Downeast sold WEMT to Eastern Maine Broadcasting Systems (a subsidiary of Valley Communications, owner of WPNO in Auburn and WSKW and WTOS-FM in Skowhegan) on February 2, 1976.

[6] Although ABC was the nation's number one network by that time, Eastern Maine Broadcasting Systems suffered from massive financial problems during its ownership of WVII, bouncing paychecks, relying on an outdated Super 8mm film camera to film stories and lacking basic amenities such as air conditioning; the station went unnoticed in Bangor during this time.

[7] WVII did see some success as a border blaster when viewers in Halifax, Nova Scotia, discovered the station's late-night offering, Dick Stacey's Country Jamboree.

[7] Eastern Maine Broadcasting Systems sold the station to Seaway Communications, a minority-controlled company that already owned WAEO-TV (now WJFW-TV) in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, on July 23, 1982.

[8][9] WVII suffered a transmitter failure on February 9, 1995, due to a fire, knocking the station off the air in the middle of the 6 p.m. news, during a Bangor Hydro Electric advertisement.

The following day, TCI Cable, whose facilities shared a real property line with WVII on Target Industrial Circle, ran a transmission line from its building to the WVII studios, allowing the station to resume normal operations for Bangor cable viewers; however, until a temporary transmitter was activated on February 19, cable systems in areas outside of Bangor were forced to carry distant affiliates for programming (WVII was supplemented by WMTW in the Augusta and Waterville areas (which are considered to be part of the Portland area), while Miami affiliate WPLG was carried in the Presque Isle market in place of WVII) and over-the-air viewers outside of the Bangor market's extreme western fringes lost ABC programming completely during that time.

[13] Under Rockfleet, WVII ventured into low-power broadcasting in Bangor; it signed a local marketing agreement with James McLeod, owner of W30BF (the former Bangor transmitter for Maine Public Television Plus) and WBGR-LP (channel 33), in 2000,[14] and relaunched channel 30 as UPN affiliate WCKD-LP, which also carried some Fox Sports programming (in the 1990s, WVII itself carried some sports programming from Fox on a secondary basis), in 2001.

After Rockfleet Broadcasting acquired W22BU (channel 22) from MS Communications in 2003, it changed that station's call letters to WFVX-LP and, on April 13, affiliated it with Fox.

[19] WVII made national news in a New York Times article on October 30, 2006, quoting General Manager Michael Palmer saying "when Bar Harbor is underwater, then we can do global warming stories.

[22] Channel 7 had previously shown the games in 1995 and since 2001; however, National Football League rules required WVII to show them on tape delay, despite several efforts by the station to carry live telecasts.

Michaels and Consiglio later told the Bangor Daily News and other media outlets that they felt compelled to resign due to conflicts with upper management of both the station and Rockfleet.

On February 28, 2022, WVII and WFVX temporarily changed their logos to blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, in support of Ukraine after the 2022 Russian invasion.

The segments are recorded in advance with rotating meteorologists and fed via satellite to Bangor from AccuWeather's headquarters in State College, Pennsylvania (which WVII occasionally refers to as the "ABC 7 Weather Center").