The station originated on January 24, 1996, as a construction permit for W02CJ, which was to have operated on channel 2 in
Manchester, Vermont, from a tower at the studios of radio station WJAN (95.1 FM, now
WVTQ). which on May 9, 1997, modified the permit to instead serve
Easton,
Glens Falls,
Hudson Falls, and
Saratoga Springs on channel 39 from Willard Mountain, making the station W39CE. ahead of W49BU (channel 49, later renamed WVBK-LP; now
WHNH-CD channel 2) in Manchester, which signed on in March 1998, and WVBG itself, which debuted in August 1998. Channel 39 became WVBX-LP on April 10, 1998. it already carried the
UPN Kids block, but the network's prime time programming had previously been seen in the
Capital District through secondary affiliations with
Fox affiliate
WXXA-TV (channel 23) as well as cable carriage of
WSBK-TV from
Boston. and the
Boston Celtics. Vision 3 did win
must-carry rights in
Washington County (in the WVBX coverage area) on December 3, 1999. However, the UPN affiliation ended at the start of 2000 when cable-only "
WEDG-TV" (known later as "UPN 4") signed on as a joint operation between Time Warner Cable and WXXA. WVBX would then revert to being an independent station, heavily emphasizing its status as a primarily over-the-air station; that June, Vision 3 put WVBG and WVBX up for sale, and by 2001 much of the station's schedule was taken up by
America One and
Resort Sports Network programming. In 2002, a year after parent station WVBG was sold to Wireless Access, Vision 3 was granted a construction permit to move WVBX to channel 15 from a transmitter on the
Helderberg Escarpment in
New Scotland, near the location of the WVBG transmitter, in effect moving the station to Albany. The new facility was also granted
class A status, who took channel 39 off-the-air that June. During this time, Venture built the channel 15 facility, gave it the call letters WNYA-CA on June 30, 2003, Together, the two stations came on the air September 1, 2003, as the Capital District's new UPN affiliate (replacing "WEDG-TV"), On January 24, 2006,
The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge to form a new network,
The CW; the new network immediately named WEWB-TV (channel 45, now
WCWN) its Capital District affiliate after then-owner
Tribune Broadcasting signed a ten-year affiliation deal with the new network on most of its WB stations. On February 22,
News Corporation announced that it would start up another new broadcast television network called
MyNetworkTV; on March 9, it was announced that WNYA (and in turn WNYA-CA) would join this network, which launched on September 5. A few months after the affiliation change, on December 5, 2006, Freedom Communications purchased WCWN from Tribune, in effect giving it control over three stations in the Capital District; in February 2007, the joint sales agreement with WRGB was terminated, and WNYA moved from WRGB's studios in
Niskayuna to a facility in
Rotterdam that formerly housed
WMHT-FM-
TV. In April 2011, WNYA-CA replaced WNYA's main programming with
Antenna TV, simulcast from WNYA's second digital subchannel. On February 25, 2013,
Hubbard Broadcasting announced that it would purchase WNYA to form a duopoly with its local NBC affiliate
WNYT, for $2.3 million, pending FCC approval. The sale did not include WNYA-CA, which remained with Venture Technologies. Under a clause of the sale of WNYA that required WNYA-CA to use a new call sign that does not feature the letters "N" or "Y", which was completed July 15; that September, WEPT-CA dropped its WNYA-DT2 simulcast to join AMGTV, moved its transmitter to
New Baltimore, and changed its city of license to
Kinderhook. Venture then filed on September 25 to construct a digital companion facility on channel 22 broadcasting from
Overlook Mountain in
Woodstock; the permit was granted on December 23. On December 18, 2014, the station was issued a license for digital operation, with its city of license moving from Kinderhook to Newburgh and its call sign changing to WEPT-CD. The station, which had remained in the Albany television market while licensed to Kinderhook, became part of the
New York City market following the move to Newburgh. On January 10, 2018, WEPT-CD went silent due to antenna and line issues. Per an FCC filing on August 14, 2018, the station resumed operations as of August 7, 2018. On October 22, 2018, WEPT went silent in preparation for the FCC's Phase 4 repack. On March 25, 2020, WEPT-CD filed a Suspension of Operations and Request for Silence STA with the FCC due to what the station called in its filing, "reflective power issues" On September 29, 2020, WEPT-CD resumed operations. == Subchannels ==