WCVB Channel 5: Boston's ABC Station

WCVB Channel 5 has long been a familiar presence in New England living rooms as Boston's ABC station, owned by Hearst Television. It covers the sweep of Greater Boston, from the neighborhoods of the city itself and the streets around the Common and the Freedom Trail to the suburbs of Cambridge, Newton, and Quincy, out to the North Shore, the South Shore, the MetroWest towns, and the wider swath of eastern Massachusetts that turns to Channel 5 for the day's news.

The coverage reflects the character of the region. Viewers tune in for breaking local news, Beacon Hill politics and the goings-on at Boston city hall, and the New England weather that can swing from a coastal nor'easter piling snow along the shoreline to a muggy summer afternoon in the span of a week. Traffic is a running story in a metro built around the Mass Pike, Storrow Drive, and the tangle of routes feeding into the city, and the station keeps commuters posted.

Channel 5 also devotes time to the schools, public safety, and courts stories that hit close to home, along with consumer segments that stand up for shoppers and renters and investigative work that digs into how the region is run. There are community and human-interest features drawn from towns all across eastern Massachusetts, and plenty for sports fans in a city that rallies around the Red Sox, the Patriots, the Celtics, and the Bruins.

You can watch WCVB Boston with no cable package, no subscription, and no signup, streaming live and free on NewsPlay. It is an easy way to stay in touch with Boston and the communities around it, whatever corner of the country you are watching from.