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44 minutes ago, SlimyTrain said:

I was unable to get a picture of it, but I saw KOVR using a new boxed logo for a promo for Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies: Behind the Scenes for Saturday Night.

What was in the box?

9 hours ago, mre29 said:

Speak for yourself. Most people I know up here in NH would call it 95. But, then, I also live near a completely different Route 128...

I meant to specify just the loop around Boston, the bits north of Peabody and south of Canton do get called 95 by us Massholes.

3 minutes ago, Myron Falwell said:

They're already pushing "WBZ News on CBS News Boston" both visually and contextually. It is very likely that the brand is slowly going to be phased out on a gradual basis until it is ultimately retired soon. The channel number is gone already.

The channel number has been gone in effective branding since 2007 (when they picked the 'BZ name back up). The CBS logo is literally less prominent in their graphics than it's been in a long time, and the website is back to wbz.com. I fail to see how this is indicative of any kind of transitional brand (at least in any kind of short term).

5 minutes ago, Myron Falwell said:

A half-hearted rebranding that happened 15 years ago is not really applicable in the present day.

It indicates how the market will react. The same thing applies for other things in Boston too--Route 128 hasn't been signed properly for ~20 years by federal requirement, and yet people are no closer to calling it I-95 than they were in 2000 (even on places that are officially not Rte. 128). I have to assume CBS/Paramount are aware enough of this to not want to really push it again.

14 minutes ago, Myron Falwell said:

You may think that iHeart doesn't care, but they do. They easily could defect to WCVB or WBTS for news and weather partnerships if they can make more money off of it just like KYW radio did with WCAU. There is nothing binding WBZ with WBZ-TV, especially if a better content sharing deal comes forward. And what does WBZ-TV do then? Continue to share the same branding as a competitor or get with the times and distinguish yourselves for once?

And honestly, the biggest mistake Les Moonves made during the sale of the CBS Radio stations was making that brand licensing deal with the shared call signs which forced this rebranding effort among the O&Os in the first place.

I feel like that would be more of an iHeart problem if they choose to do that, so why would CBS care and kill off a brand that they've already had to resurrect because the CBS branding hurt them? People know the station as WBZ. Look what happened when NBC tried to launch a station or when WFXT rebranded and killed their news ratings. I can't see the WBZ brand, especially given its increased prominence, going anywhere.

15 minutes ago, Myron Falwell said:

Who knows why this interregnum is taking place, but tbh, the presence of two unrelated stations in the Boston market that both identify as "WBZ" is completely untenable. iHeart spent a lot of money to get WBZ radio and got an obscenely favorable brand licensing deal. You think they're happy about sharing the same brand as a TV station that is fighting for oxygen in the digital stratosphere?

I really don't think iHeart cares. Matt Shearer from WBZ Newsradio went on WBZ-TV's morning show to talk about his shortform content. I think both stations are fine with each other (and even being mistaken for each others news departments). And as long as the Sports Hub doesn't start calling itself WBZ Sportsradio I think they're happy.

WBZ's 8pm newscasts on WSBK-38 now seem to be running as a relay of the online CBSN Boston feed, full with the CBSN graphics instead of WBZ. As an aside, I don't think that having 2 different brandings of news for the same team really makes sense, especially in a market where the calls and station identity is important.

Edit: I've linked what the 8:30 open on WSBK looked like (standard CBSN open/graphics) https://youtu.be/iq7zAP-Yw1I