separate branding, and was only mentioned during WPTZ's legal IDs. However, it still aired separate commercials. Spectrum sale and channel sharing agreement In the FCC's incentive auction, WNNE sold its spectrum for $50,464,592 and announced that it would enter into a post-auction channel sharing agreement. WNNE now channel-shares with sister station WPTZ; as the latter station's signal does not sufficiently reach Hartford, WNNE changed its city of license to Montpelier, Vermont. The station shut down operations on its pre-auction channel and commenced channel-sharing operations, effective July 22, 2018; on July 20, Hearst Television announced that WNNE would become the market's CW affiliate following the move. This was done by re-numbering that station's former WPTZ subchannel on 5.2 to WNNE's 31.1 virtual channel via PSIP. This resolves the concerns raised years before regarding a lack of access to the WPTZ sub-channels for WNNE viewers, yet it also limits viewers in the Upper Valley to cable and satellite viewing options for NBC programming. In August 2019, Hearst Television upgraded WNNE to the 1080i full HD picture format; prior to this upgrade, programming on this station was being presented in 720p. 2019 antenna fire On November 19, 2019, WNNE, WPTZ and CBS affiliate WCAX-TV (channel 3) were knocked off the air by a fire of their combined antenna at their transmitter facility. The cause of the fire was unknown. The outage affected over-the-air and satellite viewers; cable subscribers continued to receive the three stations via direct fiber feeds. News operation Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, WNNE operated a fairly large news department for a station of its size. The original anchor team consisted of Mike Harding with news, John Yacavone providing weather, and sports from Rick Karle. On-air personnel routinely performed multiple tasks often shooting, editing, and producing their entire stories for air. During the week, the station offered local news and weather updates from 7 until 9a.m. at :25 and :55 past the hour during Today on weekday mornings in lieu of a traditional broadcast. Full newscasts aired weekdays at noon (for thirty minutes) as well as weeknights at 6 and 11p.m. In addition, there were also prime time weather forecast cut-ins provided during network programming. However, it did not produce any weekend news shows. All newscasts aired out of WNNE's studios in the basement of the Pines Motel that later became a Regency Inn & Suites property. In the mid-1980s, NBC