WEAR-TV and WFGX share studios—which also house master control and some internal operations for WPMI-TV and WJTC—on Mobile Highway (US 90) in unincorporated Escambia County, Florida (with a Pensacola mailing address); WEAR-TV's transmitter is located in unincorporated Baldwin County, Alabama (northeast of Robertsdale).

In 1952, when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lifted its four-year television applications freeze, WEAR (1230 AM) and WCOA (1370 AM) both filed for new stations on channel 3 at Pensacola.

[2] WCOA dropped its bid in June 1953, allowing WEAR to be granted the permit; the withdrawal was half of an agreement by which WEAR dropped an application for channel 36 in Jacksonville to allow WJHP, sister station to WCOA, to get that channel unopposed.

Sinclair prohibited its ABC affiliates, including WEAR, from airing a Nightline broadcast in 2004 that featured a segment displaying the names of those who died in the war in Iraq, because the company felt it was anti-war rhetoric against the invasion.

[9][10][11][12][13][14] In late 2006, Sinclair entered into negotiations with Mediacom, the main cable provider for parts of the Florida side of the market (including Santa Rosa County and Pensacola Beach).

The dispute ended on February 2, when the two sides reached an agreement that restored WEAR to Mediacom systems.

Because of WEAR's then-hour-long 10 p.m. newscast, it was one of the last ABC affiliates to continue to air the network's late night programming (including Nightline and presently Jimmy Kimmel Live!

The additional half-hour of the 10 p.m. broadcast began as Channel 3 News Extra, but has since evolved into an extension of the 10 p.m. newscast.

On September 7, 2008, WEAR-TV was the first station in the Mobile–Pensacola market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition; field video remained pillarboxed for almost three years, until widescreen and eventually high definition video began supplementing the newscasts in 2011.