on march 22, 2018, mynetworktv, escape and laff programming was moved to wpxt's respective third, fourth and fifth subchannels; the three networks had been carried by wpme, which was concurrently sold to ion media networks to become wipl, an ion television owned-and-operated station. hearst television announced its acquisition of wpxt on july 30, 2018; the $3,350,000 purchase created a duopoly with abc affiliate wmtw (channel 8). the sale was approved on september 12 and was completed on september 21, 2018; concurrently, wpxt changed its branding to "maine's cw."