The first television station as well as the the oldest station that broadcasts continuously in New Hampshire (and the first primary ABC affiliate in the Boston area), WMUR-TV was founded on March 28, 1954 (four years before the original incarnation of WHDH-TV signed on) by former governor Francis P. Murphy, owner of WMUR radio (610 AM; now WGIR) through a company known as the Radio Voice of New Hampshire, Inc. In early 1957, channel 9 was sold to Storer Broadcasting Company, although it then backed out of the deal, and the station remained in Murphy's hands until his death in December 1958. His estate finally sold the station a few months later to Richard Eaton's United Broadcasting.
1960–1977[]
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1977–1984[]
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Following Richard Eaton's death in July 1981, which ended the station being ran very cheaply, WMUR was sold to Columbus, Mississippi, businessman Birney Imes Jr. and his company, Imes Communications, which also owned that city's WCBI-TV, as well as WBOY-TV in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
1984–1987[]
1987–1994[]
1994–2014[]
1994–2002[]
In 1994, WMUR became both a primary and secondary affiliate of Fox. They also launched three low-powered repeaters in the northern portion of New Hampshire, one of them (W38CB in Littleton) carried WMUR's full ABC schedule, while the other two (W27BL in Berlin and W16BC, now WMUR-LP, in Littleton) were full-time primary affiliates of Fox. All of them, including its main channel, carried WMUR's newscasts as well as Fox Sports telecasts.
WMUR was the first television station in the country to develop a significant Internet presence beginning on October 8, 1995.
Imes Communications reached an agreement to sell the station to Emmis Communications in September 2000, who then traded WMUR to current owner Hearst-Argyle Television which owned WCVB-TV (channel 5) in exchange for that company's three radio stations in Phoenix, Arizona—KTAR, KMVP-FM, and KKLT. In 2001, WMUR dropped Fox programming, leaving then-network-owned WFXT (channel 25) as the sole Fox station for southern New Hampshire.
The station's slogan since 2002—"No One Covers New Hampshire Like We Do"—reflects the fact that it is the only local television news source in the state.