The stations share studios on Fairfield Drive in Mangonia Park (with a West Palm Beach postal address); WPEC's transmitter is located southeast of Wellington, Florida.

The third TV station built in West Palm Beach and second-oldest in operation, channel 12 began as WEAT-TV on January 1, 1955.

In April 1952, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened to new television station applications after a four-year freeze, with channels 5 and 12 available in West Palm Beach.

[12] It was the second VHF station on the air in West Palm Beach after WJNO-TV (channel 5, known as WPTV after 1956), an NBC affiliate which started in August 1954.

[17] RKO owned the stations for less than two years before selling them to Rex Rand and Bertram Lebhar Jr., incorporated as Palm Beach Broadcasting, in 1957.

[18] In 1963, Rand and Lebhar sued John D. MacArthur, claiming the businessman and developer had failed to pursue a stock and loan agreement.

[26] It was in technology that PEC had made its money; in 1971, the company had received an Academy Award for technical achievement for its Video Color Negative Analyzer (VCNA), a tool used in photography.

[31][32] The studio facilities were expanded, providing dedicated space for the station, which had initially been squeezed into PEC's existing footprint.

CBS had been represented in the market by WTVX (channel 34), a station licensed to and based in Fort Pierce that had only begun serving Palm Beach County in 1980.

[44] For many years, Dreyfoos had received expressions of interest in the station from a variety of suitors, including Generoso Pope Jr., founder of the National Enquirer.

Freedom's bid beat out larger suitors such as Meredith Corporation, Clear Channel Communications, The New York Times Company, and Tribune Company, many of whom were surprised at the final sale price;[46] Dreyfoos benefited from a growing frenzy of consolidation and large media purchases during the time the station was on the market, and in the long term, the station had appreciated in value because of extensive population growth in the West Palm Beach market.

In the purchase, Freedom acquired the buildings belonging to WPEC and Photo Electronics Corporation itself; the company's remaining business was moving to Seattle.

The Mergens family sued Dreyfoos after the sale, claiming that he had purposefully understated the company's value when he purchased their 38 percent stake in the station in 1994 at a valuation of $38 million.

[48] Freedom announced on November 2, 2011, that it would bow out of television and sell its stations, including WPEC, to the Sinclair Broadcast Group.

[49] Sinclair had earlier announced the acquisition of Four Points Media Group, owner of WTVX as well as low-power stations WTCN-CA and WWHB-CA,[50] and the two purchases resulted in the first full duopoly in West Palm Beach.

[53][54] In 2022, WPEC hosted a gubernatorial debate, held at the Sunrise Theater in Fort Pierce, between Ron DeSantis and Charlie Crist.

[57] After Dreyfoos took a more active hand in managing WPEC in 1981, the station opted for a younger look in news, replacing well-liked anchorwoman Eleanor Schano White with the duo of John Matthews and Laurel Sauer.

[66] The idea had originated the year before when, at a party, WPEC's general manager told his WFLX counterpart in jest, "I hear you're going into the news business.