Viacom-owned Paramount Television Group is expected to
announce today that it will buy Boston independent station WSBK-
TV from New World Communications in a deal reportedly worth more
than $100M, according to a report in this morning's BOSTON
HERALD. WSBK is the broadcast home to the Red Sox, Bruins and
Celtics. Viacom sources say the deal also includes the 20% of
the regional sports cable-channel New England Sports Network
(NESN) owned by New World/WSBK. The other 80% of NESN is owned
by the Red Sox (48%) and the Bruins (32%). Paramount hopes to
use WSBK as Boston's home for its fifth network, planned to
launch on Monday and Tuesday nights only in January '95. The
impact on sports programming should be "relatively minimal" at
first, at least until Paramount extends its programming beyond
Mondays and Tuesdays. In the event of "sports and entertainment
collisions," there is the possibility that more Red Sox or Bruins
games would be moved to NESN -- "thereby increasing the value of
the pay cable operation" -- and more Celtics games moved to
SportsChannel. For now, Paramount "is embracing sports." But
should WSBK's sports load become too heavy for the network,
Tribune-owned WLVI could enter the picture. The Red Sox have one
year left on their WSBK contract; Celtics and Bruins have longer-
term deals. The deal is subject to FCC approval, which could be
at least 90 days (Jim Baker, BOSTON HERALD, 11/30).
