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WFXT

WFXT (channel 25) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, affiliated with the Fox network and owned by Cox Media Group. Its studios are located on Fox Drive (near the Boston-Providence Turnpike) in Dedham, and its transmitter is located on Cabot Street in Needham. WFXT is the largest Fox affiliate by market size that is not owned and operated by the network, although it was previously owned by Fox on two occasions (1987–1990 and 1995–2014).

For other uses, see Fox 25.

Boston 25

June 1972

October 10, 1977 (1977-10-10)

WXNE-TV (1977–1987)

  • Analog:
  • 25 (UHF, 1977–2009)
  • Digital:
  • 31 (UHF, 1999–2019)

Fox Television (former owner and current affiliation)

FCC

1,000 kW

350 m (1,148 ft)

History[edit]

Early years (1977–1986)[edit]

The station first signed on the air on October 10, 1977, as WXNE-TV (standing for "Christ (X) in New England");[2] originally operating as an independent station, it was founded by the then–Portsmouth, Virginia–based Christian Broadcasting Network. After being awarded a construction permit to build the station from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in June 1972, CBN targeted the new channel 25 to begin operations within one year. However, various delays in obtaining both a studio and transmitter location resulted in a wait of over five years for the station to finally sign-on. WXNE-TV's early programming format was targeted at a family audience, consisting of older syndicated reruns and a decent amount of religious programming—including CBN's flagship show, The 700 Club, hosted by the ministry's founder Pat Robertson. Religious programs ran for about six hours a day during the week, and throughout the day on Sundays. The station also carried the daily and Sunday Mass from the Boston Catholic Television Center. Secular programming consisted of westerns, older movies, family-oriented drama series, old film shorts, and classic television series. For several years under CBN ownership, Tim Robertson served as the station's program director, appointed by his father, Pat Robertson.


The station began adding more cartoons, made-for-TV movies, and off-network sitcoms and family dramas during the early 1980s. Most notably, in 1980, WXNE took over production of the weekday bowling program Candlepins for Cash, which had just been canceled by CBS affiliate WNAC-TV (channel 7, now WHDH) after seven seasons. With new host Rico Petrocelli, the show moved production from WNAC-TV's studios, in bowling lanes that were built in the basement of the facility, to the now-defunct Wal-Lex Lanes in Waltham. After only a few months as host, Petrocelli was ousted in favor of the program's original host when it aired on WNAC-TV, Bob Gamere, who remained on Candlepins until it ended its run on channel 25 in 1983. During this time, the station rebranded itself as "Boston 25", as it converted into a true independent. While the station was carried only on cable providers in the Greater Boston market, WXNE-TV held a solid third place among the area's independent stations, behind the longer-established WSBK-TV (channel 38) and WLVI-TV (channel 56), and sixth in the ratings among the market's commercial television stations.


In April 1986, WXNE and the other two CBN-owned stations—KXTX-TV in Dallas and WYAH-TV (now WGNT) in Portsmouth—were put up for sale.[3] That August, News Corporation announced that it would purchase channel 25,[4] with plans to make it an owned-and-operated station of its Fox Broadcasting Company. Fox had been in preliminary negotiations to secure an affiliation with either WSBK or WLVI, but ended its pursuit of both outlets. Until the sale was completed, channel 25, upon the Fox network's startup on October 9, 1986, did not air the network's inaugural program and what was then its lone offering, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, a late-night talk show that aired opposite The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on NBC. The outgoing CBN ownership believed that the program did not fit its strict content guidelines. Fox instead contracted Boston radio station WMRE (1510 AM, now WMEX) to carry the audio portion of The Late Show in the interim.[5]

As WFXT (1987–present)[edit]

When the sale to News Corporation was completed on December 31, 1986,[6] WXNE-TV, renamed WFXT on January 19, 1987, became the seventh Fox-owned property and the first to be acquired separately from News Corporation's 1986 purchase of Metromedia's six television stations that served as the foundation for the new network. Besides adding The Late Show to the schedule, airings of The 700 Club were cut to once a day, and the daily broadcast of the Roman Catholic Mass was moved to an earlier timeslot. The station also began airing the syndicated, Fox-produced tabloid magazine A Current Affair on weeknights; WFXT was the second station, after producing station and Fox flagship WNYW in New York City, to air the program.[7] WXNE staff announcer Chris Clausen had already been let go in late 1986 (promptly joining WNEV-TV in January 1987) in favor of the services of Fox affiliate voiceover Beau Weaver, who would remain with both the station and Fox Television Stations for over a decade. The station's schedule, however, was largely unchanged at the outset, aside from the removal of several older sitcoms that soon resurfaced on WQTV (channel 68, now WBPX-TV). The Sunday evening religious program block was finally discontinued on April 5, 1987, when Fox launched its prime time lineup, which initially aired only on Sundays before expanding to Saturdays that July (as such, WFXT is the only Boston television station that has never changed its network affiliation, as it has been with Fox since the network's prime time expansion; it wasn't until 1993 that Fox had programming on all seven days of the week).


