Querying against empty meta_value should work

[scribu]

This should work:

      $args = array(
        'meta_query' => array(
          array(
            'key' => 'featured_image',
            'value' => '',
            'compare' => '!='
          )
        )
      );
      $query = new WP_Query( $args );

Source: ​http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/10881/how-can-i-show-posts-only-if-meta-value-is-not-empty

[dd32]

See #16573 See #15292