Editing WPNT (section)

==History==
===Early history of channel 22===
The channel 22 allocation dates back to the 1950s, and was initially acquired by public interest groups as a "backup" plan if the groups were not able to acquire the channel 13 allocation for [[public television]]. The groups were in a battle with locally-based [[Westinghouse Electric Corporation]] (owners of [[KDKA radio]]), who wanted the channel 13 allocation for the proposed KDKA-TV. However, as Westinghouse later gave the groups their blessing to use channel 13 for what would become [[WQED (TV)|WQED]] (Westinghouse bought WDTV from struggling [[DuMont Television Network|DuMont]] and transformed that station into [[KDKA-TV]] instead), WQED was now stuck with two TV licenses but found use in possibly using channel 22 for educational programs it did not have time to air.

WQED planned to use its proposed WQEX on channel 22, but as fate would have it WENS-TV (channel 16) lost its tower in [[Reserve Township, Pennsylvania|Reserve Township]] in a storm on March 11, 1955, leading to a channel sharing agreement with WQED until the tower could be fixed. As WENS-TV was already in a battle for survival competing for the channel 11 license that it would ultimately lose, WQED was able to acquire WENS-TV's assets after that station signed off in 1957 and use its [[construction permit]] for channel 22 to relaunch WENS-TV as WQEX on channel 16 instead. (That station is now [[WINP-TV]].) Its channel 22 license and some intellectual property from WENS-TV would eventually be sold to the Commercial Radio Institute (which later became [[Sinclair Broadcast Group]]) for the current channel 22, outbidding [[Cornerstone Television]], who ended up with the channel 40 license to launch [[WPCB-TV]].

===WPTT-TV===
Rising out of the ashes of WENS-TV, channel 22 finally signed on the air on September 26, 1978, as WPTT-TV (which stood for Pittsburgh Twenty-Two, referencing the UHF channel on which it broadcast), the market's second commercial [[independent station]] and its fourth UHF station (after [[WPGH-TV]]). It started out running a number of popular off-network [[sitcom]]s from the 1950s and 1960s, off-network [[drama (film and television)|dramas]] and [[westerns]], very old [[feature film|movies]] and network programming preempted by [[WTAE-TV]] (channel 4), KDKA-TV (channel 2) and WIIC-TV (channel 11, now [[WPXI]]). For a time, WPTT-TV aired the children's television program ''[[Captain Pitt]]'', which featured older [[animated cartoon|cartoon]] shorts.

WPTT-TV also originated more of its own local programming with ''Prize Bowling'', which originally began as ''[[Bowling for Dollars]]'' on [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] network competitor WTAE-TV for many years until host Nick Perry [[1980 Pennsylvania Lottery scandal|was jailed for a lottery broadcast scam]]. The succeeding host was not received well by viewers, and the show ended up being canceled. WPTT-TV took the opportunity to fill the void in the market with ''Prize Bowling'', first hosted by Pittsburgh radio legend Roger Willoughby-Ray and then by [[Pittsburgh Steelers]] announcer [[Jack Fleming]]. The show's success was modest at best, and was canceled after two years. Other programs of varying degrees of success were ''The Ghost Host'', ''Eddie's Digest'' and ''[[Studio Wrestling]]''.

The station also aired a newscast in the early 1980s, a rarity at this time for stations not affiliated with the then-major networks (ABC, [[CBS]] and [[NBC]]). This newscast was called ''WPTT News'', and in the opening segment, the letters "news" were formed from a [[compass]] indicating the four [[cardinal directions]]. This opening segment, featuring then-anchorman Kevin Evans, appeared briefly (and was audible) in the movie ''[[Flashdance]]'' during a scene where [[Jennifer Beals]]' character returns home and turns on the television. The presentation was relatively low-budget, with the anchor simply reading copy, with no field video shots other than the weather read over a stock video shot denoting the conditions outside, and was not a factor in taking ratings away from then-market laggard WIIC-TV, much less solid runner-up WTAE-TV and then-locally-owned [[Westinghouse Broadcasting|Group W]] powerhouse KDKA-TV. As sister stations [[WBFF]] in [[Baltimore]] did not air newscasts until 1991 and [[WTTE]] in [[Columbus, Ohio]], would not air any newscasts from its 1984 sign-on until Sinclair purchased ABC affiliate [[WSYX]] in 1996, this marked Sinclair's first foray into [[local news]], a genre it would become [[Sinclair Broadcast Group#Programming|much more involved in]] from the mid-1990s on.

