The stations share studios on College Avenue Southeast in Grand Rapids, while WOTV's transmitter is located on South Norris Road in Orangeville Township.

Because WZZM's transmitter is north of Grand Rapids in Grant, its signal does not reach Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, or other areas in the southern portion of the market.

In November 1962, West Michigan gained its third very high frequency (VHF) station when WZZM began broadcasting from Grand Rapids on channel 13 as an ABC affiliate.

[15] On October 22, 1968, BCU-TV announced that it had agreed to sell the channel 41 permit, with the call sign WWWU-TV,[16] to West Michigan Telecasters to be used as a satellite station of WZZM, as part of a transfer of stock arranged by Morris.

[17] Three days later, a group of Kalamazoo and Battle Creek businessmen under the name Channel 41, Inc., announced that it would file for a construction permit of its own to build the station.

[18] While Morris began the process to dissolve the BCU-TV partnership, Searer had left to become executive vice president of the new Channel 41, Inc., having moved to sever ties as a result of the decision to sell to West Michigan Telecasters.

[19] Ten days later, West Michigan Telecasters abandoned its attempt to pursue channel 41 in favor of seeking a relocation of its transmitter to the south.

[22] The FCC denied the tower move in May 1970 to prevent an "adverse impact on UHF development", another victory for backers of the Battle Creek station.

The station's dependence on WZZM-TV instead of direct network service meant that some ABC programs were not seen on channel 41 because they were not seen in Grand Rapids, but it was far cheaper than the monthly cost of a line from AT&T.

[32] WUHQ-TV was placed on channel 4 on the Battle Creek cable system, which dropped WZZM-TV from its lineup at that time;[32] the Grand Rapids station was later restored in 1975,[33] then discontinued in 1986 along with two out-of-market network affiliates.

[35] A 6:30 p.m. evening newscast was later established, but it was scrapped in January 1975 because the owners felt it was too costly and could not adequately compete with the many news programs available on stations broadcast by the local cable system.

[43] In January 1987, the station also dropped ABC World News Tonight in favor of reruns of WKRP in Cincinnati,[42] a decision that was not reversed until July 1989.

[44] Without full-length local news, the station focused on cut-ins during Good Morning America, as well as high school football coverage.

[45] In February 1991, Diane King, who had joined the station in 1989 to anchor the news cut-ins and be part of the documentary unit,[46] was fatally shot outside her home, having previously told friends that a man had been harassing her.

On October 31, 1991, it announced that it had entered into an 11-year local marketing agreement with WOTV (channel 8) to consolidate operations and restore some evening news coverage.

[55] Under the agreement with Channel 41, Inc., WOTV had its own sales, news, and engineering departments by 2001, while WOOD-TV provided programming support and bookkeeping services.

[62] Citing poor ratings and declining market advertising revenues due to the Iraq War, LIN closed the WOTV newsroom on August 21, 2003, and channel 41 began simulcasting four and a half hours a day of newscasts from WOOD-TV.

[45][63][64][65] The remaining personnel were consolidated to Grand Rapids in 2006, resulting in three further job cuts and the departure of WOTV features reporter Gerry Barnaby.

Satellite television providers Dish Network and DirecTV began offering both stations across the full market in 2002,[68] and WZZM was readded to several Comcast systems in southwest Michigan, including Battle Creek, in 2009.

In 2012, it rebranded as "WOTV 4 Women" and refocused its talent and local initiatives around the demographic—an unusual case of a station promoting itself specifically to one gender—after having previously branded as "My ABC".