Early history The station first signed on the air on October 25, 1953, as WLBR-TV, operating as an
independent station. Originally licensed to
Lebanon, it transmitted its signal at one
kilowatt on a tower located just north of
Mount Gretna. The station was originally owned by the Lebanon Television Corporation, a
joint venture of the Lebanon Broadcasting Company (owner of
WLBR radio [1270 AM] and WQFM [100.1 FM, now
WFVY]) and the Lebanon News Publishing Company (owner of the
Lebanon Daily News). On October 16, 1954, the station went off the air after
Hurricane Hazel knocked out the power to its transmitter, although they had already filed to go
dark on that date with the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In 1955,
Triangle Publications bought the channel 15 license from Lebanon Television, but the sale was held up by challenges from nearby Harrisburg television stations
WHP-TV, WCMB-TV (now defunct), WTPA-TV (now
WHTM-TV), and Reading television station WHUM-TV (also now defunct). The station finally returned to the air with increased power on May 2, 1957. Under Triangle ownership, the station became a part-time
ABC affiliate and received other programs from then sister station WFIL-TV (now ABC
owned-and-operated station WPVI-TV) in
Philadelphia. Triangle changed the station's call letters on New Year's Day 1959 to WLYH-TV (representing its service area of Lebanon,
York and Harrisburg). In 1963, it became a CBS affiliate as part of the Keystone Network, a three-station network serving South Central Pennsylvania that also included WHP-TV (channel 21) in Harrisburg, and WSBA-TV (channel 43, now
WPMT-TV) in York. This arrangement was necessary in the days before
cable television gained much penetration. South Central Pennsylvania had just been collapsed into one large and mountainous market earlier in the year. UHF stations have never covered large areas or rugged terrain very well. The Keystone Network created a strong combined signal with 55 percent overlap. Originally, the three stations aired the same programming, though they were separately owned. Later in the 1960s, WHP-TV began airing separate programming outside of network hours, while WLYH and WSBA-TV continued simulcasting for most of the day. All three outlets ran prime time programming, most of the daytime shows, and most of the weekend offerings from CBS. All three stations preempted moderate amounts of CBS programming. However, through a longstanding agreement, any shows that WSBA-TV and WLYH preempted aired on WHP-TV and vice versa. This allowed most of the
market to view the entire CBS schedule. Triangle was forced out of broadcasting in 1970 after then-
Governor Milton J. Shapp claimed the company had used its three Pennsylvania television stations (WLYH, WFIL-TV, and WFBG-TV in
Altoona) in a smear campaign against him. WLYH was among the last to be sold, going to Gateway Communications as part of a group deal with WFBG-TV (now
WTAJ-TV) and WNBF-TV (now
WBNG-TV) in
Binghamton, New York, in 1972. In the 1980s, Gateway moved the station's city of license to Lancaster. Channel 43 left the Keystone Network in 1983 to become an independent station under new calls,
WPMT. WLYH and WHP-TV continued as CBS affiliates, airing separate non-network programming and maintaining their longstanding agreement calling for programs preempted on one station to air on the other. By this time, the two stations had about 75 percent signal overlap. Even though cable had gained significant penetration in the region by the mid-1980s, WLYH remained a CBS affiliate rather than become an independent. This was mainly because at the time, South Central Pennsylvania was just barely large enough to support what would have essentially been two independent stations. Even after WPMT joined
Fox in 1986, it was still mostly programmed as an independent (as was the case with most Fox stations until 1993). Even without this to consider, Philadelphia's
WPHL-TV and WTAF-TV (now Fox O&O
WTXF-TV), had been available on cable for years. These two factors made Gateway balk at the added cost of buying an additional 16 hours of programming per day.
As a UPN affiliate (1995–2006) The unusual situation of two separately-owned and programmed Big Three affiliates in one market that aired most of the same network programming would continue until 1995. On November 1,
Clear Channel Communications (which had just bought WHP-TV) entered into a 20-year local marketing agreement with Gateway. Under this agreement, WHP-TV took control of WLYH's operations, with the combined operation housed at WHP-TV's studios in Harrisburg. Layoffs also hit WLYH following the LMA deal. Upon signing the deal with Clear Channel, it became clear that WLYH's CBS affiliation was in danger. After considering affiliations with either
The WB or
UPN, Clear Channel converted WLYH into an exclusive UPN affiliate on December 16, 1995, thus making WHP-TV the sole CBS affiliate for South Central Pennsylvania. In 2000, Gateway sold all of its stations to
SJL Broadcasting.
As a CW affiliate and licensee sale to Nexstar/LMA sale to Newport (2006–2012) On January 24, 2006, the
Warner Bros. unit of
Time Warner and
CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called
The CW. On May 18, it was announced that WLYH would become the area's CW affiliate when it launched on September 18. Meanwhile, WHP created a new second
digital subchannel to air programming from another new network,
MyNetworkTV.
Nexstar Broadcasting Group purchased WLYH and WTAJ from SJL in late 2006. On April 20, 2007, Clear Channel entered into an agreement to sell its entire television station group (including WHP and the LMA with WLYH) to the private equity firm
Providence Equity Partners. Providence then formed
Newport Television as a holding company for the former Clear Channel stations.
Sale to Sinclair Broadcast Group/Howard Stirk Holdings era (2012–present) On July 19, 2012, Newport announced the sale of WLYH's LMA partner, WHP-TV, to the
Sinclair Broadcast Group. The LMA with WLYH was included in the deal, and Sinclair also obtained an option to purchase the station's license from Nexstar. This purchase option would later be terminated on March 20, 2014, as part of a restructuring of Sinclair's purchase of the broadcast holdings of
Allbritton Communications, including ABC affiliate
WHTM-TV, to address ownership conflicts between the three stations. Under the original deal, Sinclair would have retained the higher-rated WHTM and traded the license assets of WHP-TV to
Deerfield Media, though Sinclair would have retained control of WHP-TV under shared services and joint sales agreements. The license assets of WLYH would have been reassigned to Howard Stirk Holdings, a holding company controlled by Graham Williams Group CEO and
conservative political commentator
Armstrong Williams, should the option be exercised. However, the FCC ruled that this would have effectively created a new LMA between WHTM and WLYH even though the FCC had ruled in 1999 that such agreements made after November 5, 1996, covering more than 15% of the broadcast day would count toward the ownership limits for the brokering station's owner. Under the restructured agreement, Sinclair announced that it would terminate the sale of WHP-TV to Deerfield and instead sell it to another third-party buyer, with whom Sinclair would not enter into any operational or financial agreements and would be given the rights to the LMA with WLYH. Sinclair ultimately retained WHP and the WLYH LMA and sold WHTM to
Media General. Sinclair closed on the Newport group deal on December 3, 2012. Howard Stirk Holdings revealed in its January 2015 application to purchase
Las Vegas station
KVMY that it again planned to acquire the WLYH license from Nexstar. The sale was completed on November 12, 2015. The time brokerage agreement between WLYH and WHP-TV expired on December 31, 2015; Nexstar had, on December 11, 2014, elected to not renew the agreement. To reflect its new ownership, the station changed its callsign to WXBU on March 11, 2016. The call letters correspond to the initials of Xavier B. Underwood, a member of the Williams family who also acts as creative director for Howard Stirk Holdings. In May 2024, WXBU became a Univision affiliate. ==News operation==