===The 1980s and early 1990s===
WPGH-TV, which had hitherto been a rather low-budget operation, was purchased by the [[Meredith Corporation]] in 1978, and became more aggressive with its programming strategy. Despite having a highly powerful signal that offered double the coverage of WPGH-TV's (5 million [[watt]]s visual, compared to WPGH-TV's 2.345 million), WPTT-TV became unable to acquire newer shows, and ended up with programming that no other stations wanted. Still, the shows run on WPTT-TV were not exactly low-budget. The station's ratings were very low, and it was considered as an "also-ran" in the market. For many years, WPTT-TV languished as just another local independent station, airing reruns of television shows, many of which were past their prime. In 1986, Sinclair made an offer to buy WPGH-TV, combine programming assets onto Channel 22, keep channel 22,  and sell weaker signaled Channel 53 to the [[Home Shopping Network]], but were outbid by [[Lorimar-Telepictures]]. After that, WPTT-TV added some more recent shows, cartoons, and movies. By the late 1980s, both WPGH-TV, which was again sold, and WPTT-TV were losing money. WPTT-TV began running Home Shopping Network programming nightly between 1 and 6 a.m.

In 1990, WPTT-TV and Pittsburgh's News Corporation (not affiliated with the [[News Corporation]] that owned Fox until 2013) entered into an agreement to produce a 10&nbsp;p.m. newscast to air on WPTT-TV which was to begin in the summer of 1991, and would feature news anchors from WTAE-TV. After going through three owners, WPGH-TV was put up for sale again; Sinclair placed a bid for the station in 1991 and won; however, the group struggled to obtain financing. As part of a deal, the group sold WPTT-TV to its operations manager Eddie Edwards (who had been with WPTT-TV since its launch in 1978, and had become best known as host of the station's locally produced public affairs program ''Eddie's Digest'', targeted towards local African-Americans). Soon after, the planned newscast with WPTT-TV was put on hold with an option to either produce it for WPGH-TV, reinstate the plans with WPTT-TV, or cancel it; it was eventually canceled. WPTT-TV also made a deal to increase Home Shopping Network programming hours to at least 15 hours a day with the option of running the programming the entire day. Rumors abounded that WPTT-TV would be running HSN programming for most of, if not the entire day, once the sale was completed. It was already established that some of WPTT-TV's first-run syndicated shows would go to WPGH-TV.{{Citation needed|date=November 2016}}

The sales closed on August 29, 1991, with Sinclair acquiring WPGH-TV from [[Renaissance Broadcasting]] in the fall of that year. Rights to cash programming from WPTT-TV's schedule were moved to WPGH-TV, while barter shows were returned to syndication distributors (it was thought that WPTT-TV might wind up with some low-budget children's shows to run a couple hours a day). But Eddie Edwards acquired WPTT-TV without programming and began to run Home Shopping Network programming 24 hours a day on WPTT-TV in September, which led to the station being dropped from the market's cable systems. Staffs from both WPGH-TV and WPTT-TV experienced [[layoff]]s. Some of WPTT-TV's ex-employees went to WPGH-TV while others stayed at WPTT-TV, and many others were laid off. WPGH-TV kept a decent number of its own staff, taking some from both stations. Edwards then made a deal with Sinclair to buy time on his station from 3 p.m. to midnight (effectively creating one of the first [[local marketing agreement]]s, which Sinclair would use heavily in its later station acquisitions), and get area cable providers to reinstate WPTT-TV on their lineups.

The deal took effect on January 6, 1992, with WPTT-TV airing cartoons, sitcoms, movies and dramas that Sinclair had no room to air on WPGH-TV. Sinclair's air time on the station expanded in 1993 to begin at noon. In the fall of 1995, WPTT-TV began to run WPGH-TV programming from 6 a.m. to midnight and picked up [[The Disney Afternoon]] cartoon block, which had been dropped by KDKA-TV when that station began running CBS' entire lineup.

===Network affiliation===

====UPN====
WPTT-TV affiliated with [[UPN]] when the network launched on January 16, 1995, and changed its on-air branding to "UPN 22". Sinclair's air time on the station increased later that year to begin at 6 a.m. as well; by 1997, WPTT-TV and WPGH-TV consolidated their operations into one building.

