It was the first commercial television station to start up in the Macon market since CBS affiliate WMAZ-TV (channel 13) debuted on September 27, 1953, fifteen years and three days earlier.

In 1974, Woods sold channel 41 to station president F. E. Busby, who headed a local investor group known as Bibb Television, Inc.[2] Busby proved no more successful at making WCWB profitable than Woods had been, and current owner Morris Multimedia bought the station from Bibb four years later, in 1978.

Further complicating matters, WCWB had to compete with longer-established NBC affiliates in the VHF band that were easily viewable on the outer portions of the market.

A couple days afterwards, production manager L. A. Sturdivant told The Atlanta Constitution that the matter was under investigation, and stated that the incident had been an accident and not deliberately planned.

However, due to the problems mentioned above caused by WMAZ's dominance of the market, WCWB's newscasts struggled in the ratings for years, and were mostly discontinued by the early 1970s.

The station relaunched its news operation on September 6, 2004, as Tropical Storm Frances moved through the Southeastern United States.

When the news department was re-established, WMGT was among the first stations in the country to maintain a completely digital newsgathering operation.

With cable now having leveled the playing field somewhat by rendering the UHF reception issue largely moot, WMGT gradually expanded its newscasts over the next few years.

Around this time, the station began airing a rebroadcast of its morning newscast on WMGT-DT2 from 7 to 9 a.m. On September 16, 2013, the station debuted a half-hour midday newscast at 11 a.m. called 41 Today, a non-traditional news program that places a heavy emphasis on community events, consumer and lifestyle features and weather forecasts.

On July 2, 2015, Bounce TV was moved from WPGA-TV to WMGT-DT3, while ThisTV network took its place on WPGA-DT3 which was previously on WPGA-LP channel 50.