WUNI
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WUNI channel 27 is the Univision television affiliate for the Greater Boston market. Licensed to Worcester, Massachusetts, the station runs general Spanish entertainment programs as well as news and information programming. The call letters stand for "Univision Nueva Inglaterra", which is Spanish for New England.
History
The station signed on January 2, 1970 as English-language WSMW, and served Worcester with general entertainment programming with old movies, cartoons, religious shows, science fiction shows (Gerry Anderson's UFO) and sitcoms. WSMW also broadcast sports; from it's debut through the end of the 1971-1972 NBA season, the station was the television home of the Boston Celtics. In 1970 and 1971, WSMW broadcast pre-season games of the New Enland Patriots. WSMW also covered a lot of college basketball throughout the 1970's, mostly games of the College Of The Holy Cross and Assumption College, with some Boston College, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Bentley College games included on the schedule. Finally, WSMW broadcast "Bay State Bowling", a weekly candlepin bowling program on Sunday evenings for most of the 1970's.
Beginning in 1980, Channel 27 began running a subscription TV format called Preview at night. By 1982, the station was running Preview all day with a couple hours in the morning devoted to religious and public affairs programming.
In the spring of 1985, WSMW cut Preview back to 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. on weekdays and after 3 p.m. on weekends. The station also brought back some general entertainment programs. Hill Broadcasting bought the station at the end of 1985 and in 1986 the station was renamed as WHLL-TV. At that time, WHLL ceased to broadcast Preview and reverted to being a general-entertainment independent television station.
Initially, WHLL-TV schedule consisted of B grade movies, drama shows, cartoons, a few sitcoms, as well as religious shows. By 1987, the cartoons and sitcoms were gone, and the station began running preempted network programming from NBC, ABC, and CBS. WHLL-TV also began running a few first run syndicated shows by 1988, as well as a good amount of religious programming.
By 1992, the station began to focus on Spanish-language programming with the addition of Telemundo programming from 4 or 5 p.m.. By 1993, they ran Spanish shows after noon. The station eventually broadcast Univision programming and changed its call letters to WUNI. Entravision eventually bought the station in the mid 1990s.