[3] The construction permit for UHF channel 20 that bore WHNO dates to 1988 and was filed by Tucker Broadcasting Company, Limited Partnership.

An FCC law judge found in favor of Delta Broadcasting Company, a competing applicant headed by market veteran John G. Curren, in 1990;[4] the FCC review board proposed granting the station to another aspiring owner, Swan Broadcasting.

On February 5, 2018, it was announced that LeSEA would sell WHNO and two low-power stations in Las Vegas and Colorado Springs to Clearwater, Florida–based Christian Television Network for $5.7 million.

WHNO carried the only televised game of the short-lived springtime Regional Football League: the New Orleans Thunder–Mobile Admirals contest in Mobile, Alabama, on May 8, 1999.

In September 2012, Berthelot expanded WHNO's sports block to ten hours a week (running weeknights from 5 to 7 p.m.) to counterprogram and compete against the local news programming on WWL-TV, WVUE, NBC affiliate WDSU (channel 6) and ABC affiliate WGNO (channel 26).

In 2012, WHNO began airing high school football, baseball and basketball games again for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.

In 2009, WHNO began carrying the LeSEA-owned World Harvest Television service on digital subchannel 20.2.

This made WHNO the second television station in the New Orleans market (after WVUE) to discontinue its analog signal prior to the June 12, 2009, digital transition deadline.