. May has since moved to sister station KYW-TV in Philadelphia, and Underwood's contract with the station was not renewed. She left the station on March 4, 2008. As of September 18, 2006, WHDH now airs the only 4 p.m. weekday newscast in the Boston area.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">In January 2007, the station launched Project Mass,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-0" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; ">[1] a commitment to cover the community's top concerns in government, transit, healthcare, education, finance, and the environment. The initiative kicked-off with an online town meeting.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Channel 4 has changed its news and station branding continuously since the affiliation switch, from "Eyewitness News" to "WBZ News 4" to "News 4 New England" to "WBZ 4 News". On February 1, 2004, WBZ rebranded itself as "CBS4," as per the CBS Mandate.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">The "CBS4" branding was phased-out during the first quarter of 2007 and, as of February 2007, the station's newscast title was reverted from "CBS 4 News" to "WBZ News". The return of "WBZ-TV" and "WBZ News" took place Sunday, February 4, 2007, during the station's coverage of the Super Bowl.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-1" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; ">[2] This makes the station the first station owned by CBS to depart from the CBS Mandate standardization since. It joins sister stations KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, WCCO-TV in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis-St._Paul Minneapolis-St. Paul], WWJ-TV in Detroit and WJZ-TV in Baltimore in not following the Mandate currently. General manager Ed Piette told The Boston Globe that he decided to ditch the "CBS4" branding when he arrived in Boston for his first day of work and a cabbie asked him, "Whatever happened to WBZ?" Piette hopes to reemphasize WBZ-TV's local identity—a strategy that worked well when he was general manager at WCCO-TV, ironically another station that doesn't follow the CBS Mandate.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-2" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; ">[3]

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">After the 2000 acquisition of CBS by its former subsidiary, Viacom, WBZ-TV's operations were merged with that of Boston's UPN affiliate, WSBK-TV, and later with WLWC-TV, the UPN affiliate in nearby Providence. Today, the operations of WBZ-TV and WSBK-TV are co-located at WBZ's studios in Brighton. WLWC was sold in 2006 to the Four Points Media Group, a broadcaster controlled by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">WBZ's on-air staff continued to change in late 2007, when longtime morning anchor Scott Wahle was re-assigned and replaced by former WFXT anchor David Wade. In January 2008, longtime morning and midday meteorologist Barry Burbank was re-assigned to the weekend programs. He was replaced by meteorologist Todd Gutner.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">On February 29, 2008, it was reported that the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike caused a significant loss in viewers during the late news. WBZ-TV finished with an average of 157,800 total viewers, down from 177,800 viewers in 2007.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-3" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; ">[4]

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">On April 1, 2008, CBS' owned-and-operated television stations division ordered widespread budget cuts and staff layoffs from its stations. As a result of the budget cuts, roughly 30 staffers were released from WBZ-TV and WSBK-TV, including longtime sports director Bob Lobel, entertainment reporter Joyce Kulhawik, and WSBK anchor Scott Wahle. Lobel left channel 4 on May 16, while Kulhawik and Wahle left on May 29 and 30, respectively. Steve Burton is now the new sports director, while the position that Kulhawik held was eliminated. Jack Williams filled in for the 9 p.m. spot in the interim. It was announced on June 6 that reporter and now former-weekend anchor Kate Merrill will anchor the news, along with general assignment duty weekdays at 5 and 6 p.m. Lobel recently became "Guest" Co-Host of the morning show on CBS Radio owned WODS "Oldies 103.3", though whether this position is to be a permanent one has yet to be known. Even with the budget cuts at CBS, WBZ-TV's 11 p.m. newscast has been number one in its time slot in the last three ratings periods.

Coverage area
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">WBZ-TV's transmitter and antenna are located in Needham, Massachusetts on the same tower as WCVB-TV, WGBH-TV, WGBX-TV and WSBK-TV's HDTV transmitter. In fact, the tower and site are owned by CBS itself. Its signal covers Greater Boston, southern New Hampshire, extreme southern Maine, northern Rhode Island and northeastern Connecticut. WBZ-TV is also one of six local Boston TV stations seen in Canada to subscribers of the Bell TV satellite service, and is also seen on most cable systems in Atlantic Canada.

Digital television
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">As part of the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, WBZ-TV shut down its analog transmitter on June 12, 2009,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Analog_to_Digital_4-0" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; ">[5] and continued to broadcast on its pre-transition digital channel 30.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FCCForm387_5-0" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; ">[6] However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers displayed WBZ-DT's virtual channel 4.

