Operation with WPRI-TV
On June 10, 1996, Clear Channel Communications—then in the process of buying WPRI-TV as well as two Providence-area radio stations—announced it would assume the operations of WNAC-TV under a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Argyle, enabling it to program and sell advertising time on channel 64. With the move, the Rehoboth facility was shut down, with some of the staff moving to WPRI's facility in East Providence to accommodate an expansion.[44]
In 1997, Argyle merged with the broadcasting unit of the Hearst Corporation to form Hearst-Argyle Television. Hearst owned WCVB in Boston, and it could not keep both stations because of their overlapping signals;[45] the FCC stated the overlap was 97.6 percent.[46] For tax reasons, Hearst-Argyle preferred a swap. It reached a deal with Sunrise Television Corporation to swap WNAC-TV and WDTN in Dayton, Ohio—like WNAC-TV, a station whose divestiture was required due to signal overlap—for WPTZ in Plattsburgh, New York; WNNE in Hartford, Vermont; and KSBW in Salinas, California. Sunrise was one of two television companies owned by the private equity firm of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, alongside LIN Broadcasting.[47]
In 2001, Clear Channel sold WPRI-TV to Sunrise Television Corporation. Though Sunrise would become the new operator of channels 12 and 64, Sunrise could not hold both stations' licenses and opted to divest the WNAC-TV license to LIN for $2.5 million.[48] The next year, Sunrise was acquired by LIN, leading to the divestiture of the WNAC-TV license to Super Towers Inc., a company controlled by Tim Sheehan, the son-in-law of LIN executive Paul Karpowicz.[49][50]
WNAC-TV became the affiliate of MyNetworkTV in Providence when it launched in September 2006, airing its programming in late nights from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. In 2009, it moved the service to a dedicated subchannel, known as MyRITV.[51] WNAC-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 64, on February 17, 2009, the original date when full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009).[52] The station moved its digital signal from UHF channel 54 to VHF channel 12.[53]
In 2014, WPRI-TV owner LIN Media merged with Media General, which owned WJAR, in a $1.6 billion deal; one of the two stations had to be divested to complete the transaction, and WJAR was sold to Sinclair Broadcast Group.[54][55][56][57] Media General then merged with Nexstar Broadcasting Group in 2017.[58] In 2017, Nexstar acquired the CW affiliation in the market when previous affiliate WLWC (channel 28) sold its spectrum; the network moved to WNAC's 64.2 subchannel, with MyRITV becoming a subchannel of WPRI-TV.[59]
On August 31, 2020, Nexstar exercised its option to purchase WNAC through its partner company, Mission Broadcasting, for more than $3.2 million;[61] the transaction was completed on June 16, 2021.[62] WNAC, LLC—the Super Towers subsidiary that had been the licensee prior to the Mission purchase—filed objections to the license renewals of 14 Nexstar stations including WPRI-TV in 2023, claiming that the company was late in uploading documents to its public inspection file.[63]
