WATL's transmitter shares a broadcast tower with several other local stations near North Druid Hills, just northeast of the city.

[6] Rounsaville also had construction permits for UHF stations in Louisville, Kentucky (WQXL-TV), and Cincinnati, Ohio (WQXN-TV), which were never placed in operation.

[7][8] An article on the history of WQXI-TV relates how the station shared a house in the northeast Atlanta area of Buckhead at 3165 Mathieson Drive with WQXI radio.

[5] At the time of the FCC sale approval, Overmyer owned construction permits for two UHF stations, WDHO-TV in Toledo and WNOP-TV in Cincinnati.

[16] It was jointly owned by the U.S. Communications Corporation station group of Philadelphia, a subsidiary of AVC, holding an 80 percent interest and the remaining 20% by Overmyer.

Overmyer had previously sold the majority interest (80%) in the construction permits for Atlanta, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Houston to AVC on March 28, 1967, with FCC approval of their sale coming December 8, 1967.

[17] None of the stations were on the air at the time of their sale to AVC, but U.S. built all but one: WATL-TV, WXIX-TV, KEMO-TV and WPGH-TV, in addition to owning Philadelphia's WPHL-TV.

[19] U.S. Communications reportedly spent $1 million on programming in the first year, including Lost in Space and a block of dinnertime game shows.

[26][27] Turner's first move after acquiring WTCG, the UHF station that would serve as the foundation of his media empire, was to take The Now Explosion from WATL.

[37] In the fall of 1983, WATL moved toward a more traditional independent schedule with a couple cartoons, a few westerns, and a few classic sitcoms plus more movies.

Then in 1984, the station was sold again, this time to Outlet Communications; the sale closed in early 1985, having been intentionally delayed to allow buyer and seller to take advantage of new tax breaks.

[38] Gradually, WATL acquired stronger programming such as Cheers, Webster, and Family Ties, as well as newer syndicated cartoons as these became abundant by 1985.

However, on May 22, 1994, New World Communications announced an affiliation agreement with Fox, months after the network won the broadcast rights to the NFL's National Football Conference.

WATL continued to air Fox Kids programming until September of that year, when it moved to WHOT (channel 34, now Univision O&O WUVG).

On June 5, 2006, Tribune announced that it entered into an agreement to sell WATL to the Gannett Company, the owners of Atlanta's NBC affiliate WXIA-TV, for $180 million.

[46] WATL aired Atlanta Falcons preseason games in August 2008 while its sister station was committed to the 2008 Summer Olympics.

WATL introduced its new on-air branding, MyAtlTV on August 20, 2006, ahead of the September 5 debut of MyNetworkTV (and about a month before The WB's final night of programming).

At that time, both WATL and WXIA became part of the latter company named Tegna Inc.[50] The station airs Fox's Weekend Marketplace paid programming block on Saturdays from 7 to 9 a.m., in lieu of WAGA.

In 2014, WATL reached a deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group to serve as the local outlet for its in-house syndicated programming, including Ring of Honor wrestling and the American Sports Network.

In late October 2011, Universal Sports was added to digital channel 36.3, until the network ceased over the air broadcasting and moved to cable-only distribution at the end of 2011.