for WBZ-TV. The only time WLVI programmed news outside its established late evening time slot was in June 2000, when it premiered Boston's WB in the Morning. Formatted as a mix of news, talk and lifestyle features, the show aired from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m. The program lasted two years; despite expanding to three hours during its run, it could not hold its own against the other local and national morning news programs, and it was canceled in April 2002, taking with it 17 jobs. By 2002, when Boston's WB in the Morning ended, WLVI's 10 p.m. newscast had slipped to second in the ratings behind WFXT, which had established its own local news service in 1996. After Barnd left, Frank Mallicoat, who had joined the station in 1991 as a weekend sports anchor and would go on to host the morning show before replacing Jack Hynes as weekend anchor, was tapped to replace him on the program. However, WFXT had firmly established itself as the 10 p.m. news leader in Boston. By the time of the Sunbeam sale, due to the increasing popularity of the WFXT newscast and Tribune's closure of news departments at its stations in Philadelphia and San Diego, there were unconfirmed rumors and speculation that Tribune would shut down the WLVI news department and have the newscast outsourced to another station or even canceled altogether. 7 News at 10 When Sunbeam took over, having not assumed much of WLVI's staff, a 10 p.m. newscast from WHDH began to air on channel 56. In its first sweeps period, it attracted less than a quarter of the viewership of WFXT. However, the program endured. In 2009, the newscast was the first in Boston to have a permanent lineup of two female anchors. In 2017, when WHDH disaffiliated from NBC, that station also began airing the 10 p.m. newscast. It had previously threatened to do so in 2009 and pre-empt The Jay Leno Show. Notable former on-air staff Michael Barkann – sports (now at NBC Sports Philadelphia) Mike Crispino – sports (now at iHeart Radio ESPN 97.9) Bob Gamere – sports anchor/reporter Natalie Jacobson – anchor and public affairs director (later at WCVB-TV; retired) Uma Pemmaraju – anchor (later at Fox News Channel; deceased) Technical information Subchannels The station's digital signal is multiplexed: Analog-to-digital conversion WLVI shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 56, on June 12, 2009,