Spectrum sale and channel-sharing agreement; move to Washington
In the FCC's incentive auction, WJAL sold its channel 39 allocation for $25,492,333 and indicated that it would enter into a post-auction channel sharing agreement.[9] On July 28, 2017, WJAL submitted a channel-sharing agreement with WUSA (channel 9).[1] WJAL retained its existing callsign and virtual channel number, but moved its city of license to Silver Spring, Maryland.[10][11] The over-the-air signal from Tuscarora Mountain went dark at midnight on September 30, 2017, and the station immediately moved to WUSA's transmitter in the early morning of October 1.[12][13]
Although Entravision's stated goal was to convert WJAL to a UniMás affiliate, WJAL broadcast LATV instead. Entravision and Univision Communications entered into a 16-year joint sales agreement on January 1, 2006, under which Entravision operated Univision affiliate WFDC (channel 14). Current UniMás affiliate WMDO-CD (channel 47) was additionally bound to the network until the contract's expiration on December 31, 2021.[14] A provision prohibiting Entravision from operating another station with a "Spanish-language format" in the Washington market was removed in a revision that took effect on the first weekday after the channel-share was implemented, October 2, 2017, allowing WJAL to air LATV.[15]
In May 2018, WJAL switched its affiliation to the Heartland network.[16] LATV has since returned to its previous location on WMDO-CD's second subchannel. WJAL flipped again to the brokered Sonlife Broadcasting Network on June 15, joining WWTD-LD as the second SBN station in Washington.
On September 17, 2021, WJAL began airing NTD America programming. This was flipped to home shopping programming from ShopHQ in November 2023.
From August 21, 2024, to July 1, 2025, WJAL was an affiliate of Merit TV.[17] It had briefly returned to LATV, before switching to Altavision on November 3.
