WYOU

WYOU

Scranton–Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania United States
City	Scranton, Pennsylvania
Channels	Digital: 12 (VHF) Virtual: 22
Branding	WYOU 22; Eyewitness News
Programming
Affiliations	22.1: CBS for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Mission Broadcasting, Inc.
Operator	Nexstar Media Group (via SSA)
Sister stations	WBRE-TV
History
First air date	June 7, 1953 (71 years ago) (1953-06-07)
Former call signs	WGBI-TV (1953–1957) WDAU-TV (1957–1986)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 22 (UHF, 1953–2009) Digital: 13 (VHF, until 2020)
Former affiliations	UPN (secondary, 1995–1998)
Call sign meaning	The word "you"
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	17010
ERP	30 kW
HAAT	471 m (1,545 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	41°10′58″N 75°52′25″W / 41.18278°N 75.87361°W / 41.18278; -75.87361
Translator(s)	25 (UHF) Waymart
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.pahomepage.com

WYOU (channel 22) is a television station licensed to Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Nexstar Media Group, owner of Wilkes-Barre–licensed NBC affiliate WBRE-TV (channel 28), for the provision of certain services. The two stations share studios on South Franklin Street in downtown Wilkes-Barre, with a news bureau and sales office in the Ritz Theater in downtown Scranton. WYOU's transmitter is located at the Penobscot Knob antenna farm near Mountain Top.

Channel 22 was the second television station built in Northeastern Pennsylvania and the first on air in Scranton, beginning broadcasting as WGBI-TV on June 7, 1953. A CBS affiliate from the start, the station was owned by the Megargee family alongside WGBI radio and shared its facilities on Wyoming Avenue. Tom Powell, the first face seen on channel 22 and its first anchorman, was the dominant television newsman in the region for two decades and remained with the station until 1985. The station changed its call letters to WDAU-TV in 1957, after the Philadelphia Bulletin—owner of WCAU radio and television in Philadelphia—purchased a controlling stake which was later repurchased by the Megargees. In the 1970s, ratings began to slide for the station's newscasts as WNEP-TV catapulted into a dominant first-place position. The station's problems were compounded by a lack of investment during a three-year period in the early 1980s in which the station was forced to relocate to downtown Scranton and a buyer spent more than a year trying to acquire the station only to be unable to raise funds.

Southeastern Capital Corporation acquired WDAU-TV in 1984. The new owners immediately set out to upgrade the station's outdated equipment and news department, as well as to establish a more regional image for the station. Two years later, Southeastern Capital sold channel 22 to Diversified Communications, which renamed the station WYOU in October 1986. Under Diversified, the news product improved and expanded with new equipment and a news helicopter, and at times the station eclipsed WBRE-TV for second place in local news ratings.

In 1996, WYOU was the first station acquired by Nexstar Broadcasting Group, which cut costs by firing several on-air personnel. When WBRE-TV came up for sale shortly after, Nexstar acquired it and sold WYOU to Mission Broadcasting with a shared services agreement. Some of WYOU's operation, including news production, was integrated with WBRE over the course of 1998, while sales and programming remained separate. Over the 2000s, despite several attempts to change the format and an investment of nearly $1 million a year, WYOU's share of news viewership declined from 7% to 4%. In April 2009, WYOU discontinued its newscasts completely, and the combined operation laid off 14 employees; it aired no news programs for three years until the station began simulcasting newscasts from WBRE in 2012.