On October 9, 1986, WPMI became a charter affiliate of the Fox network and began offering prime time programming six months later.

The company purchased programming time on WJTC to run shows on that station that either did not fit onto WPMI's schedule or were being burned off.

Fox wanted to upgrade affiliates in many markets when it acquired the rights to broadcast games from the NFL's National Football Conference in the mid-1990s.

In 2009, WPMI began using digital billboards within its viewing area, which featured headlines from the station's Twitter feed alongside a photo of anchors Greg Peterson and Kym Thurman, and chief meteorologist Derek Beasley, a juxtaposition that would prove to be awkward when a headline regarding three people accused in a gang rape which occurred in Monroeville, Alabama, appeared next to the staff picture.

WPMI general manager Shea Grandquest and news director Wes Finley were reportedly suspended over the incident, though it was never officially confirmed by station executives.

The lawsuit, filed by AT&T, alleged that owner Deerfield Media failed to negotiate for retransmission consent in good faith for WPMI and other Sinclair-managed stations.

[11] The story gained national media attention from pundits such as Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and was referenced in episodes of South Park, Web Junk 20, and Tosh.0, where host Daniel Tosh called the "Crichton Leprechaun" the "Gone with the Wind of Internet videos.

Sinclair cannot hold an attributable interest in WPMI due to its ownership of WEAR, as both stations rank among the top four in the market.

In September 2016, WPMI scaled their noon newscast back to a half-hour to make room for the daily lifestyle program Gulf Coast Today.

In April 2023, the morning and noon newscasts and Gulf Coast Today were canceled and 20 members of WPMI's news staff were laid off.

[citation needed] The station's signal is multiplexed: WPMI-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 15, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate.