WSM-TV was owned by WSM, Inc., a subsidiary of the locally based National Life and Accident Insurance Company, which also owned WSM radio (650 AM) and the original WSM-FM (103.3; shut down in 1951); the AM station is renowned for broadcasts of the country music show The Grand Ole Opry, which has been heard on the station since 1925.

In the late 1950s, the station also shared a short-lived affiliation with the NTA Film Network with WSIX-TV by airing one of its programs, Sheriff of Cochise.

[3] During the first few years of operation, AT&T would not run telephone lines for WSM-TV to receive network programming until there was another TV station in town.

In 1963, National Life and Accident Insurance built new studios for WSM-AM-TV adjacent to the transmission tower on Knob Road.

[4] In 1974, NL&AI reorganized itself as a holding company, NLT Corporation, with the WSM stations (by then including a new WSM-FM at 95.5) as a major subsidiary.

It opted to sell off the broadcasting interests, the Grand Ole Opry, the then-decrepit Ryman Auditorium, and the now-defunct Opryland USA.

[8] The new callsign allowed channel 4 to continue trading on the well-known WSM calls while at the same time separating it from its former radio sisters.

The change was brought on due to an FCC rule in place at that time forbidding TV and radio stations in the same city but with different owners from sharing the same call letters.

Soon afterward, the radio stations moved out of the Knob Road facility into new studios on the Opryland Hotel campus.

In early March 2009, it was announced that WSMV's master control operations would be hubbed at Meredith-owned sister station WGCL-TV (now WANF) in Atlanta.

Since 2006, channel 4 airs any Sunday Night Football games that involve the market's NFL team, the Tennessee Titans.

The station also aired Nashville Predators games via NBC's broadcast contract with the NHL that lasted until 2021; this includes the team's appearance in the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals.

[16][17][18] All of those games moved to WUXP in 2002, and stayed with that station until 2009, when Raycom Sports lost the syndication rights to ESPN Regional Television.

In 1982, WSMV dropped the Tonight Show to air sitcom reruns such as Three's Company, Alice, Barney Miller, Family Ties, and Rosie.

This action, along with that of several smaller affiliates in the Midwest and South, as well as low ratings, prompted NBC to cancel the series after only three episodes.

On October 26, 2014, WSMV accidentally preempted parts of the first half of the Manchester United–Chelsea Premier League match and instead aired Poppy Cat from the NBC Kids block.

In recent years, however, ABC affiliate WKRN has steadily increased its ratings, particularly in the evening and late newscasts.

[24] On both of these broadcasts, Pat Sajak, who had recently joined the WSM radio and TV staff, anchored the five-minute cut-in local newscasts.

WKRN is the only traditional network affiliate in the Nashville market to run only a half-hour of news at 6 p.m., with Wheel of Fortune (hosted by former WSM personality Pat Sajak from 1981 to 2024) airing at 6:30.

In the early 1980s, WSMV introduced the Snowbird character, a scarf- and earmuff-wearing anthropomorphic penguin, as a brand for its weather-related school closing reports.

Snowbird reports are shown on the station primarily in the winter, but the branding is also used for unexpected school closings caused by other natural and man-made events, not necessarily limited to snow and ice.

The Snowbird character has since been licensed to television stations in other markets, including WMC-TV in Memphis, WRCB in Chattanooga, WBOY-TV in Clarksburg, West Virginia, and WTOV-TV in Steubenville, Ohio, all NBC affiliates.

Upon Emery's retirement, WSMV briefly produced a local version of NBC's Today to serve as a lead-in to the national show.

Larry Munson, WSM-TV's sports director from 1956 to 1967 and later known as the play-by-play announcer for radio broadcasts of Georgia Bulldogs football (and, for a time, the NFL's Atlanta Falcons), created and hosted a long-running hunting and fishing show called The Rod & Gun Club.

During his channel 4 career, Hall also hosted Land and Lakes, an outdoors show focusing on local hunting and fishing adventures.

[43] Immediately after losing Fox, that station became an NBC affiliate[44] as it was renamed as WNKY, causing many Bowling Green area cable systems to drop WSMV.

[45] The Glasgow Electric Plant Board also still carried WSMV and its associated subchannels on their lineup until WNKY claimed market exclusivity on that system in terms of NBC and CBS affiliates in late 2017.

[48] WSMV, along with WTVF, are also available to Mediacom's customers in Caldwell and Crittenden counties, respectively including the communities of Princeton and Marion, along with the village of Fredonia.

WSMV was also previously available in some southern areas of the Evansville, Indiana, media market, mainly including northwestern Kentucky towns such as Madisonville, Central City, Beaver Dam, and Owensboro and their corresponding counties.

In November 2014, WSMV was dropped from that cable system when WNBJ-LD (channel 39) signed on as that area's own NBC affiliate.