WPHL-TV

Radio station WKDN of Camden, New Jersey, received a construction permit for channel 17 as WKDN-TV on January 27, 1954.[3] After not building the facility, the station sold the permit to the Young People's Church of the Air, owned by Percy Crawford, for $40,000 in February 1959.[4] The call letters were changed to WPCA-TV, reflecting the name of his long-running broadcast ministry; the city of license was changed from Camden to Philadelphia in March 1960.[3]

Promising a lineup of religious programs and family entertainment,[5][6] the station signed on July 17, 1960,[5] making it Philadelphia's first commercial UHF station.

WPCA-TV struggled amid the low penetration of UHF tuners prior to the 1964 passage of the All-Channel Receiver Act and Crawford's unexpected death in an October 1960 car accident. The station went silent August 1, 1962, having operated just two years.[3]

When channel 17 went silent, its sale was immediately announced to a consortium headed by attorney Aaron Jerome Katz and two real estate men.[7] The station returned to the air on January 31, only to go dark again on June 14, when an application for the sale of channel 17 was finally filed with the Federal Communications Commission.[3] The station's cameras were lent to WHYY-TV, the new public television station in Wilmington, Delaware, to allow that station to operate before a scheduled donation of equipment could be transferred and the station's own equipment did not function properly.[8]

The Philadelphia Television Broadcasting Company, headed by Katz and advertising executive Len Stevens, was approved to purchase the station in mid-1964.[3] After receiving approval to boost its effective radiated power from 12,000 to 626,000 watts,[9] the new owners returned channel 17 to the air on September 17, 1965, as independent station WPHL-TV.[10][11][12][13] It was the third UHF independent to sign-on in Philadelphia that year, two and a half weeks after WKBS-TV (channel 48) and four months after WIBF-TV (channel 29, later WTAF and now WTXF-TV). After merging with U.S. Communications Corporation in 1967 WPHL-TV became the flagship station for their station group.[14][15][16][17] U.S. Communications also operated WATL in Atlanta, WPGH-TV in Pittsburgh, WXIX-TV in Cincinnati and KEMO-TV now (KOFY-TV) in San Francisco. The station produced and aired numerous local television shows over the years, including kids' favorite the Wee Willie Webber Colorful Cartoon Club and Dr. Shock's back-to-back shows Mad Theater and Horror Theater.[18]

In the summer of 1975, WPHL-TV moved from its original studio facility at 1230 East Mermaid Lane in the suburb of Wyndmoor, which had been the station's base since its 1960 debut,[3] to its current studio on Wynnefield Avenue in the Wynnefield suburb of West Philadelphia. The building had once been the location of an A&P supermarket. The station offered a schedule of off-network drama series, sitcoms, old movies, sports and religious programs. It also ran NBC and ABC programs that KYW-TV (channel 3, now a CBS owned-and-operated station) and WPVI-TV (channel 6) had respectively preempted until the fall of 1976, and again from the fall of 1977 to the summer of 1983. The Providence Journal Company bought channel 17 in 1979. At that point, WPHL sought a different programming strategy geared towards adults, gradually dropping children's programming and cartoons. It focused more on movies, off-network drama series, recent off-network sitcoms and sports. The station also aired several hours of religious programming each day.

Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, WPHL was known on-air as "The Great Entertainer," with voiceovers provided by announcer Sid Doherty. The station positioned itself as an alternative to both WTAF and WKBS, as it programmed more towards adults with movies and other syndicated programs, while its competitors were heavy on sitcoms and children's cartoons. WPHL was also a station heavy on local sports, as it aired games featuring Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies until 1982, the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers from 1982 to 1995 and the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers in the 1990s.

From October 1981 to August 1987, the WPHL studios hosted a weekday afternoon dance show called Dancin' On Air, hosted by Eddie Bruce, as well as a spin-off on the USA Network called Dance Party USA, whose host, Dave Raymond, was better known as the Phillie Phanatic mascot seen during Phillies games. Those shows marked the on-air debut of a young girl from nearby Voorhees, New Jersey named Kelly Ripa.