====The WB====
WPTT-TV dropped its UPN affiliation on January 15, 1998 (which moved to [[WNPA-TV]], channel 19) and affiliated with [[The WB]] as part of a wide-ranging affiliation deal that saw Sinclair Broadcast Group's owned and managed UPN affiliates and independent stations switch to the network.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20131105205254/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-19604007.html WB woos and wins Sinclair], ''[[Broadcasting & Cable]]'', July 21, 1997.</ref> The station also changed its call sign to WCWB (for "C, or See, The WB") on January 13, two days before the switch, to reflect its new affiliation. The WCWB calls had previously been used by the NBC affiliate in [[Macon, Georgia]] (now [[WMGT-TV]]); the WPTT calls were later used by a radio station on 1360 AM in Pittsburgh, which later changed its callsign to [[WGBN|WMNY]] in 2008. Prior to the Sinclair deal, WB programming was available to Pittsburgh on low-power stations [[WNPA-TV]] (channel 19) and [[WBPA-LP]] (channel 29) and on cable systems via [[NewsNation|the superstation feed]] of [[WGN-TV]] in Chicago.

Sinclair finally bought back WCWB from Eddie Edwards in 2000, after the [[Federal Communications Commission]] (FCC) relaxed its media ownership rules to allow one company to own two television stations in the same market, provided the market has at least eight full-power stations and that one or both stations involved in the duopoly are not among the four highest-rated. WPGH-TV is the senior partner in the duopoly because of its Fox affiliation and because of its longer establishment.

WCWB was airing the [[Action Pack (television)|Action Pack]] programming block in 2000.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Owen|first1=Rob|title=On the Tube: The ratings dropped with her golden locks - WB says grow it back|url=http://old.post-gazette.com/tv/20000121owen3.asp|access-date=June 9, 2017|work=Post Gazette|publisher=PG Publishing|date=January 21, 2000|archive-date=October 23, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171023154359/http://old.post-gazette.com/tv/20000121owen3.asp|url-status=dead}}</ref>

====MyNetworkTV====
On January 24, 2006, [[CBS Corporation]] and [[WarnerMedia|Time Warner]] announced that The WB and UPN would be shut down and replaced by [[The CW]], a new network featuring programming from both networks.<ref>[https://money.cnn.com/2006/01/24/news/companies/cbs_warner/ 'Gilmore Girls' meet 'Smackdown'; CW Network to combine WB, UPN in CBS-Warner venture beginning in September], [[CNNMoney.com]], January 24, 2006.</ref><ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/business/media/24cnd-network.html?bl UPN and WB to Combine, Forming New TV Network], ''[[The New York Times]]'', January 24, 2006.</ref> Through an affiliation agreement with 11 UPN affiliates owned by CBS, UPN [[owned-and-operated station]] WNPA was named the Pittsburgh affiliate of The CW, and later changed its call letters to [[WPCW]].

WCWB, meanwhile, later decided to affiliate with [[MyNetworkTV]], another new network owned by News Corporation's [[Fox Entertainment Group]] and [[20th Television]] divisions. On April 17, WCWB changed its call letters to WPMY to reflect the new affiliation while keeping the "Pittsburgh's WB22" until the WB's end.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Owen|first1=Rob|title=TV notes: Networks and stations contest indecency ruling from FCC|url=http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06105/682323-237.stm|access-date=January 14, 2016|work=Post-Gazette|date=April 15, 2006|quote=Effective Monday, Channel 22 will change its call letters from WCWB to WPMY to reflect its upcoming affiliation with My Network TV, a new network that launches in the fall.}}</ref> On August 14, 2006, WPMY rebranded itself as MyPittsburghTV; the channel 22 reference was excluded from the new brand as cable providers in the market carry WPMY on different channels (the official brand name is "My Pittsburgh TV", although the logo has it appear to read as "My TV Pittsburgh"). The station withdrew from using their channel number in most promotional forms outside of sign-on/sign-off disclosures for FCC purposes, as the station instead used its [[Comcast]] channel 10 for advertising purposes with them and [[Armstrong Group of Companies|Armstrong Cable]] having the station in that slot; both systems cover the majority of the Pittsburgh market. Channel 22 officially joined MyNetworkTV when it launched on September 5, 2006. Unlike many other former WB affiliates switching to MyNetworkTV (and despite WNPA being CBS-owned), WPMY continued to air The WB's prime time schedule in the late night hours until September 18, 2006, when The CW launched.

===WPNT===
On May 19, 2015, WPMY quietly changed its call letters to WPNT for the landmark [[Point State Park|"Point"]] [[confluence]] of the [[Ohio River|Ohio]], [[Allegheny River|Allegheny]] and [[Monongahela River|Monongahela]] rivers in downtown Pittsburgh, which previously appeared in the market nearly three decades earlier on FM 92.9, now [[WLTJ]]. Coincidentally, WLTJ also shares its transmitter facilities with WPGH-TV and WPNT.

