| abstract
| - The station debuted on June 15, 1948 as WNHC-TV broadcasting on VHF channel 6. It was founded by the New Haven Register along with WNHC radio (1340 AM, now WYBC; and 99.1 FM, now WPLR). It is Connecticut's oldest television station and the second-oldest in New England (WBZ-TV in Boston signed-on less than a week earlier). It was originally an affiliate of DuMont and claims to have been the first full-time affiliate of that short-lived network. It added NBC and CBS in 1949 with ABC following in 1950. In late-1953, WNHC-TV changed frequencies and moved to channel 8. The next year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) collapsed Hartford and New Haven into a single market. It shared some NBC programming with New Britain's WKNB-TV (now WVIT) until 1955 as that station's signal was not strong enough to cover New Haven at the time. In 1955, the New Haven Register and the WNHC stations were bought by Triangle Publications of Philadelphia. Also in that same year, WNHC-TV lost its CBS affiliation when that network purchased Hartford's WGTH-TV (later WHCT and now WUVN). The station became a sole ABC affiliate although it shared ABC programming with Waterbury-based WATR-TV (now WCCT-TV) until 1966. It has been a primary ABC affiliate longer than any station in New England except WMTW in Portland, Maine; also located on channel 8. Triangle was forced to sell its television stations in 1971 after then-Pennsylvania Governor Milton J. Shapp complained the company had used its Pennsylvania stations in a smear campaign against him. The WNHC stations were among the first batch to be sold going to Capital Cities Communications along with sister stations WFIL-AM-FM-TV in Philadelphia and KFRE-AM-FM-TV in Fresno, California. However, Capital Cities could not keep the radio stations because it already owned the maximum number allowed at the time. As a result, WNHC-TV changed its call letters to the current WTNH-TV soon after Capital Cities took over. The station dropped the -TV suffix from its calls in 1985 but continued to call itself "WTNH-TV" on-air well into the 1990s. Capital Cities bought ABC in 1986 in a deal that stunned the broadcast industry. However, the FCC would not allow the merged company to keep WTNH due to a significant signal overlap with ABC's flagship station, WABC-TV in New York City. Channel 8 provides city-grade coverage of Fairfield County, which is part of the New York City market. It also provides at least grade B coverage to most of Long Island, and has been carried on several Long Island cable systems for many years alongside WABC-TV. At the time, the FCC normally did not allow common ownership of two stations with overlapping coverage areas, and would not even consider granting a waiver when the overlap involved two city-grade signals. As a result, channel 8 was spun off to a minority-controlled firm called Cook Inlet Communications. During the mid-1980s, the Sally Jesse Raphael Show originated from studios in New Haven until the show moved to New York City. Cook Inlet sold WTNH to the LIN TV Corporation in 1994. When a new UHF independent station in New Haven, WTVU (later WBNE and now WCTX) signed-on in 1995, WTNH began operating the station under a local marketing agreement (LMA). In 2001, LIN TV Corporation bought WCTX outright. On May 18, 2007, the company announced that it was exploring strategic alternatives that could have resulted in the sale of the company. It was the first station in the country to use videotape for local programming and one of the first to broadcast in color. On June 12, 2009, WTNH left channel 8 and moved to VHF channel 10 when the analog to digital conversion completed.
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