Ron Newman wrote:A320 wrote:(Or if the lawyers at NBC have told the station ownership to forget that the program ever existed.)
I don't know why they would, since WCVB-5 has always been an ABC station.
Sorry for the confusion, but I was referring to my post earlier in this thread about the producers of "Park Street Under" suing the producers of "Cheers" for theft of intellectual property, and not having a chance against the battalion of NBC lawyers. I don't know if there was ever a "shut up" settlement or not.
True, Ch. 5 was never an NBC station. As WHDH-TV, it was the CBS station in Boston for years. WBZ-TV Ch. 4 was NBC, and WNAC-TV Ch. 7 was ABC. Confused yet?
In 1972, when the license for Ch. 5 was taken from the once powerful Herald-Traveler Corp (which published the
Herald and also owned WHDH AM and FM, and the afternoon
Traveler, which stopped publishing in the late 60's), CBS was at its height of popularity, with all the hit shows from "The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite" to "All In The Family", and didn't necessarily want to be affiliated with a "novice" TV station in a major market like Boston. Thus, the switch of Ch. 5 to ABC and Ch. 7 to CBS, with 4 and 7 swapping networks many years later.