Channel 22 was the second television station built in Northeastern Pennsylvania and the first on air in Scranton, beginning broadcasting as WGBI-TV on June 7, 1953.

A CBS affiliate from the start, the station was owned by the Megargee family alongside WGBI radio and shared its facilities on Wyoming Avenue.

The station changed its call letters to WDAU-TV in 1957, after the Philadelphia Bulletin—owner of WCAU radio and television in Philadelphia—purchased a controlling stake which was later repurchased by the Megargees.

When WBRE-TV came up for sale shortly after, Nexstar acquired it and sold WYOU to Mission Broadcasting with a shared services agreement.

[2] Scranton Broadcasters, the parent of radio station WGBI (910 AM), had already applied for channel 22 on September 7, 1951, and amended its proposal on June 27, 1952.

[4] Construction on the Bald Mountain tower began in early November, at which time the owning Megargee family announced the station would be the CBS television affiliate for the Scranton–Wilkes-Barre area.

[15] Eventually, the link to New York was changed to a private microwave system after reception of the over-the-air signal from WCBS-TV degraded; still later, the station began taking a proper feed from AT&T to broadcast network shows in color.

[16] This resulted in a $650,000 deal for a 50-percent interest and voting control in WGBI-TV, while the Megargees retained full ownership of the radio stations.

[17] The deal was approved that October,[18] and channel 22 changed its call sign to WDAU-TV on April 1, 1957, coinciding with the activation of a higher-power, 892,300-watt[3] transmitter facility expected to double the station's service area.

The next year, it sold the WCAU stations in Philadelphia to CBS, retaining its interests in WDAU-TV and a Muzak background music service.

[11] Most of the surviving aerial footage of the flooding brought by Hurricane Agnes was shot by channel 22; Powell arranged for the use of a helicopter owned by a coal businessman.

That February, the Scranton Preparatory School—which had moved into the Wyoming Avenue building in 1963—gave WGBI and WDAU-TV a year to leave their basement studio so that it could alleviate overcrowding on its campus.

[31] On September 17, Scranton Broadcasters agreed to sell the station for $12 million to a consortium of Robert Dudley, Charles Woods, and A. Richard Benedek.

[34] In the meantime, as a result of the delays,[35] Scranton Broadcasters acquired a former S. S. Kresge department store in the 400 block of Lackawanna Avenue downtown and began refitting it to serve as channel 22's new home.

[36] The Dudley–Woods–Benedek transaction hit another snag in November, despite an amended payment plan and FCC approval, due to hesitancy from a bank to put up the money the buyers owed at closing.

[39] Litigation involving the buyers, the Bank of New York, and a law firm stretched into 1985, when a judge ruled in favor of the Megargee family.

[40] Philip Lombardo came close to buying the station and engaged in talks throughout 1982 and 1983,[41][42] but the Megargees instead agreed to sell WDAU-TV to an affiliate of the Atlanta-based Southeastern Capital Corporation, a diversified holding company.

[49] Southeastern Capital Corporation took control of WDAU-TV on July 26, 1984, and began implementing a series of changes to update the station under general manager Gene Bohi, who arrived in Scranton from WGHP in High Point, North Carolina.

[62] In June 1986, Southeastern Capital Corporation agreed to sell WDAU-TV to Diversified Communications of Portland, Maine, for $22.5 million.

[63] Coinciding with the activation of the new Mountain Top transmitter on Penobscot Knob, the call letters were changed to the current WYOU on October 9.

[69] When the economic outlook for the television industry improved and revenues rose, Diversified instead opted to retain control of the three stations.

[72] The market for TV stations grew so hot that, by January 1996, Diversified was regularly receiving unsolicited offers of interest in WYOU from other companies.

[73] In June, Diversified announced the sale of WYOU to a new company, Nexstar Broadcasting Group, which would be headquartered in Scranton and led by Pennsylvania native Perry Sook.

[105][106] In 2006, WYOU revamped its evening newscasts again, this time adopting an interactive format incorporating viewer emails and phone calls, as well as contributions from local weather spotters.

Candice Grossklaus, previously the weekend anchor for WBRE, was teamed with Eric Scheiner, who came from a similar nontraditional newscast at WNDS-TV in Derry, New Hampshire.

[111][112] Dennis Thatcher, the chief operating officer of Mission Broadcasting, noted that many efforts to attract viewers with new formats, talent, or sets had failed despite the investment.

On that date, dedicated Eyewitness News newscasts at noon and 7 p.m. were added to WYOU's schedule, and the station began to simulcast WBRE's weekday morning and nightly 6 and 11 p.m.

WBRE-TV lost all of its footage in 1972 because of Hurricane Agnes, which flooded the station's basement, while WNEP disposed of significant portions of its archive.