A spokesperson for NBCUniversal said the company is buying a TV station in Boston that will be a part of its plan for the new NBC Boston.
Adweek’s TVSpy reports that the network may come to viewers through the current Telemundo station WNEU with the addition of low-power station WTMU.
The report quotes the NBCU spokesperson saying: “We are purchasing a station in Boston to immediately supplement the current coverage of our WNEU footprint in the market and it will factor into our plan for NBC Boston. We will release more details soon.”
Word surfaced recently via a Bizapedia page that NBC’s new station may have the call letters WBTS, but the report notes that nothing has been confirmed.
“While NBC didn’t confirm it was buying low-power station WTMU, FCC documents filed on Sept. 15 show Margaret Tobey, VP of Regulatory Affairs at NBCUniversal, as a representative assignee on an Application for Transfer of Control of a Corporate Licensee or Permittee, or for Assignment of License for a Low Power Television Station,” the TVSpy report notes.
If true, WTMU won’t be enough for NBC to cover the region. It’s a low power station and currently available only as an analog station. If and when it goes digital, it won’t be able to map to its current channel number, 46. NBC will either have to request a new virtual channel assignment from the FCC or also purchase Norwell, MA full-power station WWDP which maps to digital channel 46. Owned by Evine Live, it currently airs 24-hour shopping. WWDP + WTMU + WNEU all together may be enough to properly cover Boston.
DD is right. Evine Live’s 10-q for Q3 2016 shows they received a $500k payment from NBC in Q3 related to using a station in the Boston area. And NBC divested their remaining EVLV stake earlier this yr, maybe to show that the sale is arms-length transaction.