WHP-TV (channel 21) is a television station licensed to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States, serving the Susquehanna Valley region as an affiliate of CBS, MyNetworkTV, and The CW.
Through a channel sharing agreement with Lancaster-licensed Univision affiliate WXBU (channel 15, owned by Sinclair partner company Howard Stirk Holdings), the two stations transmit using WHP-TV's spectrum from an antenna on a ridge north of Linglestown Road in Middle Paxton Township (it is co-located with WITF-TV and is distinguishable as the unlit red and white tower; WITF's tower is unpainted and flashes strobes at all times).
This arrangement was necessary in the days before cable television, since the newly created market was not only one of the largest east of the Mississippi, but was very mountainous.
WLYH and WSBA-TV ran about three-quarters of the CBS schedule, compared to separately programmed and owned WHP.
In 1983, Susquehanna Radio Corporation sold WSBA to Mohawk Broadcasting, who broke channel 43 off from the Keystone Network and relaunched it as independent station WPMT (now a Fox affiliate).
On July 29, 2013, Allbritton Communications announced that it would sell its seven television stations, including WHTM-TV, to Sinclair.
[10] As part of the deal, Sinclair was planning to sell the license assets of WHP-TV to Deerfield Media, but would continue to operate the station through shared services and joint sales agreements.
[12] On March 20, 2014, as part of a restructuring of the Sinclair-Allbritton deal to address the noted ownership conflicts, Sinclair announced that it would terminate the sale of WHP-TV to Deerfield Media and instead sell the station to another third-party buyer, with whom Sinclair would not to enter into any operational or financial agreements and would assume the rights to the LMA with WLYH.
Sinclair would also seek FCC consent for an asset swap with the buyer of WHP in which the station and WHTM would trade licenses, programming (including their respective network affiliations), virtual channel numbers and transmitter facilities.
[18][19][20][21][22] On April 24, 2018, in an amendment to the Tribune acquisition through which it proposed the sale of certain stations to both independent and affiliated third-party companies to curry the DOJ's approval, Sinclair announced that it would sell WPMT and eight other stations—Sinclair-operated KOKH-TV in Oklahoma City, WRLH-TV in Richmond, WOLF-TV (along with LMA partners WSWB and WQMY) in Scranton–Wilkes-Barre, KDSM-TV in Des Moines and WXLV-TV in Greensboro–Winston-Salem–High Point, and Tribune-owned 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.
The transaction includes a transitional services agreement, through which Sinclair would have continued operating WRLH for six months after the sale's completion.
[23][24][25][26][27] 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 WPMT and the other six Tribune- and Sinclair-operated stations included in that deal, which were predicated on the closure of the Sinclair–Tribune merger.