In the summer of 1982, WKBS went on the market after its owner, Field Communications, decided to exit broadcasting. The Providence Journal Company was among those who were bidding for channel 48's license. Had it won, Journal would have merged WPHL's and WKBS' schedules under the WKBS license and channel allocation, while selling the channel 17 license to either a religious or educational broadcaster. However, the Journal Company's bid was still far below Field's asking price. With no takers willing to give Field what it wanted for the station, WKBS-TV ceased operations one year later on August 29, 1983, and WPHL picked up various syndicated programs, cartoons, movies and production equipment from WKBS.

In 1987, the Providence Journal Company sold WPHL-TV to a consortium headed by Dudley S. Taft Jr., the former president of the Cincinnati-based Taft Television and Radio Company, the longtime owners of rival WTAF-TV. Dudley Taft had left his family's namesake company following a corporate restructuring which resulted in the firm changing its name to Great American Broadcasting. He also brought along key personnel from WTAF (which Taft had sold to TVX Broadcast Group in early 1987), including general manager Randy Smith. The new ownership scrapped the "Great Entertainer" slogan and related logo for a new identity as "PHL 17", in an apparent attempt to counter WGBS-TV's (channel 57, now WPSG) "Philly 57" branding. The new owners restored some cartoons to the schedule. In 1991, the Taft group sold channel 17 to the Tribune Company.

On November 2, 1993, Tribune and the Warner Bros. Television division of Time Warner announced the formation of The WB Television Network. Due to the company's minority interest in the network (initially 12.5%, before expanding to 22%), Tribune chose to affiliate the majority of its independent stations with the upstart network, resulting in WPHL-TV becoming a network affiliate for the first time in its history upon The WB's January 11, 1995 debut.[19][20] In September of that year, the station changed its on-air identity to "WB 17". For most of The WB's run, WPHL was one of the network's strongest affiliates.

On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation (which split from Viacom in December 2005) and Time Warner's Warner Bros. Entertainment (the division that operated The WB) announced that they would dissolve UPN and The WB and merge both networks' stronger programming onto a newly created network, The CW. Concurrent with the announcement, it signed a ten-year affiliation agreement with 16 of Tribune's 19 WB-affiliated stations.[21][22] However, in the case of Philadelphia, The CW's affiliation went to the city's UPN station, CBS-owned WPSG (which was part of an affiliation deal with 11 of CBS' UPN stations). It would not have been an upset had WPHL been chosen as the area's CW affiliate, however. The network's officials were on record as preferring The WB and UPN's "strongest" stations for their new network, and Philadelphia was one of the few markets where the affiliates of both networks were both relatively strong.

WPHL was slated to revert to its previous independent status, but on May 15, 2006, Tribune announced that it would affiliate channel 17 (and two other WB affiliates that were not included in the CW affiliation deal) with MyNetworkTV, making WPHL the largest station in terms of market size affiliated with the network that was not owned by its then-parent company News Corporation (which became 21st Century Fox in June 2013 after spinning off most of its non-entertainment properties). It is also the only major station in Philadelphia that is not owned by its respective network. In July, WPHL rebranded itself as "MyPHL17", reviving the station's former "PHL 17" moniker. WPHL began airing MyNetworkTV programming on the day that the new service was launched, September 5, 2006. As a result, it did not air the final two weeks of The WB's programming.

logo from 2010 to 2018

On October 4, 2010, the station removed the "My" portion of the branding as many affiliates of the network began dropping references to MyNetworkTV due to it becoming more of a prime time programming service than a true television network. WPHL retains the multi-shaded 'blue TV' component of the network's logo as part of the station's own logo. Before the move of the broadcast rights of the Phillies in 2014 to WCAU-TV, another version of the logo was used where the "p" in "phl" was replaced with the hat insignia "P" from the logo of the Philadelphia Phillies. In addition, the Antenna TV subchannel the station carries is branded with a modified version of their 1970s/80s "Great Entertainer" logo; many other Antenna TV stations do this as well.

