NBC station switch affects many TV subscribers in Eastern Canada

Canadian television viewers whose providers use Boston as their source for NBC have expressed worries the past few weeks at announcements the station is losing its affiliation with the network on Sunday.

But fear not. TV providers are aware of the change and will switch stations to keep their NBC feed.

The change comes out of a decision by NBC a year ago to end its affiliation agreement with Boston station WHDH, owned by Miami-based Sunbeam Television, after the two failed to come to an agreement to extend it. NBC will instead launch NBC Boston on low-power station WBTS, which is owned directly by NBCUniversal.

Sunbeam tried and failed to sue to keep its affiliation, and gave up in August. WHDH will continue without a network affiliation as 7NEWS Boston, and announced it’s filling its schedule with 12 hours of local news every weekday, thanks to a $5-million investment from its owner, the Boston Herald reports. The industry expects a local news war between the old and new NBC stations. WHDH will also carry a mix of syndicated shows, including Family Feud, Extra, Judge Alex, Judge Cristina and Celebrity Name Game to fill the rest of the schedule.

The affiliation switch takes place Sunday at 3 a.m., according to Variety. NBC’s New Year’s Eve With Carson Daly will be the last NBC program that airs on WHDH. Sunday programs, including Meet The Press, the NHL Centennial Classic and Sunday Night Football, will be on WBTS.

Though Canadian television stations carrying CTV, Global, CBC or City programming are almost all directly owned by the networks today, going it alone with lots of local news has some precedent in this country. When CHCH in Hamilton, Ont., was cut loose by former Montreal Gazette owner Canwest in 2009, buyer Channel Zero filled its daytime schedule with local news. In 2015, the station admitted defeat, forcing a subsidiary into bankruptcy, slashing local programming and laying off dozens of employees.

Several Canadian TV providers use Boston as their eastern source for U.S. stations, particularly in Atlantic Canada. Bell filed an application with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to swap the stations on its own service as well as its satellite relay service that other providers use to get their feeds. The CRTC approved the application on Dec. 20.

Bell Canada confirmed it would replace WHDH with WBTS on Jan. 1. Eastlink will as well, and sent a note to subscribers telling them they need to reset any PVR scheduled recordings for NBC after Sunday. Other providers may have similar issues. Zazeen said it has “no control over this content” and if Bell replaces its feed then its subscribers will get the new feed. For most Canadian providers, the new NBC Boston feed will simply replace the old affiliate’s, so viewers will have NBC on the same channel, and WHDH will no longer be carried.

Shaw and ColbaNet use Detroit’s WDIV as their eastern source for NBC, and most cable providers in Quebec, including Videotron, Bell Fibe, Cogeco and VMedia, use WPTZ in Plattsburgh, N.Y., so the change does not affect them in any way.