On September 1, 2015, WPNT changed its on-air branding to 22 The Point (to further the branding, the station's logo utilized an exclamation point). WPNT began to focus more on local programming, particularly sports programming, including a weekly [[high school football]] package on Friday nights, while remaining a MyNetworkTV affiliate. No subchannels were planned at the time.<ref name=ppg-wpntpointsports>{{cite news|last1=Sciullo|first1=Maria|title=WPNT-TV to focus on sports|url=http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/tv-radio/2015/05/27/WPNT-TV-fromerly-WPMY-to-focus-on-sports/stories/201505260127|access-date=May 28, 2015|work=[[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]]|date=May 27, 2015}}</ref> As part of the changes, WPNT hired sports personality [[Mark Madden]] for a two-hour [[sports talk]] show every weeknight<ref>{{cite news|title=TV/radio notes: WPNT-TV adds Mark Madden|url=http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/tv-radio/2015/07/21/TV-radio-notes-WPNT-TV-adds-Mark-Madden/stories/201507210017|access-date=January 14, 2016|work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|publisher=PG Publishing Co., Inc.|date=July 21, 2015}}</ref> and continued to air games from the [[Pittsburgh Penguins]]' minor league affiliate, the [[Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins]], while adding the featured [[Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference]] Saturday game.<ref name=ppg-wpntpointsports/> Madden's program was cancelled on July 1, 2016.<ref name="ppg-wpntmaddenend">{{cite news|last1=Owen|first1=Rob|title=Tuned In: PBS kids shows on Amazon|url=http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/tv-radio/2016/07/08/HBO-introduces-compelling-crime-story-The-Night-Of/stories/201607080041|access-date=January 16, 2017|work=[[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]]|date=July 8, 2016}}</ref>

On January 8, 2016, Sinclair announced that [[American Sports Network]] would launch as a dedicated, digital multicast network under the American Sports Network name with 10 stations including WPNT on January 11, 2016.<ref name=asn-247net>{{cite web|title=ASN launches 24/7 broadcast network on Monday|url=http://americansportsnet.com/asn-launches-247-broadcast-network-on-monday/|website=americansportsnet.com|access-date=January 8, 2016|archive-date=January 30, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160130105803/http://americansportsnet.com/asn-launches-247-broadcast-network-on-monday/|url-status=dead}}</ref> However, the station continued to air [[Duquesne Dukes]] [[Duquesne Dukes men's basketball|men's]] and women's basketball, [[Penn State Nittany Lions men's ice hockey]], and the annual [[Arizona Bowl]] [[college football]] game on the main channel in addition to the ASN subfeed. ASN became [[Stadium (sports network)|Stadium]] in August 2017 and ceased syndication.

In August 2016, WPNT began to re-air WPGH newscasts produced by WPXI.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqRu4f81wVI | title=- YouTube | website=[[YouTube]] }}</ref>

Sports programming currently airing on WPNT includes the aforementioned package of high school football games, plus local [[high school basketball]] and programming from [[CW Sports|The CW Sports]], including a handful of [[Pittsburgh Panthers]] football and basketball games through its contract with the [[Atlantic Coast Conference]].

==== CW affiliation ====
{{Main|2023–24 CW affiliation realignment}}

On August 31, 2023, [[Nexstar Media Group]], majority owners of [[The CW]], announced that it extended its affiliation partnership with Sinclair Broadcast Group. As part of the deal, it was also announced that WPNT would be taking The CW affiliation effective September 1, with MyNetworkTV moving to late nights, following [[WPKD-TV]] going independent.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Alex |date=August 31, 2023 |title=The CW Network and Sinclair Expand and Extend Affiliation Partnership |url=https://www.nexstar.tv/the-cw-and-sinclair-expand-and-extend-affiliation-partnership/ |access-date=August 31, 2023 |website=Nexstar Media Group, Inc. |language=en-US}}</ref> Prior to taking the affiliation full-time, WPNT had already served as a partial affiliate airing [[CW Sports]] programming rejected by CBS such as [[LIV Golf]] coverage.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://22thepoint.com/sports/sports-extras/liv-golf-at-bedminster-set-for-saturday-and-sunday | title=LIV Golf at Bedminster set for Saturday and Sunday | date=August 7, 2023 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://triblive.com/sports/penguins-announce-new-name-for-att-sportsnet-pittsburgh/|title=Penguins announce new name for AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh|first=Rob|last=Owen|newspaper=[[Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]]|date=August 31, 2023|accessdate=September 5, 2023}}</ref>