(now iHeartMedia) announced its buyout of Ackerley closing on its purchase in 2002. Though initially no changes took place, market concentration concerns with Clear Channel's radio cluster in the Utica market put WUTR's future under the company in doubt. Given the option between potentially selling WUTR or the four-station "Sports Stars" sports radio simulcast, Clear Channel reduced budgets and redistributed resources to other stations in the CNYSG. In December 2003, Clear Channel announced it would sell WUTR to Nexstar Broadcasting Group subsidiary Mission Broadcasting; the sale was completed on April 1, 2004. At that time, Nexstar (owner of WFXV and WPNY) took over operations of WUTR under local marketing and joint sales agreements, and the three stations were eventually consolidated into WUTR's studios in Deerfield. The station's broadcasts became digital-only, effective March 16, 2009. For a time in December 2010, WUTR was available in the Burlington, Vermont–Plattsburgh, New York area on Time Warner Cable systems. Due to an ongoing retransmission dispute, the provider dropped that market's ABC affiliate WVNY and added WUTR in its place. Rival WKTV, which at the time was co-owned with WVNY, was replaced with Nexstar-owned WBRE-TV from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on Time Warner Cable's systems in Utica for the same reason. Eventually, the dispute was resolved and both stations were returned to the cable system. (In November 2012, Mission would acquire WVNY from Smith, placing that station in the same family as WUTR.) On June 15, 2016, Nexstar announced that it has entered into an affiliation agreement with Katz Broadcasting for the Escape, Laff, Grit, and Bounce TV networks (the last one of which is owned by Bounce Media LLC, whose COO Jonathan Katz is president/CEO of Katz Broadcasting), bringing the four networks to 81 stations owned and/or operated by Nexstar, including WUTR and WFXV. Programming Syndicated programming on WUTR includes Live with Kelly and Ryan, Inside Edition, Entertainment Tonight, The Kelly Clarkson Show, and Family Feud among others. News operation At various times in its history, WUTR has sought to compete with WKTV for local news viewers, with varying degrees of success. Its highest ratings to date, perhaps, occurred during two periods: the late 1980s and the mid-1990s. After Clear Channel reduced funding for local news gathering, WUTR became more reliant on content originating from its sister stations in Upstate New York (particularly flagship WIXT in Syracuse), ending weekday morning and weekend newscasts in June 2002.