For its first 17 years, WRLP was a money-bleeding full-time satellite of WWLP. However, in 1974, the Putnams and their company, Springfield Television, decided to air separate programming on WRLP in prime-time, including a fully separate newscast. It picked up Boston Bruins, Celtics and Red Sox telecasts, and soon appeared on cable systems across Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut and upstate New York. At one point, 70% of the station's audience was on cable. Unfortunately, cable coverage was not factored in by advertisers at the time, so WRLP reaped almost no windfall from its large cable audience. The station continued to lose money.