A construction permit for what is now WHNH-CD was granted on January 24, 1996, for operation on UHF channel 49, to serve Manchester, Vermont;[4] the new station was issued the call sign W49BU.[5] The original owners, Heritage Broadcasting Company of New York (who had applied for channel 49 in 1994, several months before selling Fox affiliate WXXA-TV (channel 23) in Albany, New York, to Clear Channel Communications), sold the station to Vision 3 Broadcasting on June 19, 1997.[6][7] Vision 3 modified the permit to add Londonderry, Vermont, as a second city of license on January 8, 1998.[8] The station was designed to be a repeater of WVBG-LP (channel 25) from Albany; however, when channel 49 signed on in March 1998 as an independent station, it was the second of Vision 3's three stations to launch,[9] after W39CE (channel 39, later renamed WVBX-LP) in Easton, New York, which signed on in December 1997.[10] WVBG-LP itself would not go on the air until August 1998.[11] Channel 49 became WVBK-LP on April 24, 1998.[5]
On October 5, 1998, WVBK-LP, along with parent station WVBG-LP, became a UPN affiliate;[12] it already carried the UPN Kids block,[13] but the network's prime time programming had previously been seen in the Capital District through secondary affiliations with WXXA-TV[13] and Pax station WYPX-TV (channel 55),[14] as well as cable carriage of WSBK-TV from Boston.[12][14] The lineup of UPN and syndicated programming was supplemented by several sports packages, including Big East football and basketball, the Boston Red Sox (the telecasts of which were dropped following a territorial complaint by the New York Yankees),[15] and the Boston Celtics.[16]
The UPN affiliation ended at the start of 2000 when cable-only "WEDG-TV" (known later as "UPN 4") signed on as a joint operation between Time Warner Cable and WXXA-TV.[17] WVBK-LP would then revert to being an independent station, heavily emphasizing its status as a primarily over-the-air station;[18] that June, Vision 3 put its sister stations, WVBG-LP and WVBX-LP, up for sale,[19] and by 2001 much of the station's schedule was taken up by programming from America One[20] and the Resort Sports Network (RSN), the predecessor to Outside Television.[21] While WVBG-LP was sold to Wireless Access in 2001[22] (subsequently moving to channel 41 in Greenwich) and WVBX-LP was sold to Venture Technologies Group in 2003[23] (subsequently moving to channel 15 first as WNYA-CA in Albany, then as WEPT-CA in Kinderhook), Vision 3 kept WVBK-LP, making it a separate station. America One was dropped in 2003, making the station a full RSN affiliate.[24][25] The station moved to channel 2 in 2004[26] and upgraded to class A status.[27]
On February 28, 2005, Vision 3 purchased the construction permit for W47CS[28] (channel 47) in Windsor[29] from MTC North,[30] who was granted the permit on April 22, 2003.[29] Vision 3 changed its call letters to WVBQ-LP on June 16, 2005,[28] moved the station to Newport and Charlestown, New Hampshire on February 16, 2006,[31] and signed it on that March[32] as a satellite of WVBK-CA.
Vision 3 filed to sell WVBK-CA and WVBQ-LP to New Hampshire 1 Network, a company controlled by William H. Binnie, in November 2010;[33] the deal was called off in June 2011.[34] Vision 3 then filed to sell WVBQ-LP to Cross Hill Communications that November; under the terms of the deal, Cross Hill also held an option to acquire WVBK,[35] which was exercised in June 2012.[36] Under Cross Hill, the station increased its local programming, including the addition of a half-hour weeknight newscast (which originally aired at 6 p.m. with repeats at 6:30 p.m. and from 10 to 11 p.m., and as a result was initially branded as YCN News Hour).
WYCU-LD began broadcasting in digital on channel 26 in December 2012; although this facility was applied for as WVBQ's digital companion channel, Cross Hill ended broadcasts on analog channel 47 on December 20, 2012, and returned the analog WVBQ-LP license to the FCC,[37] which canceled it on January 3, 2013.[28] Channel 26 had changed its call letters from WVBQ-LP to WYCU-LD on December 13, 2012.[38] In May 2013, WVBK-CA converted to digital broadcasts;[1] on October 18, it changed its call letters to WYCX-CD.[5] Following their digital conversions, WYCX-CD and WYCU-LD added subchannels to carry RTV, Tuff TV, and PBJ.[39]
The station changed its call sign to WHNH-CD on October 12, 2021.
On October 3, 2024, the FCC approved Vision Communications' proposal to move WHNH-CD's RF channel to 25, and its city of license to Hartford, Connecticut, although the change has not taken place yet.[2]
On November 20, 2024, the Daystar Television Network filed to purchase WHNH-CD for $7.5 million;[40] the sale was completed on January 29, 2025.[41]
