The two stations share studios on East Adams Street (near EverBank Stadium) in downtown Jacksonville; WTLV's transmitter is located on Anders Boulevard in the city's Killarney Shores section.

WFGA-TV spent most of its first 15 years on air embroiled in legal conflict stemming from an influence scandal involving a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner.

The case was ultimately resolved in 1969 by an operating consortium comprising Florida-Georgia and three groups also seeking channel 12, which was enshrined as its regular ownership in 1971.

Over the course of the 1990s, the station became more competitive and posed the most serious challenge yet to the traditional news ratings leader in Jacksonville, WJXT (channel 4).

He stated his interest in television began in 1951, when a man told him he stopped listening to Cohn's radio station because he was watching more TV.

[13] On May 29, 1957, the appeals court upheld the award to Florida-Georgia and rejected a plea for denial by WJHP-TV (channel 36), an ultra high frequency (UHF) station that feared being driven out of business.

[25] As WFGA-TV was getting on the air, a scandal involving the FCC's decisions in several contested television station cases exploded into view.

In January 1958, syndicated columnist Drew Pearson published a column alleging that FCC commissioner Richard Mack, a Florida native, had been influenced to switch the approval of channel 10 in Miami to a company affiliated with National Airlines.

[26] The resulting congressional investigation uncovered other cases of ex parte communications between attorneys and FCC commissioners on matters before the commission.

[33] In September 1968, the Court of Appeals ordered the FCC to consider the interim operating authority requests from competing applicants for WFGA-TV and WFTV.

With the shutdown of channel 12 the only other option, in January 1969, the FCC authorized all four pending applicants to join forces in an interim operator for WFGA-TV.

[42] As part of a campaign to create a new image for the station, WFGA-TV changed its call sign to WTLV (for "television") on December 13, 1971.

[40] On September 30, Harte-Hanks announced it had secured a controlling 51-percent interest in Channel 12 of Jacksonville and would seek to purchase the remainder;[45] the $10.5 million deal received FCC approval in March 1975.

At the time, ABC had surpassed NBC in the national ratings and was seeking affiliate upgrades nationwide, but it was stuck in Jacksonville on WJKS-TV, a station that did not even air an early-evening newscast.

[47] The comments were further bolstered by remarks made by ABC network president Jim Duffy stating that he had talked with other Jacksonville stations.

[52] Harte-Hanks attempted to improve the station by dispatching management from WFMY-TV in Greensboro, North Carolina, a top-rated CBS affiliate, to WTLV.

To reduce this load, Harte-Hanks put a number of its divisions up for sale in October 1987, including three newspapers, seven cable systems, and WTLV and WFMY-TV.

[62] On February 17, 1988, within two weeks of taking control, Gannett announced that WTLV would return to NBC, replacing WJKS-TV and undoing the 1980 swap.

[66][67] After the switch, WTLV's news and non-news ratings saw immediate improvements from the replacement of low-rated ABC with higher-rated NBC.

The next day, November 16, Gannett announced it would purchase WJXX, which had been Jacksonville's ABC affiliate since February 1997, from Allbritton Communications.

[69] The new duopoly rules barred cross-ownership of two of the top four television stations in the same market, a restriction that typically prevented Big Four network affiliates from coming under common ownership.

[71][72] WJXX introduced a news operation in December 1997,[73] but the circumstances forced Allbritton to divert its attention to the installation of temporary facilities.

[74] Seven months of inadequate transmitter coverage of Jacksonville and the even longer stretch without a direct feed to the cable company confused and alienated viewers just as channel 25 needed to make a good first impression.

[76] Channel 25's news ratings, despite a product considered superior to that WJKS had produced as an ABC affiliate, lagged WJXT and WTLV;[75][77] one bright spot was the market's only local newscast at 7 p.m.[78] It became apparent that the combination of WTLV and WJXX would rely heavily on the former's facility and personnel, causing WJXX staffers to begin to depart.

Gannett took control the next morning, and about 36 WJXX employees—including 13 in news—joined the new combined WTLV-based operation, which immediately began simulcasting newscasts on both stations before relaunching on April 27 under the umbrella brand of First Coast News.

[83] WTLV was fined $55,000 by the FCC in 2017 for airing Jacksonville Jaguars promos that included the Emergency Alert System tones.

[84] When WFGA-TV began broadcasting, the station's first news director was Harold Baker, who had served in the same position at WSM radio and television in Nashville, Tennessee.

[87] The station spent most of the 1970s and early 1980s continually revamping its news product to compete with WJXT, with regular changes in staff and format.

[58] In the years following the switch back to NBC, WTLV mounted a strong challenge to WJXT and at its peak in the July 1991 sweeps beat the station at 11 p.m. by one percentage point of television viewers.

[100] WTLV was the first local television rights partner for the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars of the NFL and spent six seasons, from 1995 through 2000, airing the team's preseason games and coaches' shows.