Young Broadcasting entered station ownership in 1986, when it purchased stations in Lansing, Michigan and La Crosse, Wisconsin (a separate deal in 1988 would see Young acquire a station in Rockford, Illinois); Young purchased KLFY-TV in Lafayette, Louisiana in 1988 from Texoma Broadcasters, Inc., and subsequently WKRN-TV/Nashville and WTEN/Albany, New York in 1989 from Knight Ridder.

In May 1992, Young reached an agreement to purchase five television stations from Houston-based H&C Communications. The stations included KPRC-TV (H&C's flagship station) in Houston, KSAT-TV in San Antonio, WESH in Daytona Beach/Orlando, KVOA-TV in Tucson and KCCI-TV in Des Moines.^[5] However, the sale of these stations was cancelled due to Young's failure to obtain financing.^[6]

Young would expand its station roster with the 1994 purchase of three stations – WATE-TV/Knoxville, Tennessee; WRIC-TV/Richmond, Virginia and WBAY-TV/Green Bay, Wisconsin, from Nationwide Communications. Los Angeles independent KCAL-TV was purchased from The Walt Disney Company in 1996 and later sold to Viacom in 2002. Also in 1996, Young purchased KWQC-TV/Davenport, Iowa from Broad Street Television, L.P., and KELO-TV/Sioux Falls, South Dakota from Midcontinent Media, Inc.

In 2000, Young Broadcasting purchased NBC affiliate KRON-TV/San Francisco, California from Chronicle Publishing Company (the purchase also included a 51% stake in the station's local cable news channel BayTV, which would be shut down in 2001). Fortunes for KRON and its new owners would soon take a sharp decline when NBC chose to affiliate with (and eventually purchase) San Jose-based KNTV, after an attempt by the network to impose O&O-esque operational requirements and control of the station's schedule upon Young to retain the affiliation, which Young refused. KRON became an independent station in 2002 and eventually took affiliation with MyNetworkTV in 2006.

The company voluntarily declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy on February 13, 2009, with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.^[7][8] The massive debt load Young incurred from its purchase and ownership of KRON was widely believed to have been a contributing factor to the company's 2009 bankruptcy declaration.^[9]

On July 22, 2009, a New York bankruptcy judge approved a plan transferring ownership of Young and its stations to the company's secured lenders (among them Wachovia and Credit Suisse) for $220 million. The plan included Gray Television coming in as an outside party and advise on operations of Young-owned stations in seven markets through December 31, 2012 (although Young still had the final word on the stations' operations, including programming and personnel). The agreement did not include Young's three other stations: KRON-TV/San Francisco, California, WATE-TV/Knoxville, Tennessee, and WLNS-TV/Lansing, Michigan, in which the latter two due to Gray already owning stations in those markets.^[10][11][12] WBAY and KWQC would eventually be purchased by Gray in 2017 as part of spin-off requirements to close the Media General merger with Nexstar mentioned below.

On June 24, 2010, emerging from bankruptcy, Young released a statement indicating that the company had transferred from publicly traded status to private ownership by its former senior lenders, shedding "nearly $800 million in debt and millions of dollars of burdensome contracts" during its bankruptcy.^[13][14]

Young invested $25 million in its stations, which led to a major overhaul of news production in 2011, allowing most of the stations to convert their news programming to full high definition (except for KRON-TV, whose newscasts continue to be produced in widescreen standard definition). In 2013 Young introduced an editorial philosophy dubbed "One Newsroom", which uses multi-platform publishing systems to quickly distribute content across their broadcast, web, mobile, and social media assets.^[15] Master control automation for its stations and asset management operations were upgraded in 2012.^[16]

In 2011, Young hired Cox Reps to represent it for national sales and will establish a dedicated Young Broadcasting sales team based in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Adam Young Inc., Young's previous rep firm, ceased operations in February 2011 after Cox was brought on board.^[17]

In January 2012, Young signed an affiliation agreement with The Walt Disney Company's Live Well Network for eight of its stations to carry the digital multicast channel (WKRN-TV, WRIC-TV, WTEN, WATE-TV, WBAY-TV, WLNS-TV and KLFY).^[18]

On August 20, 2012, Standard General filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission to receive approval to increase the New York City-based hedge fund's ownership stake in Young Broadcasting from 36.34% to a controlling stake of 50.03%.^[19]

On June 6, 2013, Young announced that it would sell itself to Media General, in a transaction described as a "reverse merger". The enlarged Media General would own 30 stations, reaching 14% of the United States.^[20] On November 8, the FCC approved the merger.^[21] The merger closed on November 12.^[22] Media General would then be absorbed to Nexstar Media Group in 2017.^[23] President and CEO Deborah A. McDermott would later become the CEO of Standard Media in 2018.^[24]

Stations are arranged in alphabetical order by state and city of license.