Lottery
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">WBZ-TV was a local television pioneer in lottery. It was the first station to air official lottery drawing results from the Massachusetts State Lottery in 1975. During the 6pm hour ofEyewitness News, graphic slides featuring the official state lottery and The Numbers Game logos would appear with the nightly results from the Boston and Tri-State regions. This would continue in varied forms, usually as the newscast went to commercial break, for almost a decade.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">In the spring of 1984, WBZ introduced local live lottery drawings. In response to the Mass. State Lottery's expansion into a second major sweepstakes, Megabuck$, WBZ, in conjunction with them, created Lottery Live, a series of hosted, 1 minute machine drawings done live in the studio. Done in the style of a game-show format (albeit truncated), it meant to not only let viewers see the process of lottery results, but to generate excitement and interest into the Mass. State Lottery. Hosted by Tom Bergeron, who was then a contributor on Evening Magazine, Lottery Live aired the daily Numbers Game following the last main segment of Evening at 7:55 weeknights. Twice a week, following the conclusion of Evening at 7:58, theMegabuck$ drawings would air. The Numbers Game would also air at 7:55 on Saturdays.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">The station holds the record for having the longest initial involvement with the Mass. State Lottery (12 years), culminating in its decision to release the lottery rights to another station in 1987. Both WCVB and WNEV (present-day WHDH-TV) were in the running for picking up the rights; in the end, the torch was passed to WNEV, who saw the acquisition as helping their station revenues and key ratings periods (their news was continually third-place). The CBS affiliate continued the Lottery Live title and format with different hosts, upon its move in September 1987. WNEV/WHDH aired Lottery Live for seven seasons, until new ownership terminated the contract, upon which WCVB had their turn to air the games (from 1994–1998).

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Eleven years after leaving its original station, Lottery Live would return to WBZ in May 1998, with long-time host Dawn Hayes (from the WNEV/WHDH era) still at the helm. By this time, in addition to The Numbers Game still airing six nights a week at 7:53, late night airings (during the 11pm news) drew Mass Million$ (began 1987), Mass Ca$h (1991) and The Big Game(1996), in addition to Megabuck$, on individual nights. Due to new limited contacts permitting the local stations to carry Lottery Live for only three years at a time, WBZ moved the games to sister station WSBK-TV in 2001.

Special events
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Over the past few years, WBZ-TV and parent CBS have co-produced a live telecast of the annual Boston Pops' July 4 concert at Boston's Hatch Shell along the Charles River. The entire concert is broadcast live locally by WBZ. The CBS network joins the show in progress at 10 p.m. to show the Pops' signature versions of "1812 Overture" and "Stars and Stripes Forever," as well as the fireworks over the Charles. Live coverage of the event was broadcast in high-definition for the first time beginning in 2007.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-6" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; ">[7] However, in 2008 and 2009 the special returned to standard definition.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">For several years, the station has aired exclusive First Night Boston coverage on New Year's Eve, showcasing festivities from Boston, New England, and the world. The station also carries the Boston Marathon (see Sports section below).

Sports
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">WBZ-TV has aired local sporting events over the years. Besides the Braves (1948 until they moved to Milwaukee before the 1953 season) and the Red Sox (1948–1957; 1972–1974, and a handful of games in 2003 and 2004, along with certain NBC-aired games), WBZ-TV also broadcast the Boston Celtics from 1972–73 through 1984–85. In 1980, WBZ-TV was the first Boston television station to broadcast live wire-to-wire coverage of the Boston Marathon; the station has done so every year since, and has been the only Boston station to do so since 2007.

New England Patriots
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Most New England Patriots regular season and playoff games have aired on WBZ since 1965, with NBC holding the rights to the American Football League from 1965 to 1969, and then the American Football Conference from 1970 to 1997. CBS would pick those rights up in 1998, three years after the affiliation switch (in the meantime, WHDH carried the Patriots instead from 1995-97; the last Patriots game aired on WBZ-TV as an NBC affiliate was the team's loss to the Cleveland Browns in the AFC Wild Card Playoffs).

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Two of the Pats' six Super Bowl appearances have aired on the station--Super Bowl XX in January 1986, which they lost to the Chicago Bears, and Super Bowl XXXVIII in February 2004, where they defeated the Carolina Panthers.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">WBZ-TV took over airing of the team's preseason games from WCVB-TV in 2009.

Logos and imaging
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">In the early 1960s, WBZ unveiled a new stylized "4" logo, using a distinctive font that had been designed especially for Group W. The logo became italicized in the late 1980s, but remained the same font. It kept this logo for over 30 years until it unveiled its first "News 4 New England" logo in September 1996. The old logo was the longest-used numeric logo in New England television history until WCVB's stylized "5" crossed the 31-year mark in 2003.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">The "Circle-4" logo that replaced the original "News 4" logo in 1998 was often referred to on-air by WBZ sports anchor Bob Lobel as "The Circle 4 Ranch." As of 2007, WBZ has dropped the CBS-mandated "CBS4" logo and branding and now refers to itself simply as "WBZ-TV".

