Seeking to expand its coverage area, it successfully filed to use channel 12 in Wilmington, which was left vacant after the closing of a commercial station, and moved its primary programming there in 1963.

Twelve city schools were being equipped with UHF-capable sets to receive the programs;[11] a two-page feature entitled "This Is WHYY" ran in a late October edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine;[12] and test patterns were being broadcast.

[20] As Delaware groups marshaled a demonstration in Washington in support of designating the VHF channel for educational use,[21] the FCC convened hearings with WHYY and four commercial applicants to start in October 1960, then delayed into 1961.

Metropolitan Broadcasting (renamed Metromedia in April 1961[24]), owner of independent television stations in Washington (WTTG) and New York City (WNEW-TV) as well as Philadelphia's WIP radio, had taken an option on a $185,000 parcel of land in Wilmington for potential facilities.

[27] Just as oral hearings finally commenced in October, Metromedia unexpectedly withdrew despite having prepared voluminous exhibits and materials in support of its case; no reason was given.

It announced it would be a two-city operation with studios in Wilmington and Philadelphia,[36] having already obtained an option on land for a transmitter site at Glassboro, New Jersey, from where WVUE had broadcast.

[41][42] After five years of silence, channel 12 from Wilmington came alive with WHYY-TV on September 12, 1963, expanding its reach to viewers without UHF converters in the Delaware Valley.

[48] WUHY-TV remained in service providing alternate programming—including the only on-air preview of Sesame Street before its national debut, a week-long run starting on July 21, 1969[49][50]—until August 1976, when WHYY surrendered its license.

In a 1976 feature article in The Philadelphia Inquirer magazine that declared WHYY-TV "an experiment in mediocrity", one PBS executive, H. David Lacey, noted that "WHYY's credibility is about as high as a gnat's behind".

The station was slow to attract underwriters; took a passive role in broadcasting local cultural programming, often at the suggestion of other groups; and lacked recognized output.

To augment the service and ensure cable companies picked it up instead of bypassing the translator for WHYY-TV's feed, the Citizens' Committee applied in January 1981 for a full-service license, activating it that December 4 as WDPB.

WDPB operated independently of WHYY-TV, paying for its own PBS national programs[59] and producing a limited number of local shows focusing on southern Delaware.

In December 1982, the home on Seaford's Front Street that it was leasing as a studio facility was put on the auction block; the station was unaware until a receptionist spotted a classified advertisement.

[62]In November 1985, a decision by the Bicentennial Community Improvement Committee, created to support projects around Delaware's 200th anniversary of statehood in 1987, not to award a grant to WDPB to buy equipment left the station unable to obtain Corporation for Public Broadcasting matching funds and meet its own financial commitments, putting channel 64 close to going off the air.

Two months earlier, WDPB's only local programs had gone off the air for lack of money;[63] its most successful fund drive in station history had only raised $5,000.

[68] Former Philadelphia city water commissioner William J. Marrazzo was named president of WHYY, envisioning an organization that would take advantage of digital multicasting and produce top-quality programs.

[70] While the station began to turn surpluses and tripled its number of major donors,[71] Marrazzo's high compensation raised questions from staff and charity groups.

His fiscal year 2007 compensation of $740,090 exceeded that of his counterparts at WNET and WGBH, which had multiple times the revenue of WHYY, as well as the chief executives of PBS and NPR itself.

In June 2009, it announced Delaware Tonight would be canceled after 46 years, to be replaced with a weekly program titled First and expanded online news coverage.

[86][87] It also closed a Dover bureau it had opened just two years prior[88] and put the Linden Building facility on the market, calling it expensive to operate.

Philly, reviewing restaurants in the Philadelphia region;[96] arts and culture profile program Movers & Makers;[97] and local feature magazine You Oughta Know.

[98] WHYY-TV's digital signal initially operated at so low an effective radiated power that even those who lived in some areas of the city of Philadelphia could not receive it reliably.