It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Gulf Shores, Alabama–licensed CW owned-and-operated station WFNA (channel 55).

[1] The station was founded by the architect and movie theater owner Kenneth R. Giddens, who also put WKRG radio (710 AM, now WNTM, and 99.9 FM, now WMXC) on the air.

[6][7][8] On August 20, 2014, Media General announced that it would keep WKRG and WFNA, and sell WALA to Meredith Corporation.

Because Meredith recently acquired WALA as a required divestment from the LIN Media acquisition, and the two stations continue to rank among the four highest-rated stations in the Mobile–Pensacola market in total day viewership, the companies would once again have been required to sell either WKRG or WALA to comply with FCC ownership rules as well as recent changes to those rules regarding same-market television stations that restrict sharing agreements; sister station WFNA could have legally been acquired by Meredith Media General either by maintaining its new duopoly with WKRG or reuniting it with WALA, as its total day viewership ranks below the top-four ratings threshold.

The merger with Nexstar reunited WKRG with Panama City sister station WMBB, which was sold by Media General in 2008 to Hoak Media and eventually was acquired by Nexstar after Hoak merged with Gray Television, the owner of its closest competitor, which required its sale.

WKRG is one of the two remaining stations in the market to start their daily morning newscast at 5 a.m., along with WPMI, which ran a 4:30 a.m. show from September 2013 to June 2015.

WKRG became the first Mobile station (second in market overall) to launch weekend morning newscasts on June 20, 2015, from 5 to 6 a.m. Saturdays and 6 to 8 a.m. Sundays.

The latter replaced The Andy Griffith Show, which moved to sister station WFNA to weeknights at 9:30 following their 9 p.m. news which is also produced by WKRG.

[18] The station's signal is multiplexed: WKRG replaced the Retro Television Network with MeTV on its third digital subchannel in September 2011.