The station's call letters were later modified to WTMJ-TV (referencing The Milwaukee Journal), which first signed on the air on December 3, 1947,[3] originally broadcasting on VHF channel 3.

The first generation of the "TMJ4" branding lasted until August 13, 2004, on the date NBC began its coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics, as part of a graphical overhaul that resulted in the retirement of the "sailboat 4" logo that had been in use by the station since 1980.

[12] On August 8, a group of Time Warner Cable subscribers filed a class action lawsuit against the provider in a Wisconsin District Court under grounds of breach of contract.

The combined firm would retain their broadcast properties—including WTMJ-TV and its AM and FM radio siblings—with the print assets being spun off as Journal Media Group.

E. W. Scripps and Time Warner Cable announced a new multi-year carriage agreement on February 1, 2016 (well ahead of the 2016 Summer Olympics), that includes WTMJ.

[24] With this agreement, Scripps also obtained carriage for WTMJ's subchannels as of April 4, 2016, which took the channel 990 and 991 slots on area Time Warner systems.

On September 24, 2020, a consortium made up of Scripps and Berkshire Hathaway announced the proposed purchase of Ion Media for $2.65 billion, including WPXE-TV.

In mid-December 2014 with the operations of Local AccuWeather winding down as AccuWeather refocused its television efforts on its cable-satellite channel, WTMJ converted the 4.2 subchannel to a widescreen format, and reformatted it to incorporate additional traffic camera loops, feature segments and a news ticker to the new internally originated setup as "TMJ4 Plus", using website partner WorldNow's "channel in a box" coordinating automation technology.

The subchannel, which locally had its on-air playlist customized by WTMJ, was co-branded with WTMJ-TV's sister radio station WLWK-FM (now WKTI), which then had a format spanning a variety of decades.

In September 2011, Journal Communications filed a $257,000 lawsuit against TheCoolTV's parent company Cool Music Network, LLC, alleging non-payment of broadcast services since before June 2011.

[29][30] WTMJ eventually converted the channel's aspect ratio to 480i widescreen, optimized for 16:9 displays, in line with LWN's default screen presentation; select Live Well programming (consisting of Motion and Deals) was broadcast in high definition during Saturday late night slots on the station's main channel until the network was removed.

On January 12, 2015, one week before Live Well Network was to originally discontinue operations entirely (its distribution would instead be relegated exclusively to ABC Owned Television Stations outlets after a three-month reprieve from its planned nationwide shutdown), it was replaced on WTMJ-DT3 with the NBC-owned subchannel service Cozi TV.

[27] It was not added right away, as WTMJ's agreement with NBC to carry Cozi had not yet expired and the station did not want to compromise picture quality with a fourth subchannel before a later multiplexer upgrade.

It began to carry Grit in early March 2018, after WCGV-TV (channel 24) left the air on January 8, 2018, and merged their two other existing subchannels onto WVTV due to the spectrum auction.

Like NBC flagship WNBC in New York City, WTMJ aired It's Showtime at the Apollo after Saturday Night Live for its entire 21-year run, with Soul Train (another long-running syndicated staple since 1972, when it joined the station's lineup) following that show until its own end in 2006.

From the 1960s to the 1990s, preemptions on the station were more common (examples include those involving NBC's daytime game show and soap opera lineup; Sanford and Son airing on Saturday nights instead of Fridays during the 1973–74 season, in which the sitcom's normal time slot was occupied by the second half-hour of The Lawrence Welk Show;[34] and its removal of Gimme a Break!

(The soap opera moved exclusively to the network's streaming service Peacock effective September 12, 2022, with NBC News Daily taking over its 1 p.m.

As of 2015[update], the WTMJ version is currently hosted by Tiffany Ogle (who replaced original co-host – and former WISN reporter—Alison de Castro, after she left the program in October 2009 to relocate with her family to Chicago) and Molly Fay (formerly a morning anchor at WITI).

[38] The Morning Blend format and branding then was adapted by most of WTMJ's fellow Journal stations, and has now been added to several of its new Scripps sisters.

In 2017, Scripps also began to air the "Family Night" scrimmage before the pre-season, which had previously been produced as a joint effort between the state's Fox affiliates under a separate contract.

[41] WTMJ-TV served as the original local television outlet for the Milwaukee Brewers,[42] carrying at least 25 to 40 of the Major League Baseball team's games each season—mostly involving those played on the road—from 1970 to 1980.

[44] Prior to 1962, the Braves had a long-held policy not to televise its games, on the perception that it would negatively affect attendance, which ironically played a part in the franchise moving to Milwaukee from Boston after the 1952 season.

after all three programs moved to other area stations, and Montel's August 2008 departure from syndication failed to spark viewer interest outside of local/network hours.

On August 25, 2008, after Extra moved to WITI, the station expanded its 6 p.m. newscast to one hour (although it reverted to a half-hour on Tuesday nights during the NFL season due to Mike McCarthy's coaches show in the past); this was followed on September 8 by the debut of an hour-long newscast at 3 p.m.,[47] which featured segments including "Ask the Experts", an interactive "sound off" segment incorporating viewer calls and social media contributions, and a "hot topics" section which features WTMJ radio afternoon host Jeff Wagner among the regular panelists.

The simulcast ended in early 2009, due to viewer disinterest in Milwaukee-focused news (WGBA relaunched a local morning newscast in January 2011).

[49] Segments broadcast from the main studio and news video from the field are presented in the format, as with most of the station's live units and skycam system.

The rest of the station's skycams are equipped for digital widescreen and upconverted for HD broadcast in WTMJ's production control room.

On January 20, 2014, WTMJ officially expanded the weekday editions of Live at Daybreak (now known as TMJ4 News Today) to 4:30 a.m., becoming the last of the market's four television news outlets to expand their morning newscasts to the slot; it had effectively begun to do so two weeks earlier due to that month's record cold temperatures requiring early coverage of school and business closings.

On April 6, 2020, the 3 p.m. newscast made a temporary return to WTMJ's schedule, with Kelly Clarkson being moved back an hour to 2 p.m. and The List being placed on hiatus in favor of the Scripps national program Coronavirus: The Rundown (RightThisMinute airs a second episode before the late-night repeat of Kelly; the show's new daily episode has pushed to that timeslot), in order to report local developments related to the COVID-19 pandemic; the 4 p.m. newscast was regularly preempted since mid-March by a combination of the city/county of Milwaukee's daily combined coronavirus teleconference and the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing (the former has now shifted to a 2 p.m. Tuesday/Thursday schedule).

During the pandemic, Days of Our Lives de facto regularly aired split into two portions on the station, with the state of Wisconsin's teleconference occurring during the soap.