Certain services are provided under a local marketing agreement (LMA) by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of WSTM-TV (channel 3), a dual affiliate of NBC and The CW.

The two stations share studios on James Street/NY 290 in the Near Northeast section of Syracuse; WTVH's transmitter is located in the town of Onondaga.

It originally wanted the new call letters WTVF ("Television Five", referring to the station's on-air identity) but those had already been claimed by a fellow CBS affiliate in Nashville, Tennessee.

In April 2008, Matthew Rosenfeld was appointed to the position of president and general manager of WTVH and its Binghamton sister stations (WBNG and "WBXI").

On March 2, 2009, as a result of continual low ratings, slow advertising sales, and the loss of the Ithaca area to WENY-DT2, it was announced that WTVH would enter into a local marketing agreement with rivals WSTM-TV and WSTQ-LP.

[9][10][11] Initially, WTVH continued to operate out of its own facilities on James Street but eventually moved into WSTM-TV's studios a block away.

While Granite Broadcasting worked to fix the signal, WSTM-TV's third digital subchannel (normally a 24-hour local weather channel) carried WTVH.

Under Granite's ownership, WTVH did not take advantage of this status in terms of targeted advertising and news coverage focusing on the Utica area.

[20] WTVH's schedule was carried in full on cable in Watertown due to its status as an out-of-market station that was "significantly viewed" over-the-air, even though the area has WWNY-TV as its own CBS affiliate.

WWNY-TV's then-owner, United Communications, argued in a 2018 petition that WTVH's significantly-viewed status should be removed as it provides no over-the-air coverage to Watertown after the transition to digital.

The FCC decided in United's favor, and WWNY-TV is now allowed to black out network and duplicate syndicated programming on WTVH's feed on local cable providers.

Since the 2015 NFL season, the league's blackout policy has been suspended on a season-to-season basis, allowing Bills home games to air on WTVH regardless of sell-out status.

In 2000, WSTM-TV declined to renew its news share agreement with WSYT that featured a nightly, half-hour prime time newscast on the latter.

Meanwhile, in 2003, WSTM-TV brought back a nightly prime time show at 10 for its newly acquired sister station WSTQ-LP.

In April 2006, WTVH ceased producing all local news programming for WSYT to focus on its own newscasts that were cemented in third place by this point.

Neither station attempted to offer newscasts outside traditional time slots to compete with WSYR-TV (such as weekdays at 11 am, 12:30 pm, or weeknights at 4 and 7) despite a plan originally announced.

In October 2009, Barrington Broadcasting began to produce separate weeknight newscasts on WTVH from a new secondary set at WSTM-TV's facility.

Although WTVH retained unique branding, music, and graphic aspects of the separately-produced news broadcasts on weeknights, coverage was essentially the same with re-purposed and packaged stories from the NBC affiliate airing on this CBS station.

[24] In mid-December 2010, WSTM-TV became the first in the market to upgrade local news production to 16:9 enhanced definition widescreen and the shows on WTVH were included in the change.

At the same time, this station also began to feature its own meteorologist for the weeknight newscasts rather than sharing an on-air personality with WSTM-TV.