News operation
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">WBZ operates a Bell LongRanger 206LIV called "Sky Eye". In addition to its main studios, the station operates two other news bureaus. The "Worcester Bureau" is located on Main Street in that city. The "New Hampshire Bureau" is located on Elm Street in Manchester. The station's weather radar known as "WBZ Doppler Live" is located at Worcester Regional Airport. Along with other CBS-owned stations, WBZ offers a web-only "@ Your Desk" newscast available live and on-demand. WBZ produces a weeknight 9 o'clock newscast for sister station WSBK. On September 15, 2008, the station was in the process of upgrading its news set for high definition broadcasts. During that time, all newscasts originated from the on-air area of the newsroom. The renovations lasted for at least six weeks.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-7" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; ">[8] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-8" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; ">[9]

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">On December 11, 2008, during its 5:00 p.m. newscast, WBZ became the fourth station (behind WCVB, WHDH and WLVI) to broadcast news in high definition. Its sister station, WSBK-TV followed suit later that night.

Newscast titles

 * Teletape News/Shawmut Bank Newsteller/Boston Post Views of the News in New England (1948-?)
 * The 11th Hour News (1950s)
 * Your Esso Reporter (1950s)
 * Eyewitness News (1965–1993)
 * WBZ News 4 (1993–1996; WBZ used this newscast after the switch from NBC to CBS.)
 * News 4 New England (1996–2000)
 * WBZ 4 News (2000–2004)
 * CBS 4 News (2004–2007)
 * WBZ News (2007–present)

News music packages

 * From Russia with Love: 007 - John Barry (Dates unknown)
 * WBZ 1970s Telesound Theme - Telesound (Dates unknown)
 * The One For All - Frank Gari (1979–1982)
 * We're 4 - Klein& (1980–1982)
 * Today's 4 - Edd Kalehoff (1982–1985)
 * Catch 5 - Frank Gari (1983–1990; used for Live on 4)
 * News Series 3000 - Frank Gari (1985–1990)
 * WBZ 1990 News Theme - Unknown Composer (1990–1992)
 * WBZ-TV News Package - Mason Daring (1992–1994)
 * WBZ 1994 News Theme - Unknown Composer (1994–1995)
 * WBZ/WSBK 1994 News Theme - Unknown Composer (1995–1996)
 * Newsworks - Music Oasis (1996–1998)
 * WBZ Channel 4 News Package - Michael Whalen Music (1998–2000)
 * CBS Boston News Package 2000 - Michael Whalen Music (2000–2003)
 * Adrenaline - GrooveWorx (2003–2005)
 * Newstime - 615 Music (2005–2007)
 * Pride - In The Groove Music (2007–2011)
 * CBS Enforcer - Frank Gari (2011–present)

Current on-air staff
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em;">Anchors


 * Nick Giovanni – weekend mornings; also weekday reporter
 * Anaridis Rodrigues - weekend mornings; also weekday reporter
 * Kate Merill – weekday mornings (4:30-7 a.m.) and 12 p.m.
 * Liam Martin – weeknights at 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. (on WSBK)
 * Lisa Hughes – weeknights at 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m.
 * Katie Brace - weekends at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m.; also weekday reporter
 * Ken MacLeod – weekends at 6 and 11 p.m.; also weekday reporter
 * Paula Ebben – weeknights at 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.n. (on WSBK)
 * Chris McKinnon – weekday mornings (4:30-7 a.m.) and 12 p.m.
 * David Wade – weeknights at 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em;">WBZ AccuWeather Team


 * Eric Fisher – Chief Meteorologist; weeknights at 5 p.m., 6 p.m., 8 p.m. (on WSBK) and 11 p.m.
 * Barry Burbank (AMS Seal of Approval) – Meteorologist; weekends at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m., also weekdays at 12 p.m.; also fill-in
 * Sarah Wroblewski – Meteorologist; weekend mornings, also environmental reporter, also fill-in
 * Danielle Niles – Meteorologist; weekday mornings (4:30-7 a.m.) and at 12 p.m.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em;">WBZ Sports Team


 * Steve Burton – Sports Director; weeknights at 6 p.m., 8 p.m. (on WSBK) and 11 p.m. (since 1994)
 * Dan Roche – Sports Anchor; weekends at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m., also sports reporter (since 1999)
 * Levan Reid - sports reporter (since 2010)

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em;">Reporters


 * Gary Brode – general assignment reporter (since 2018)
 * Paul Burton – weekend assignment reporter (since 2017)
 * Beth Germano – general assignment reporte (since 1996)
 * Lisa Gresi  – general assignment reporter
 * Christina Hager - general assignment reporter (since 1999)
 * Tiffany Chan - general assignment reporter (since 2017)
 * Cheryl Fiandaca - I-Team chief investigative reporter
 * Michelle Fisher - general assignment reporter (since 2018)
 * Jon Keller – political analyst; "Keller @ Large" feature reporter (since 2005)
 * Mike LaCrosse - general assignment reporter
 * Dr. Mallika Marshall - health reporter (since 2000)
 * Breana Pitts - traffic reporter; weekday mornings (4:30-7 a.m.)
 * Yadires Nova-Salcedo – "Centro" host and segment producer (since 1996)
 * Kristina Rex - general assignment reporter (since 2018)
 * Matt Yurus – general assignment reporter
 * Bill Shields – general assignment reporter (since 1980)
 * Juli McDonald - general assignment reporter
 * Jim Smith – general assignment reporter (since 2007)