Newport Television and Sinclair ownership

On April 20, 2007, Clear Channel entered into an agreement to sell its entire television station group to Providence Equity Partners' Newport Television.^[9] On July 19, 2012, Newport Television sold WHP-TV and five other stations to the Sinclair Broadcast Group as part of a group deal to sell 22 of its 27 stations to Sinclair, Nexstar Broadcasting Group and Cox Media Group. The LMA with WLYH-TV was included in the Newport–Sinclair deal despite Nexstar owning the license to the latter station.^[10] The group deal with Sinclair was completed on December 3, 2012. WHP-TV thus became the first Sinclair-owned station, and one of a handful in the United States, to utilize a historic three-letter call sign.

On July 29, 2013, Allbritton Communications announced that it would sell its seven television stations, including WHTM-TV, to Sinclair.^[11] As part of the deal, Sinclair was planning to sell the license assets of WHP-TV to Deerfield Media, but would continue to operate the station through shared services and joint sales agreements.^[12] This is due to FCC duopoly regulations that not only disallow common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in a single market, but also require a market to be left with eight unique owners after a duopoly is formed. In this case, the Harrisburg–Lancaster–York market, despite being the 43rd-largest market at the time the purchase was announced, has only six full-power stations, which are too few to permit a legal duopoly. In addition, WHTM and WHP are respectively the second and third highest-rated stations in the market.

On December 6, 2013, the FCC informed Sinclair that applications related to the deal need to be "amended or withdrawn," as the time brokerage agreement between WHP-TV and WLYH-TV would remain with Sinclair; this would, in effect, create a new time brokerage agreement between WHTM and WLYH, even though the FCC had ruled in 1999 that such agreements made after November 5, 1996, covering more than 15% of the broadcast day would count toward the ownership limits for the brokering station's owner.^[13] On March 20, 2014, as part of a restructuring of the Sinclair-Allbritton deal to address the noted ownership conflicts, Sinclair announced that it would terminate the sale of WHP-TV to Deerfield Media and instead sell the station to another third-party buyer, with whom Sinclair would not to enter into any operational or financial agreements and would assume the rights to the LMA with WLYH. Sinclair would also seek FCC consent for an asset swap with the buyer of WHP in which the station and WHTM would trade licenses, programming (including their respective network affiliations), virtual channel numbers and transmitter facilities.^[14][15] On May 29, 2014, Sinclair informed the FCC that it had not yet found a buyer for WHP and that it would also consider reselling WHTM to the third-party buyer, while keeping WHP and the LMA for WLYH;^[16][17] on June 23, the company announced that WHTM would be sold to Media General for $83.4 million.^[18]

Aborted sale to Standard Media Group

On May 8, 2017, Sinclair entered into an agreement to acquire Chicago-based Tribune Media – which has owned WPMT since 1996 – for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune. Sinclair was precluded from acquiring WPMT directly, as both it and WHP rank among the four highest-rated stations in the Harrisburg–Lancaster–Lebanon–York market in total day viewership, and there are too few independently owned full-power stations in the Susquehanna Valley area to permit legal duopolies in any event.^{[19][20][21][22][23]} On April 24, 2018, in an amendment to the Tribune acquisition through which it proposed the sale of certain stations to both independent and affiliated third-party companies to curry the DOJ's approval, Sinclair announced that it would sell WPMT and eight other stations – Sinclair-operated KOKH-TV in Oklahoma City, WRLH-TV in Richmond, WOLF-TV (along with LMA partners WSWB and WQMY) in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, KDSM-TV in Des Moines and WXLV-TV in Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point, and Tribune-owned WXMI in Grand Rapids – to Standard Media Group (an independent broadcast holding company formed by private equity firm Standard General to assume ownership of and absolve ownership conflicts involving the aforementioned stations) for $441.1 million. The transaction includes a transitional services agreement, through which Sinclair would have continued operating WRLH for six months after the sale's completion.^{[24][25][26][27][28]}

Three weeks after the FCC's July 18 vote to have the deal reviewed by an administrative law judge amid "serious concerns" about Sinclair's forthrightness in its applications to sell certain conflict properties, on August 9, 2018, Tribune announced it would terminate the Sinclair deal, intending to seek other M&A opportunities. Tribune also filed a breach of contract lawsuit in the Delaware Chancery Court, alleging that Sinclair engaged in protracted negotiations with the FCC and the DOJ over regulatory issues, refused to sell stations in markets where it already had properties, and proposed divestitures to parties with ties to Sinclair executive chair David D. Smith that were rejected or highly subject to rejection to maintain control over stations it was required to sell. The termination of the Sinclair sale agreement places uncertainty for the future of Standard Media's purchases of WPMT and the other six Tribune- and Sinclair-operated stations included in that deal, which were predicated on the closure of the Sinclair–Tribune merger.^{[29][30][31][32][33][34]}

News operation

WHP presently broadcasts 24½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 4½ hours each weekday and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). In addition to its main studios, WHP operates a bureau in York. Unlike most CBS affiliates in the Eastern Time Zone, the station did not air a midday newscast on weekdays until September 2019 when it debuted a noon newscast before The Young and the Restless. It is also the only station in the market that does not have a 4:30 a.m. newscast. The morning newscast instead starts at 5:00 a.m. The station also provides weather forecasts for local radio stations WSOX (96.1), WLAN-FM (96.9), WQLV (98.9 FM), and WLAN (1390 AM).

WHP has traditionally struggled in the ratings and has remained in third place for many years and sometimes even slid to fourth. The staff has earned numerous awards, including an Emmy Award in 2010 among other recognitions for its news team. WLYH's news department was shut down after being taken over by WHP, which began producing a primetime newscast at 10 p.m. for WLYH in September 1996; it was canceled in September 2003 due to low ratings.^[35] WHP revived that newscast in January 2009, which competes with WPMT's longer-established 10 p.m. newscast.^[36]

News broadcasts on WHP remained mainly in pillarboxed 4:3 standard definition until April 14, 2012, when WHP-TV became the fourth (and last) television station in the Central Pennsylvania market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition and the third to broadcast both in-studio segments and field reports in the format. With the conversion, the station debuted a new HD news set, digital microwave and editing equipment, and HD weather graphics system.^[37]

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of a new network called MyNetworkTV.^[39][40] On July 12, WHP announced that it would launch a new second digital subchannel to serve as the area's MyNetworkTV affiliate when that network launched on September 5. The subchannel became available on Comcast's digital tier while Philadelphia's WPHL-TV (which had been serving as the area's de facto WB affiliate) remained on the basic tier after becoming a MyNetworkTV affiliate. WLYH, meanwhile, joined another new network, The CW, when it debuted on September 18. On February 1, 2016, the simulcast of "The CW Central PA" moved to WHP 21.3.

Analog-to-digital conversion

WHP-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 21, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.^[41] The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition VHF channel 4 to UHF channel 21 for post-transition operations.^[42]

As a part of the repacking process following the 2016–2017 FCC incentive auction, WHP-TV relocated to channel 32 on August 1, 2019, using PSIP to display its virtual channel number as 21.^[43]