page_title: WLVI
section_title: CW affiliation and Sunbeam purchase (2006–present)
hierarchical_section_title: WLVI / History / WLVI-TV (1974–present) / CW affiliation and Sunbeam purchase (2006–present)
context_page_description: WLVI, virtual channel 56, is a CW-affiliated television station serving Boston, Massachusetts, United States that is licensed to Cambridge. The station is owned by Sunbeam Television, as part of a duopoly with Boston-licensed independent station WHDH. The two stations share studios at Bulfinch Place in downtown Boston and transmitter facilities in Newton, Massachusetts. WLVI is automated and operated completely by WHDH staffers.
context_section_description: On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Time Warner's Warner Bros. Entertainment (the division that operated The WB) announced that they would dissolve UPN and The WB, and combine UPN and The WB's most popular programs alongside new series on a newly created network, The CW. The network signed 10-year affiliation agreements with 16 of Tribune's 19 WB affiliates, including WLVI. However, it would not have been an upset had then-UPN station WSBK (which had become owned by CBS Corporation through CBS's December 2005 split from Viacom) been chosen as Boston's CW outlet as network officials had been on record as preferring the "strongest" stations among The WB and UPN's affiliate slate, and Boston was one of the few markets where the WB and UPN affiliates were both relatively strong ratings-wise. The CW began operations on September 18, 2006, and WLVI rebranded as Boston's CW to correspond to the affiliation switch.
  On September 14, 2006, four days prior to the launch of The CW, Tribune Broadcasting announced that WLVI would be sold to Sunbeam Television, owner of then-NBC affiliate WHDH-TV, for $117.3 million. The sale received FCC approval in late November 2006, creating Boston's third television duopoly (after CBS-owned WBZ-TV and WSBK, and Hearst-owned WCVB-TV and Manchester, New Hampshire-based WMUR-TV). Tribune continued to operate WLVI until December 18, 2006, when the Tribune-run station website was closed and replaced with a redirect to the new Sunbeam-run website, and the final Tribune-produced newscast aired; the sale to Sunbeam was completed the following day.
  WLVI's operations were merged with those of WHDH, all of the station's equipment and sales department was moved to WHDH's studios on Bulfinch Place (just six miles from WLVI's old Morrissey Boulevard studio), and the station's news department was closed. The consolidation resulted in about 130 layoffs from WLVI, though some newsroom staffers were retained by WHDH, which took over production of WLVI's daily 10 p.m. newscast. The old set and equipment of WLVI were sold at auction several months later. With the sale, WLVI changed its branding to "CW 56", though the station is sometimes called "New England's CW" on-air. It has largely become a "pass-through" for automated programming.
caption: WLVI logo used from December 18, 2006 until 2013.