The two stations share studios on Lee Street on the Virginia side of Bristol (straddling the Virginia–Tennessee line); WEMT's transmitter is located at Rye Patch Knob on Holston Mountain in the Cherokee National Forest.

Channel 39 began in November 1985 as WETO ("East Tennessee's Own"), the market's first independent station, under local ownership and with studios and offices in Greeneville.

[5] WETO ("East Tennessee's Own") announced its forthcoming existence in March 1985; the station would have a general-entertainment independent format and studios in a Greeneville industrial park.

[6] The antenna, on a tower on Camp Creek Bald[2] of Viking Mountain near Greeneville, was installed in September,[7] The station, which began broadcasting on November 4, 1985,[8] represented a $1.6 million investment for the owners.

Undercapitalized from the start, Austin and Lochte failed to anticipate a surge in programming costs or difficulties achieving cable carriage from the repeal of must-carry rules requiring systems to offer local stations.

[12] At first, East Tennessee's Own Inc. (the former Medium Rare) reached a deal in October 1988 to sell the station to MT Communications of Los Angeles, with most of the purchase price in assumption of debt.

[13] The original MT deal never took place,[14] and in the meantime, the station was sued for failing to pay ASCAP dues and thereby broadcasting copyrighted music, including the theme to the Fox series Duet, without permission.

[19] MT Communications also acquired WJWT, a struggling Fox affiliate in Jackson, and converted it to a semi-satellite of WLMT with local advertising that December;[20] it became WMTU in January 1990.

[31] Even though the larger deal closed in July 1998, Sinclair had to wait to acquire WEMT because it owned a station with an overlapping coverage area; it instead took over operations under a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Max Media.