Early history

The station first signed-on June 3, 1985, with the calls WOLF-TV, locally owned by Scranton TV Partners. It was the first independent outlet in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and the market's first new commercial station in 32 years. A few days later, it added WWLF-TV in Hazleton as a full-time satellite for the southern portion of the market. After a little more than a year as an Independent, WOLF-TV became a charter affiliate of Fox on October 9, 1986. Two years later, WILF-TV in Williamsport was launched as a second full-time satellite to improve coverage in the western and northern parts of the market, including portions of the Pennsylvania side of the adjacent Binghamton and Elmira markets (which would not receive local Fox affiliates until April 1996 and mid-1997, respectively).

In 1993, Scranton TV Partners merged with Pegasus Communications. The latter immediately sought permission to move either the analog UHF channel 38 or channel 56 transmitters to the Northeastern Pennsylvania tower farm on Penobscot Knob. Ultimately, Pegasus was allowed to move the WWLF transmitter. On November 1, 1998, Pegasus activated the new analog channel 56 transmitter and moved the WOLF-TV call letters there. Meanwhile, channel 38 became a WB affiliate under new calls WSWB, succeeding WYLN-LP as the network's over the air affiliate in the area. This call sign was chosen because they could have meant "Scranton's WB" for its affiliation, or the area it serves, Scranton–Wilkes-Barre. Originally, channel 38 was given the WSWB calls in 1981, but they were changed to WOLF-TV before the station went on-the-air in 1985. WILF in Williamsport remained as a full-time satellite.

At the time of the switch, WSWB also picked up a secondary affiliation with UPN. It showed select programming from the network on Saturday nights (since there were no shows from The WB) without the branding. From 2003 to 2006, the station aired America's Next Top Model at 8:00 p.m., followed at 9:00 p.m. by WWE Friday Night SmackDown. Whenever Top Model was in repeats, WSWB would air Veronica Mars instead. All UPN programming in pattern was also available on cable in the area via WWOR-TV (which was receivable over-the-air in extreme eastern portions of the market, as well as in Pike County, which is considered part of the New York City DMA), WPSG from Philadelphia, and WLYH-TV from Harrisburg.

As a CW affiliate

On January 24, 2006, the respective parent companies of UPN and The WB, CBS Corporation and the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner, announced that they would dissolve the two networks to create The CW Television Network, a joint venture between the two media companies that initially featured programs from its two predecessor networks as well as new series specifically produced for The CW.^[2][3] Subsequently, on February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of MyNetworkTV, a network operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television that was created to primarily to provide network programming to UPN and WB stations that The CW decided against affiliating based on their local viewership standing in comparison to the outlet that The CW ultimately chose as its charter outlets, giving these stations another option besides converting to a general entertainment independent format.^[4][5]

On May 1, 2006, in an announcement by the network, WSWB was named as The CW's Scranton/Wilkes-Barre affiliate; it was the obvious choice since it already carried both WB and UPN programming. At the same time, it was announced that WILF would sever the electronic umbilical cord with WSWB and become the area's charter MyNetworkTV affiliate. Since WILF's signal was more or less unviewable in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area, it was also announced that it would be added to a new third subchannel of WOLF-TV. WILF changed its call letters to the current WQMY on July 7 to reflect the upcoming affiliation change. WQMY became a charter affiliate of MyNetworkTV when that network launched on September 5, at which time, the station ceased operating as a full-time WSWB satellite and introduced a separate programming lineup and branding. WSWB became a CW charter affiliate when that network launched two weeks later on September 18.

On September 25, 2013, New Age Media announced that it would sell most of its stations, including WOLF-TV and WQMY, to the Sinclair Broadcast Group. Concurrently, MPS Media planned to sell WSWB to Cunningham Broadcasting; the station would continue to be operated by WOLF-TV.^[6][7] On October 31, 2014, MPS Media requested the dismissal of its application to sell WSWB;^[8] the next day, Sinclair purchased the non-license assets of the stations it planned to buy from New Age Media and began operating them through a master service agreement.^[9][10]

On May 8, 2017, Sinclair entered into an agreement to acquire Chicago-based Tribune Media – which, through a shared services agreement with owner Dreamcatcher Broadcasting, has operated WNEP-TV since December 2013 – for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune. The complicated SSA relationships that Sinclair has in the Scranton–Wilkes–Barre market with WOLF, WSWB and WQMY – the former two of which are currently the only legal television duopoly in the market – created an ownership entanglement, as WNEP and WOLF rank among the market's four highest-rated stations, and the market has too few independently owned full-power stations to permit a second legal duopoly in any event. (Sinclair CEO Christopher Ripley cited Scranton–Wilkes–Barre as one of three markets, out of fourteen where ownership conflicts exist between the two groups, where the proposed acquisition would likely result in divestitures).^{[11][12][13][14][15][16]} To alleviate some of the regulatory issues that the deal incurred by selling certain stations to both independent and affiliated third-party companies, on April 24, 2018, Sinclair announced that it would sell the non-license assets of WOLF-TV, WQMY, and WSWB and the full assets of eight other stations – Sinclair-operated KOKH-TV in Oklahoma City, WRLH-TV in Richmond, KDSM-TV in Des Moines and WXLV-TV in Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point, and Tribune-owned WPMT in Harrisburg and 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. Sinclair concurrently exercised its option to buy WOLF-TV and WQMY to allow Standard Media Group – the latter of which, for regulatory purposes, will continue to be licensed as a satellite of WOLF-TV – to acquire the stations outright; Standard will concurrently acquire the WOLF-TV license, which is permitted under Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ownership regulations as WSWB is not ranked as one of the top-four stations in the market.^{[17][18][19][20][21]}

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 WOLF/WQMY/WSWB and the other four Tribune- and Sinclair-operated stations included in that deal, which were predicated on the closure of the Sinclair–Tribune merger.^{[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]}

On July 28, 2021, the FCC issued a Forfeiture Order stemming from a lawsuit against MPS Media. The lawsuit, filed by AT&T, alleged that MPS Media failed to negotiate for retransmission consent in good faith for the stations. Owners of other Sinclair-managed stations, such as Deerfield Media, were also named in the lawsuit. MPS was ordered to pay a fine of $512,288.^[34]

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

WSWB launched the MeTV network on May 3, 2011, on sub channel 38.2.

WSWB was among the launch group of Comet affiliates. The network launched October 31, 2015.

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Analog-to-digital conversion

WSWB shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 38, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 31.^[36] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 38.