NBC talks with WHDH-TV could bring shake-up to Boston TV

In the TV business, network affiliate contracts are typically renewed without incident, allowing viewers to continue watching their favorite national programs on the same local channels year after year. But with 14 months left on a decade-long deal between NBC and WHDH-TV (Channel 7), widespread media upheaval could combine with the companies’ contentious history to make the next round of negotiations uncommonly tense, or possibly lead to the first shakeup on the Boston dial in 20 years.

One potential result -- moving NBC programs to NECN -- could even upend the traditional, over-the-air broadcast model employed by national networks since their inception. If talks on an acquisition or affiliate extension were to go poorly (and that’s a big if), NBC could yank its programs -- “Today,” “Dateline,” “Sunday Night Football” and all the rest -- off Channel 7 and shift them to NECN, the regional cable channel owned by Comcast, the parent of NBCUniversal. “They can do it, but it’s very aggressive,” said Reed Hundt, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission who is now chief executive of the Coalition for Green Capital in Washington. “If they did that, it would be big news because it would be regarded as NBC phasing the ‘B’ [for broadcasting] out of its name.”