WWBI-LP signed on December 14, 1992, as an
independent station. The station originally had plans to become the
Fox affiliate for the
Burlington, Vermont–Plattsburgh, New York
market and
Montreal, but negotiations failed and the station adopted the
UPN affiliation in 1995. However, three stations in the Burlington-Plattsburgh changed affiliation in May 1999: UPN moved to former
WB station
WBVT-LP, The WB moved to Fox station
WFFF-TV as a secondary affiliate, and WWBI initially went independent before switching to
Ion (then known as Pax TV). Some of its programming included
The Jerry Springer Show and
WWF/E Jakked/Metal. Word of God Fellowship, Inc., parent company of the
Daystar Television Network, reached an agreement to purchase WWBI-LP in the fall of 2005; the station began running Daystar programming under a
local marketing agreement (LMA) by the end of the year. There was originally word that the station would run Daystar programming part-time while keeping some programming from i: Independent Television (which Pax had become in July 2005) as part of the schedule, however, by at least as of January 2006, it changed over to full-time Daystar (religious) programming. Following this, WWBI was replaced by the i satellite feed on local cable systems, who were never obligated to carry WWBI in the first place since it is a low power station. In October 2006, however, WWBI's sale to Daystar had fallen through; as a result, the station once again returned to programming from the i network (which became Ion in January 2007) and returned to local cable systems by mid-November 2006. On June 6, 2006, WWBI's former studio, the Hotel Holland in
Rouses Point, New York, was destroyed in a fire. The Hotel Holland was used for WWBI's studios back in the days when they were an independent station and UPN affiliate, and when the fire occurred, was used as storage for broadcasting equipment after relocating their studios. WWBI's cable slots have been replaced with the national Ion feed. Also, for
over-the-air viewers within WWBI's former viewing area,
Gray Television has added a
16:9 standard definition feed of the Ion Television service to the fifth
digital subchannel of
CBS affiliate
WCAX-TV (channel 3). ==Translator==