Renaissance Broadcasting began operations in February 1982 under the name Odyssey Media Partners, a partnership headed by Greenwich businessman Michael Finkelstein with the purchase of WATR-TV in Waterbury, Connecticut, an NBC affiliate that was nearing disaffiliation after New Britain-based WVIT upgraded its transmitter to cover the whole state of Connecticut.
When WATR-TV's affiliation with NBC expired in March 1982, the station filled that hole and took on the new calls of WTXX (now WCCT-TV), a general entertainment independent who would soon undergo their own upgrade to cover the entire state.
In 1986, the group started buying existing stations, and reincorporated Odyssey Media Partners as Renaissance Broadcasting.
In 1987, after failing to acquire WTVJ channel 4 (now 6) in Miami upon CBS announcing plans to buy WCIX (which became a Fox affiliate), Telepictures (now part of Warner Bros. Television) opted to exit broadcast television altogether, selling its only station, Fox affiliate WPGH-TV channel 53 in Pittsburgh, which they purchased from Meredith Corporation in 1986, to Renaissance.
Much of WCIX's syndicated programming moved to WDZL, as WSVN opted to go towards a news-intensive format like that of many Fox affiliates today.
In 1990, Renaissance put WPGH up for sale, because it was losing money from overpaying for programming so that WPTT channel 22 (now WPNT) could not air it.