The Gannett Company bought out the Evening News Association in early 1986, but due to the company's ownership of the Pensacola News Journal, and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations barring common ownership of television stations and newspapers in the same market, Gannett was forced to put channel 10 on the market only a month after the merger closed.

After it acquired the television rights to broadcast games from the NFL's National Football Conference in December 1993,[4] Fox wanted to upgrade its affiliates in many markets, approaching owners of VHF television stations (broadcasting on channels 2 to 13) that had more value with advertisers than those within Fox's predominately UHF station portfolio for affiliation deals.

As a result of Fox's influence in striking affiliations with additional VHF stations to help establish itself as the fourth major network, it sought to upgrade its affiliates—this time in smaller markets.

[7] On August 25, 1994, the company bought WALA, WVUE-TV in New Orleans, and KHON-TV in Honolulu for $229 million; fellow sister station WLUK-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin, was sold to the company one month earlier in a separate $38 million deal, which for a time, was challenged by an FCC petition filed by NBC alleging that the deal violated foreign investment limits for U.S. broadcasters (a fifth Burnham station, KBAK-TV in Bakersfield, California, was excluded from the SF deal and was instead spun off to Westwind Communications, a new company formed by several former Burnham executives).

[11] The final NBC program to air on WALA-TV was an NBC Sunday Night Movie presentation of Final Analysis at 8 p.m. Central Time on December 31, 1995, the day that channel 10 ended its 42-year affiliation with the network and became a Fox affiliate with WVUE and KHON also switched to that network on that same date, while WLUK had joined Fox in August 1995.

WALA, now rebranded as "Fox 10" upon the switch, also expanded its local news programming to around 25 hours each week, with expansions to its morning and evening newscasts.

[citation needed] On November 28, 1995, Silver King Communications (operated by former Fox executive Barry Diller) announced that it would acquire Savoy Pictures;[13] as a result, Savoy Pictures and Fox ended their partnership and sold the SF Broadcasting stations, including WALA-TV, to the USA Networks division Silver King Broadcasting.

[14] Fox discontinued its weekday afternoon children's programming block, then running for only two hours in December 2001,[15] but retained its Saturday morning lineup.

On May 15, 2005, Emmis Communications announced that it would sell its 16 television stations, including WALA and WBPG, in order to concentrate on its radio properties.

[16] WALA and WBPG were then sold to LIN TV Corporation on August 22, as part of a $260 million deal that included WLUK-TV, and CBS affiliates WTHI-TV in Terre Haute, Indiana and KRQE in Albuquerque, New Mexico; the sale of WALA closed on November 30, 2005,[17][18] at which time LIN also began to operate WBPG under a local marketing agreement.

In October 2008, WALA and CBS sister station WPRI-TV in Providence, Rhode Island relaunched their websites through Fox Interactive as a result of a new partnership between LIN TV and News Corporation (since spun off as the independent company now known as EndPlay).

The hour-long program, which airs weekdays at 9 a.m., is hosted by Joe Emer and Chelsey Sayasane, and features weather forecasts from meteorologist Jennifer Lambers.

On December 30, 2023, WALA-TV parent company Gray Television announced it had reached an agreement with the New Orleans Pelicans to air 10 games on the station during the 2023–24 season.

On April 21, 2012, WALA-TV became the third television station in the Mobile–Pensacola market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition (WPMI-TV would soon follow one day later), with the introduction of a brand new set and graphics.