WYLN to be sold to religious broadcaster for $2M
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL FILE - The former news desk at the WYLN-TV 35 studios in Hazle Township on August 11, 2016.
EBERVALE – A longtime local community broadcaster is being sold to an out-of-area religious outfit, according to documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission Wednesday.
WYLN-TV 35, owned by the Gans family through Triple J Community Broadcasting, is being sold to Lighthouse Television, operators of WBPH-TV 60 Bethlehem and WLYH-TV Red Lion. The company has an Allentown address.
WYLN’s broadcast license for the signal originating in Hazleton, as well as two low-power translators near Berwick and Williamsport, are included in the sale for $2 Million.
An application to assign the license to Lighthouse was filed with the FCC on Wednesday.
The asset purchase agreement and a local programming and marketing agreement were signed on Jan. 16. The latter agreement will allow Lighthouse to program WYLN’s content beginning Feb. 1, 2026, until the sale closes.
Not included in the sale is the station’s studio in Ebervale, social media, and other intellectual property besides the station’s call letters. The agreement also allows the Gans family to keep intellectual property and WYLN shows including the Chef Lou Show, specifically mentioned in the agreement.
Lighthouse TV is described on their website as a “non-profit television ministry broadcasting Christian and family broadcasting.”
WYLN began in the late 1980’s as the Pioneer Community Television Network (PCTN), quickly becoming a go-to for local sports in the Hazleton and Berwick areas.
The station was briefly the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton/Hazleton media market’s first affiliate of the fledgling network The WB in the mid 1990’s, when the station became WYLN.
For many years, the station broadcasted the Shenandoah Valley homecoming football game, often wiring directly into the Shen-Heights Cable system to counteract signal degradation caused by the Locust Ridge Wind Farm and allowing locals to watch the game.
The station also maintained a respectable news department for much of the 2000’s and 2010’s, focusing on lower Luzerne County and the surrounding area.
In the past ten years, the station has struggled. In 2021, the longtime home of WYLN on East 10th Street in Hazle Township was sold to the Hazleton Area School District for $3 Million. Studios moved into the former Zola’s Lamppost on Route 940 in Ebervale which was converted into a strip mall.
News broadcasts have been largely anchorless in recent years.
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