History
The station signed-on October 25, 1953 as an Independent with the call sign WLBR-TV. Licensed to Lebanon, it aired an analog signal on UHF channel 15 from a one kW transmitter and 572 foot tower just north of Mount Gretna. The station was originally owned by the Lebanon Television Corporation, a joint venture of the Lebanon Broadcasting Company (WLBR radio) and the Lebanon News Publishing Company (Lebanon Daily News). In October 1954 after a power failure caused by Hurricane Hazel, the station went dark.
In 1957, Triangle Publications bought the dormant WLBR license. The station signed-on with increased power in August 1957. Under Triangle ownership, the station became a part-time ABC affiliate and received other programs from then sister station WFIL-TV (now WPVI-TV) in Philadelphia. On January 1, 1959, the call letters were changed to the present WLYH indicating service to Lebanon, York, and Harrisburg. In 1961, it became a CBS affiliate as part of the Keystone Network which also included WHP-TV (channel 21) in Harrisburg, and WSBA-TV (channel 43, now WPMT) in York. This created a strong combined signal with 55 percent overlap.
Later in the 1960s, WLYH and WSBA-TV began simulcasting for nearly the entire broadcast day while WHP-TV was programmed and operated separately. All three outlets ran prime time CBS programing, most of the daytime shows, and most of the weekend offerings. All three stations preempted CBS programming in moderation. However, any shows WSBA-TV and WLYH preempted aired on WHP-TV and vice versa allowing most of the market to get the entire CBS schedule.
Triangle was forced out of broadcasting in 1970 after then-Governor Milton J. Shapp claimed the company had used its three Pennsylvania television stations (WLYH, WFIL-TV, and WFBG-TV in Altoona) in a smear campaign against him. WLYH was among the last to be sold, going to Gateway Communications as part of a package with WFBG-TV (now WTAJ-TV) and WNBF-TV (now WBNG-TV) in Binghamton, New York in 1972. WLYH would eventually add the -TV suffix to its calls on April 5, 1979.
In the 1980s, Gateway moved the station's city of license to Lancaster. WSBA-TV left the Keystone group in 1983 to become an independent outlet, leaving WLYH and WHP-TV as the area's CBS affiliates. Both stations continued to air separate non-network programming and maintained the arrangement for programs preempted on one station to air on the other. WLYH also added a secondary affiliation with UPN upon the new network's launch on January 16, 1995. The unusual situation, with two separately-owned and programmed CBS affiliates (which by then had about 75 percent signal overlap) in one market and airing most of the same network programming, would continue until Fall 1995 when Clear Channel Communications (which had just bought WHP-TV) entered into a 20-year local marketing agreement with Gateway. Under this agreement, the operations of channels 15 and 21 were merged, with WLYH becoming the primary UPN affiliate for the area while WHP-TV became the market's exclusive CBS station. This change took effect on December 16, 1995 ending WLYH's 34-year CBS affiliation. In 2000, Gateway sold all of its stations to SJL Broadcasting.
On January 24, 2006, TimeWarner and CBS Corporation announced that their UPN and The WB networks would be combined into a single network called "The CW". It was made public on May 18 that WLYH would become the area's CW affiliate upon its launch on September 18. Meanwhile, WHP created a new second digital subchannel to air programming from MyNetworkTV. (Before this, Philadelphia's WPHL had been the area's de facto WB affiliate on local cable systems.)
Nexstar purchased the licenses of WLYH and WTAJ from SJL in late-2006. On April 20, 2007, Clear Channel entered into an agreement to sell its entire television stations group (including WHP and the LMA with WLYH) to the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners. The station's analog signal was shut down on February 17, 2009. Digital broadcasts remained on channel 23 using PSIP to display its virtual channel as 15. In addition to WLYH, Comcast systems offer WPSG from Philadelphia in standard and high definition.
On July 19, 2012, Newport Television announced the sale of WLYH's LMA partner, WHP-TV, to the Sinclair Broadcast Group instead of Nexstar. Sinclair will take over the LMA for WLYH as soon as the group deal closes and also obtained an option to purchase the station's license outright from Nexstar. Sinclair closed on the Newport group deal on December 3, 2012; as a result, the company officially took over the LMA for WLYH.
In late summer of 2012, WLYH dropped TheCoolTV and replaced it with the Live Well Network.
Read more about this topic: WLYH-TV
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