Supreme Court Refuses to Stay Transfer of Boston TV Station

WASHINGTON, March 17 (AP)—The Supreme Court declined today to delay a switch in ownership of Boston's Channel 5, a ruling that could lead to the end of the Herald‐Traveler newspaper.

Without elaboration, a brief order said the “stay” request—a plea for more time—made by the current operators, WHDH, had been turned down without dissent by the eight Justices who considered it at a private conference.

Boston Broadcasters, Inc., is scheduled to take over the station at 3 A.M. Sunday. In seeking a delay, WHDH lawyers said The Herald‐Traveler had been subsidized by television profits from the station and would fold, throwing 2,500 people out of work:

WHDH's bid was backed by Boston labor groups and opposed by the Justice Department, the Federal Communications Commission and B.B.I., which said the fate of the newspaper was irrelevant to the legal issues involved.

In January, 1969, the F.C.C. took the license to operate Channel 5 away from WHDH and gave it to the Boston Broadcasters group. The decision eventually was upheld by the United States Circuit Court for the District of Columbia. Last June the Supreme Court rejected WHDH's request for review.

Chief Justice Warren E. Burger did not participate in consideration of the case.

The Supreme Court decision means B.B I. will begin on the Channel 5 airwaves at the non prime time hour of 3 A.M. Sunday.

The station will follow with an early‐bird preview introducing WCVB‐TV programs and news staff, and many of the faces on the news and sports staffs of the new station will look very familiar to viewers of WHDH‐TV.

Most of the news broadcast team from WHDH moved over to the new station and will be handling assignments similar to their former jobs. In all about 100 WHDH employes will be employed by WCVB, which expected to have a staff of 235 by Sunday.

Regular programing on the new station is scheduled to begin at 7 A.M. Sunday.

The struggle for Channel 5, which carried right up to the eve of the scheduled March 19 takeover by B.B.I., was fought up and down the ladder of the Federal courts, back and forth between Washington and Boston and around and around in the offices of the F.C.C.

In the background of all the legal briefs over the relative merits of B.B.I. and WHDH to operate the channel was related issue that finally came front and center in the last days of The Herald‐Traveler Corporation's effort to keep the license.

Tht issue was tn. fate of The Boston Herald‐Traveler, one of the two standard‐size newspapers in the city. Although observers generally expected that the fall of profit. able WHDH would mean the demise of The Herald‐Traveler, spokesmen for those two concerns never conceded it until they were forced to use that prospect as an argument in their final legal attempts to retain control.

The 17‐year battle for the Channel 5 license began in 1954 with hearings by an F.C.C. examiner on the competing applications of The Herald‐Traveler Corporation and five other concerns to operate on the channel.

WHDH was awarded the license initially in April, 1957, after the F.C.C. overruled the decision of its own examiner, but the award was temporary as the losing parties appealed to the Court.