Over the next few years, WFXT, for the most part was unable to acquire the better syndicated programs and continued to only acquire shows that WSBK, WLVI, and the market's network affiliates passed on. In addition to Fox programming, most of the shows added to WFXT's schedule were low-budget, first-run syndicated programs and cartoons. However, in 1988, the station did manage to buy two popular weekday syndicated shows away from WNEV—Hollywood Squares (the then-current John Davidson version) and Entertainment Tonight—when the CBS affiliate phased them off its schedule, due to other programming commitments. WFXT aired Squares through its 1989 cancellation; it carried ET weeknights at 7 p.m., as the lead-in to A Current Affair, until selling the show back to WHDH-TV (the former WNEV) in 1990. WFXT has again aired ET since 2015.

Programming[edit]

Sports programming[edit]

Through the NFL on Fox, WFXT typically airs two New England Patriots games a year, usually when the team plays host to an NFC team at Gillette Stadium. However, the institution of the NFL's new 'cross-flex' rules in 2014 (in which Patriots games involving an AFC opponent are moved from WBZ-TV), along with Fox's broadcasting rights to Thursday Night Football starting in 2018, has given the station more opportunities to air regular season Patriots games. The station has aired five of the Patriots' Super Bowl appearances (XXXI, XXXVI, XXXIX, XLII and LI), including the team's championship victories (XXXVI, XXXIX, and LI).[47]


The station also airs any Boston Red Sox games that are part of Fox's Major League Baseball telecasts. Owing to Fox's exclusive coverage of the World Series since 2000, WFXT has carried every Red Sox championship in the television era (2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018). It also served as the team's primary over-the-air broadcaster for three seasons from 2000 to 2002 as the flagship station of the "Fox 25 Red Sox Television Network". WFXT also carried a package of weekday afternoon Red Sox spring training games, produced by NESN, in 2018[48] and 2019.[49] As mentioned above, it carried Celtics games under the team's ownership in the early 1990s.


When Fox held the NHL's U.S. over-the-air broadcast contract from 1995 to 1999, any games involving the Boston Bruins that were selected to air on the NHL on Fox were aired on WFXT.

News operation[edit]

WFXT presently broadcasts 6412 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 1012 hours each weekday, 512 hours on Saturdays and 612 hours on Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to locally produced newscasts, it was the largest newscast output of any station in the Boston market and in New England until January 1, 2017, when WHDH-TV lost their NBC affiliation and became a news-intensive independent outlet by increasing their weekly news output to over 70 hours.[50] During weather segments, the station utilizes live National Weather Service radar data originating from a radar site at the NWS Weather Forecast Office in Norton.


One of the few productive moves that WFXT made under the ownership of the Boston Celtics was entering into a news share agreement with regional cable news channel New England Cable News (NECN) to produce a prime time newscast at 10 p.m., which debuted on September 7, 1993.[51] The half-hour Fox 25 News at 10 was initially anchored by Heather Kahn, with Tim Kelley on weather. Kahn lasted a year in this role before she was hired by ABC affiliate WCVB-TV (channel 5); Lila Orbach replaced her as anchor. In September 1994, NECN began to produce a half-hour midday newscast at 12:30 p.m. for channel 25,[52][53] which was subsequently canceled.


In September 1995, WFXT announced that the contract with NECN would not be renewed,[54] with the final broadcast airing on October 1.[55] The next day, NECN moved the newscast to WSBK, which was more willing to commit to a longer-term deal with the channel, as channel 25 was planning to eventually replace the NECN production with its own news operation.[56] For the next year, the only news programming on WFXT consisted primarily of national updates supplied by Fox News that aired during the day. During this time, Fox Television Stations created an in-house news department for the station, culminating on September 9, 1996, with the launch of a new 10 p.m. broadcast, initially branded as Fox News Boston[57] before reviving the Fox 25 News title the following year. The 10 p.m. newscast has aired as an hour-long program since its inception, originally airing in the format on Monday through Saturday nights, while the Sunday edition aired for a half-hour in order to accommodate a sports highlight program, Sports Sunday on Fox;[58] Sports Sunday ended its run on May 16, 2004, with the Sunday edition of the 10 p.m. newscast expanding to an hour the following week.[59]

Technical information[edit]

Subchannels[edit]

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Channel 25 virtual TV stations in the United States

Channel 34 digital TV stations in the United States

List of television stations in Massachusetts

List of United States stations available in Canada

Official website