WWLP

In 1957, WRLP in Greenfield signed on as a full-time satellite of WWLP. WRLP served the northern portion of the Pioneer Valley market, where WWLP's signal was marginal at best due to the area's rugged and mountainous terrain. From a transmitter on Gunn Mountain in Winchester, New Hampshire (one of the highest points in the region), WRLP could also be seen in Springfield as well, creating a strong combined signal with over 50 percent overlap.

In 1958, Putnam purchased a defunct station in Worcester, WWOR-TV (no relation to the current Secaucus, New Jersey/Tri-State station with the same callsign), and returned it to the air as a second full-time satellite of WWLP. However, Worcester is part of the Boston market, and WWLP was forced to limit WWOR's broadcast day to only six hours in order to protect the interests of WBZ-TV, then Boston's NBC affiliate. In 1964, WWOR changed its calls to WJZB-TV and became an independent station while continuing to simulcast some programming from WWLP.

WRLP and WJZB eventually went off the air due to financial difficulties, with WJZB going dark in 1969 followed by WRLP in 1978. Almost immediately after WRLP left the air, its transmitter was shipped to Salt Lake City, Utah in order to launch KSTU, an independent sister station on UHF channel 20. That station eventually became a Fox affiliate on analog VHF channel 13 operating under a different owner.

WWLP-DT2, branded on air as The CW Springfield, is the CW+-affiliated second digital subchannel of WWLP, broadcasting in 720p high definition on VHF channel 11.2 (or virtual channel 22.2 via PSIP). On cable, the subchannel is available on Xfinity channel 5 and Spectrum channel 13 to viewers in Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties.

WWLP-DT2's former logo as a cable-only CW affiliate.

What is now WWLP-DT2 began its life in September 1998 as WBQT, a cable-only affiliate of The WB through the national WB 100+ service. Since it was only available on cable, the call sign was fictional in nature solely for the purposes of electronic program guide and rating diary identification, and thus not officially recognized by the FCC. As a WB 100+ station, it was one of the few in the group that was not aligned with an established over-the-air station in the market. WBQT did not initially replace out-of-market WB affiliates (such as WPIX from New York City, WBNE from Hartford, which was later replaced with WTXX, and WLVI from Boston) on local cable systems.

In 1999, WBQT was taken off of AT&T Broadband systems serving the majority of the Springfield–Holyoke market. When Comcast took over AT&T's cable system in 2001, the company began a push to expand WBQT's reach. In late 2001, it replaced out-of-market WB affiliates on most systems with near total replacement taking place by 2003 (mainly taking the cable channel positions formerly held by WTXX, following a pattern where WSHM-LP replaced Hartford CBS affiliate WFSB on channel 3 and new Fox affiliate WGGB-DT2 replaced WTIC-TV on channel 6 in the Springfield market upon their launches). Throughout the station's affiliation with The WB, it was known on-air as Pioneer Valley's WB 16 (named after its channel location) and had its own logo.

On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced the two networks would shut down and merge into a new network, The CW. The next few months saw uncertainty about The CW's place in Springfield due to a lack of broadcast stations in the market and The CW's preference for over-the-air affiliates, along with cable providers then not being receptive to picking up digital subchannels. UPN service was provided by New Haven's WCTX via cable in the Springfield market, but WTXX, being Tribune-owned, was named a charter affiliate in The CW's launch announcement, shutting out WCTX from the CW affiliation entirely. As WBQT had no web presence or communications department as a WB 100+ affiliate, there was no word about it becoming the Springfield affiliate for The CW, nor of a return of WTXX to market cable systems.

There was an early-2006 sign-on of low-powered W28CT broadcasting from the summit of the old Mount Tom Ski Area in Holyoke. After a short period of time, the station's call letters were changed to WXCW-CA in anticipation of it becoming an affiliate of that network. In August 2006, the call letters changed again to WFXQ-CA after word was confirmed that WBQT would continue operations as Springfield's CW affiliate. The station (now WFXQ-CD) eventually became a full-time repeater of WWLP.

As it joined The CW, WBQT also became part of The CW Plus, a similar operation to The WB 100+. The station began airing promotions of the new network, with WBQT's branding becoming Pioneer Valley CW. The network launched on September 18 with proper on-air changes on WBQT, along with a website on The CW Plus's web presence with schedule information. It branded solely by its listed branding, discounting its varied market channel positions (Comcast 16 and Charter 13). During its cable-exclusive period with The WB and The CW, the station did not have an actual owner and had a signal provided to cable companies through a closed circuit satellite feed.

WWLP-DT2 originally signed on in 2007, airing a live feed of its weather radar, with no background audio. As a byproduct of an affiliation agreement between LIN TV and TheCoolTV to carry the music video network on LIN's stations, WWLP affiliated with the network on its second digital subchannel in 2010. The network was dropped on July 15, 2013, with the subchannel remaining dark for the next 20 months.

