On May 17, 1996, WSKG filed an application to move W04AS to channel 25 in
Albany, Schenectady, and
Troy, New York, with a transmitter located on the
Helderberg Escarpment.[6] That July, Vision 3 Broadcasting announced that it would purchase W04AS and operate the station as the flagship of a group of three low-power television stations in the
Capital District, along with W83AL (channel 83) in
Andes (which would have also been acquired from WSKG and be converted into W21BU channel 21 in
Hudson,
Catskill, and
Chatham) and W02CJ (channel 2) in
Manchester, Vermont (which was acquired from Ronald and Jan Morlino, two of Vision 3's principals, and converted to W39CE channel 39 in
Glens Falls,
Saratoga Springs,
Easton, and
Hudson Falls).[7] The channel 21 signal was dropped from the network by 1997 after it was determined that its coverage area could be served with the channel 25 signal; by then, the group (which, despite each station operating on different channels, was branded simply "TV 25") also included W49BU (channel 49) in Manchester, Vermont.[8] The move to channel 25 was granted a construction permit on October 2, 1997,[6] and issued the call sign W25CF;[9] on November 5, Vision 3's parent company Sharp Vision completed its purchase of the station from WSKG.[10] The call letters were changed to WVBG-LP on December 12, 1997.[11]
Because of the delay in receiving the construction permit, channel 25 was the last of the three stations to go on the air; W39CE (later renamed WVBX-LP; now
WEPT-CD channel 15 in
Newburgh) signed on in December 1997,[1] and W49BU (later renamed WVBK-LP; now
WHNH-CD channel 2) went on in March 1998,[12] with WVBG itself debuting on August 27, 1998.[13] Initially an
independent station,[14] WVBG and its satellites became a
UPN affiliate on October 5, 1998;[15] it already carried the
UPN Kids block,[14] but the network's primetime programming had previously been seen in the Capital District through secondary affiliations with
Fox affiliate
WXXA-TV (channel 23)[14] and
Pax station
WYPX (channel 55),[16] as well as cable carriage of
WSBK-TV from
Boston.[15][16] However, from its inception, the station could not get carriage on
Time Warner Cable,[14] which chose to continue its carriage of WSBK;[15] this was despite acquiring several sports packages, including
Big East football and basketball, the
Boston Red Sox (the telecasts of which were dropped following a territorial complaint by the
New York Yankees),[17] and the
Boston Celtics.[18]
WVBG-LP changed its
city of license to Greenwich, New York, on April 22, 1999 (Greenwich had earlier been added as a fourth city of license after Albany, Schenectady, and Troy); this helped Vision 3 win
must-carry rights in
Washington County on December 3, 1999.[19][20] However, the UPN affiliation ended at the start of 2000 when cable-only "
WEDG-TV" (known later as "UPN 4") signed on as a joint operation between Time Warner Cable and WXXA.[21] WVBG would then revert to being an independent station, heavily emphasizing its status as a primarily over-the-air station;[22] that June, Vision 3 put WVBG and WVBX up for sale,[23] and by 2001 much of the station's schedule was taken up by
Resort Sports Network programming.[24]
On June 28, 2001,[25] WVBG-LP was sold to Wireless Access, a group of telephone companies in the region, as part of plans to introduce wireless Internet service.[26] However, the plan was never implemented,[26] and by early 2003 channel 25 had gone off the air;[27] it returned a year later airing
color bars.[26] On September 2, 2005, WVBG was granted a construction permit to move to channel 41.[26] The station lost its transmitter site lease on November 30, 2006, forcing the station off-the-air[28] until getting
special temporary authority to operate from a new location in
Clarksville (the proposed site for the channel 41 operation) a year later.[29] Broadcasting on channel 25 ended on August 10, 2008;[30] on September 3, the station filed for a license to cover construction of the channel 41 facility.[31] On September 15, 2009, WVBG was granted a construction permit to
flash cut to digital operation; this facility will change the station's city of license back to Albany and return the transmitter to the Helderberg Escarpment.[32][33] WVBG lost access to its tower in Clarksville on April 8, 2010, due to an ownership dispute involving the tower, forcing the station to suspend broadcasting;[34] it returned to the air on April 6, 2011, from another nearby tower under special temporary authority.[35][36]