On May 8, 2017, Hunt Valley, Maryland-based Sinclair Broadcast Group announced that it would acquire Tribune Media for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune. Had the deal received regulatory approval by the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division, the transaction would have brought WPHL under common ownership with CBS-CW affiliate WHP-TV in Harrisburg. (Sinclair intended to sell Tribune-owned Fox affiliate WPMT in Harrisburg and, to address a separate conflict with Tribune-operated ABC-affiliated sister WNEP-TV, the Scranton virtual triopoly of Fox affiliate WOLF-TV, CW affiliate WSWB and MyNetworkTV affiliate WQMY to Standard Media Group to address ownership conflicts related to the deal.)[23][24][25][26][27][28][29] Because of WPHL's status as a MyNetworkTV affiliate with limited local programming, some analysts initially believed that Sinclair may choose to sell WPHL to Fox Television Stations to form a duopoly with Fox owned-and-operated station WTXF-TV, which would make WPHL a MyNetworkTV O&O. However, Sinclair did not include WPHL in a subsequent $910-million sale of seven Tribune-owned stations to Fox Television Stations that was announced on May 9, 2018. It is asserted that Pennsylvania's status as a swing state in presidential elections may have been considered a deciding factor in Sinclair choosing to acquire WPHL.[30]

Less than one month after the FCC voted to have the deal reviewed by an administrative law judge amid "serious concerns" about Sinclair's forthrightness in its applications to sell certain conflict properties, on August 9, 2018, Tribune announced it would terminate the Sinclair deal, intending to seek other M&A opportunities. Tribune also filed a breach of contract lawsuit in the Delaware Chancery Court, alleging that Sinclair engaged in protracted negotiations with the FCC and the DOJ over regulatory issues, refused to sell stations in markets where it already had properties, and proposed divestitures to parties with ties to Sinclair executive chair David D. Smith that were rejected or highly subject to rejection to maintain control over stations it was required to sell.[31][32][33][34][35][36]

On December 3, 2018, Irving, Texas-based Nexstar Media Group announced it would acquire Tribune's assets for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. The deal—which would make Nexstar the largest television station operator by total number of stations upon its expected closure late in the third quarter of 2019—would give WPHL-TV additional sister stations in Hagerstown, Maryland (independent station/Heroes & Icons affiliate WDVM-TV, presuming Nexstar opts to create a duopoly with Tribune-owned CW affiliate WDCW in the co-located Washington, D.C. market) and Scranton–Wilkes-Barre (the virtual duopoly of NBC affiliate WBRE-TV and CBS affiliate WYOU, which were Nexstar's first two television properties). Nexstar would also be present in every market serving Pennsylvania except for Pittsburgh if the deal is closed.[37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47] The acquisition was completed on September 19, 2019.[48]

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

WPHL-TV's broadcasts became digital only, effective June 12, 2009.[49]

Throughout the station's three of its first four decades on the air, WPHL had a tremendous professional sports presence—at various points holding the broadcast rights to the Phillies (1971–82 and 1993–98, and through the production of Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia from 2009 to 2013; as of 2014, WPHL airs overflow Phillies games when both CSN Philadelphia and primary overflow outlet Comcast Network are carrying other games and present over-the-air carrier WCAU is preoccupied by NBC network commitments), the Flyers (1991–98) and the 76ers (1982–95), as well as covering local college basketball and football, with games featuring teams from the Philadelphia Big 5 (La Salle Explorers, Penn Quakers, Saint Joseph's Hawks, Temple Owls and Villanova Wildcats). After the station joined The WB, it released many of its sports contracts in order to concentrate on its network programming obligations.

The station aired syndicated college football and basketball games from the syndication arm of ESPN involving the Mid-American Conference (football, owing to Temple being a football-only member of the league) and Big East Conference (basketball) until 2009, when WPVI took over rights. WPHL also aired Big Ten Conference games (owing to Penn State's large fan base in the area) until the creation of the Big Ten Network on cable in 2007.

WPHL has aired preseason games of the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles. Also, it usually wins the rights to air one or two regular season Eagles games on Monday nights, due to the NFL's anti-siphoning rule requiring games airing on cable to be available on an over-the-air station in each team's home market; by rule, the NFL sells syndication rights of local teams' games. The station's news partner, WPVI-TV, has the right of first refusal on Monday night games due to its parent company (Disney) being majority owner in ESPN, but generally defers in order to air Dancing with the Stars (due to the program's popularity and the structure of its live voting requirements) during that program's fall season.

As of the 2018 season, WPHL and WPVI share local broadcast rights to the Philadelphia Union of Major League Soccer. WPVI produces the telecasts.[50]

As of the 2018–2019 season, WPHL covers the Philadelphia Wings of the National Lacrosse League, carrying all home games and select away games.[51]

In 1994, WPHL entered into an agreement with local daily newspaper The Philadelphia Inquirer to broadcast an Inquirer-branded prime time news program. The half-hour Inquirer News Tonight was a hybrid newscast that integrated the conventions of a typical television news program with contributions from the newspaper's personnel. However, the format failed to make any headway against WTXF's established prime time newscast; behind-the-scenes issues with Knight-Ridder (the Inquirer's owner at that point), including newspaper staffers' wariness of being on TV and compensation and contract issues, as well as general mismanagement, doomed the program.[52] Another blow occurred in October 1995 when weekend weatherman Bill Elias was fired following the revelation of his involvement with a local crime family (he had given mob boss John Stanta's bodyguards a videotape of a mob funeral in 1993, to pick targets from another crime family to kill); he had previously lost his job at WTXF over this.[53] WPHL took full control of the newscast, changing to the WB 17 News at Ten in late 1996.

Even after WPHL took its newscast in-house, it still remained far behind WTXF in the ratings. In the fall of 2005, WPHL announced that its news department would be shut down; the final 10 p.m. newscast produced by WPHL aired on December 9, 2005. The following day, production of the 10 p.m. newscast was turned over to NBC O&O WCAU through a news share agreement. This newscast was partially renamed to WB 17 News at 10, Powered by NBC 10. On July 25, 2006, the program was renamed My PHL 17 News, Powered by NBC 10 to correspond with WPHL's upcoming switch to MyNetworkTV. On December 10, 2008, WCAU began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition, and the WPHL newscast was also included in the HD upgrade. The newscast was renamed once again on October 4, 2010 as phl17 News at 10, Powered by NBC 10.

On October 31, 2011, WPHL began airing EyeOpener, a morning news program concept by Tribune Broadcasting that originally debuted in May 2011 on Houston sister station KIAH, featuring a mix of news, lifestyle, entertainment and opinion segments. Local news, weather, and traffic segments are featured along with local reports presented by five multimedia journalists; however, much of EyeOpener (which was previously produced at Tribune Company's Chicago headquarters) is pre-produced at the studios of Dallas–Fort Worth sister station KDAF and is also distributed on Tribune-owned stations in three other markets that provide their own localized content.[54][55]

The WCAU-produced 10 p.m. newscast ended on September 14, 2012, with WPHL entering into a new agreement with the ABC owned-and-operated station WPVI-TV to produce the new Action News at 10 on PHL17. The weekday editions of the newscast utilize the same anchor team (Rick Williams and Sharrie Williams) as WPVI's 5 p.m. newscast, while the weekend editions use the same staff (anchors Walter Perez & Sarah Bloomquist, sports anchor Jeff Skeversky and meteorologist Melissa Magee) as WPVI's weekend evening newscasts.[56] It is the third ABC owned-and-operated station to be involved in a news share agreement, following KGO-TV in San Francisco (which produces independent station KOFY-TV's 9 p.m. newscast) and WTVD in Durham (which produces CW affiliate WLFL's 10 p.m. newscast), and was later joined in 2014 by KABC-TV in Los Angeles (which produces independent station KDOC-TV's 7 p.m. newscast). On September 8, 2014, the newscast was expanded to an hour, making it only the second hour-long 10pm newscast in Philadelphia other than that of competitor WTXF.[57]

On March 9, 2015, WPHL launched a half hour 5:30 a.m. newscast produced independently called The PHL17 Morning News. It is the first in-house newscast since the closure of their former news department at the end of 2005. The station's news studio was rebuilt, and the tri-caster formerly used was replaced with switchers, along with other equipment. The team then started producing independent news reports for the Delaware Valley.

On October 22, 2018, PHL17 Morning News expanded to a three-hour newscast from 5 to 8 a.m., when Eye Opener, which had changed its name to Morning Dose, was cancelled. In September 2019, PHL17 Morning News expanded again by an additional hour to run from 5 to 9 a.m.

• Walter Perez (anchor)

• Vernon Odom (general assignment reporter)
• Lisa Thomas-Laury (feature reporter)