Actually, they'll probably make more money.
All of WSBK-TV's operations are shared with WBZ-TV and WLWC. So the principal costs of operating channels 38 and 39 are programming, electricity, and rental at the UHF Candelabra (where channel 38, but not channel 39, transmits from). They probably have a good deal on rent at the Candelabra, since CBS was in a better negotiating position than American Tower at their last lease renewal[1] -- they should be paying less than $100,000, and perhaps less than half that, per month. Power, based on a NStar's current large-commercial rates, should be about $150,000 a month. Programming is free (or in some cases even paid). A sales manager who couldn't sell $300 an hour wouldn't be working in market #6, and I'd expect several times that.[2]
Network programming is more expensive to run, because the networks demand a greater fraction of the spot time than do other programming distributors. (I don't believe either WB or UPN pay affiliate compensation, or if they do, it's peanuts.) Sports programming actually *costs* money.
-GAWollman
[1] CBS owns its own tower just down the road, where channel 39 is already located. There's no technical reason channel 38 couldn't move there (there's space in the building and the lower UHF master is already broadband), so there's a limit on what American Tower can ask without losing the business entirely -- and both companies know this. [2] Disclaimer: I don't know anyone who works in that part of the business so my numbers could be way off. I don't think so, though -- I think even infomercials pay more than $300/hour in top-10 markets.-- Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every snipped-for-privacy@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own Opinions not those| search for greater freedom. of MIT or CSAIL.
| - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)