On December 23, 2014, as part of a long-term affiliation renewal with the network, Media General announced that WWLP and WFXQ-CD would affiliate their respective second digital subchannels with The CW, allowing the former cable-exclusive "WBQT" channel serving the market to have an over-the-air presence.[11] On January 1, 2015, WWLP took over promotional and advertising responsibilities of WBQT from the area's cable companies. As a result, the service was added to the second subchannel of WWLP in order to offer over-the-air viewers access to The CW for the first time. The main station launched a prime time newscast at 10:00 p.m. on this CW subchannel on April 13, 2015. It also started replaying WWLP's weekday morning lifestyle show, Mass Appeal, at 1:00 p.m., and as of April 1, WBQT Pioneer Valley CW was re-branded as The CW Springfield as well.[12][13][14] The previous WXCW call letters were unavailable, having been taken by a Fort Myers, Florida CW affiliate in 2007.

Xfinity began carrying the subchannel's high definition feed on digital channel 820 on April 1, 2015, with Charter adding the feed on digital channel 788 in mid-April 2015 (for viewers in Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties), making CW programming available in HD in the Pioneer Valley for the first time.[12][13][14]

WWLP-DT3 is the Ion Television-affiliated third digital subchannel of WWLP, broadcasting in standard definition on VHF channel 11.3 (or virtual channel 22.3 via PSIP).

On November 5, 2015, WWLP soft-launched a standard definition feed of Ion Television's main signal over subchannel 22.3 as part of Media General's carriage agreement of the network in markets without a dedicated Ion affiliate. New London, Connecticut-based WHPX-TV has served as the market's nominal affiliate for years with some cable coverage; until its move to a tower in Farmington in 2019, it transmitted from Montville closer to New London in southeastern Connecticut, assuring poor overall Pioneer Valley reception, thus the national feed has mainly been offered by local providers who carry the network.

WWLP serves as the Western Massachusetts affiliate for the New England Patriots' preseason television network, carrying the team's games not nationally broadcast.

Ever since its sign-on, WWLP has consistently had the most watched newscasts in the Pioneer Valley. This has been achieved (most of the time) by beating rival ABC affiliate WGGB-TV (channel 40) in the local Nielsen ratings since both stations went on-the-air. There have been some brief periods when WGGB-TV was on top and there have also been extended times where the stations were basically neck-and-neck with WWLP having a slight edge. However, WWLP consistently outpaced WGGB-TV after the Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired that station in 1998 and drastically cut its news operation.

While operating as full-time satellites of WWLP, WRLP and WWOR/WJZB simulcasted local news from this station. However, when WRLP converted to a separate Independent channel in 1974, its own newscasts were established tailored toward the Northern Pioneer Valley as well as Brattleboro and Keene.

After WGGB-TV recently became locally owned (bought by John J. Gormally who publishes the Business West magazine), there was a chance the ratings could change. However, as of the July 2008 sweeps period, WWLP continues its longtime dominance with WGGB-TV stabilizing to a strong second. Although low-powered CBS affiliate WSHM-LP established its own news department in October 2005, it initially did not compete on the same level as WWLP and WGGB-TV. However, its ratings grew substantially across the board during the May 2009 sweeps period to within decimal points of WGGB-TV in several key demographics.

In addition to their main studios, WWLP operates a Hampshire County Bureau on Main Street/MA 9/MA 10 in downtown Northampton as part of Thornes Market (location established in November 2010), and a Franklin County Bureau in Greenfield. NBC O&O WBTS-CD, along with NECN in Boston, share their resources with WWLP for news coverage of Eastern Massachusetts. In turn, WWLP does the same for events from western areas of the state. Although it operates its own weather radar at the transmitter site on Provin Mountain, it is not seen on-air or online. During weather segments, the station does feature live NOAA National Weather Service radar data from several regional sites presented on-screen in a system known as "ESP: Live Doppler" (with "ESP" meaning Exclusive Storm Prediction). The station uses the "Tower V.4" news music package from 615 Music. The station's anchors dually serve as field reporters outside of their anchoring assignments.

On January 8, 2012, WWLP became the second station in the Springfield/Holyoke market to broadcast local news in high definition. Rival station WGGB-TV was the first to broadcast in HD in September 2011. The April 2015 move of The CW to WWLP-DT2 saw the station launch a half-hour 10 p.m. newscast, competing with WGGB's Fox subchannel in the timeslot.

• Todd Gross (now at KTVX in Salt Lake City)
• Rob Morrison (last at WCBS-TV, now out of industry)
• Bill Rasmussen (founder of ESPN)
• Anaridis Rodriguez (now at The Weather Channel)
• Donna Savarese (later at KMOV in St. Louis)

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

WWLP discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 22, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (but was ordered by the FCC to continue transmitting emergency bulletins, local news broadcasts, and information on digital transition on its analog channel for an additional sixty days as part of the "nightlighting" service; the target date was moved to June 12).[18] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 11,[19][20] using PSIP to display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 22.