About WOLF TV

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted a construction permit for Hazleton's first full-service television station, called WERF, on September 30, 1982. The station was owned by James Oyster and was intended to broadcast from a tower south of the city. However, this location would only allow the station to serve its city of license and not the main cities in the market, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.

In April 1983, WERF applied to move its transmitter to the Penobscot Knob antenna farm near Mountaintop, where WNEP-TV, WDAU-TV (now WYOU), WBRE-TV, and WVIA-TV also had their transmitters. However, this application was denied. Oyster changed the station's call letters to WWLF-TV on July 25, 1984 and sold the construction permit to Hazleton TV Associates on December 13. Two months later, on February 20, 1985, the station was sold again, this time to Scranton TV Partners, who completed construction of the station and brought it on the air on June 6.

Initially, WWLF was a satellite of co-owned WOLF-TV in Scranton, which was then an independent station broadcasting on UHF channel 38. WWLF remained independent for a little over a year before becoming a charter affiliate of Fox on October 9, 1986. In 1988, the station moved to a new transmitter on Nescopeck Mountain near the junction of I-80 and PA 93, but remained a satellite of WOLF-TV.