The station was founded by Romac Baton Rouge Corporation, a consortium of Southern Educators Life Insurance Company and local businessmen Richard O.

There was an effort to move the transmitter of proposed Houma television station KHMA to the Greater Baton Rouge area in 1964 to serve as the city's ABC affiliate, with that management of that station going as far as to establish an advertising office in Baton Rouge; however, the owners of WAFB and WBRZ successfully petitioned the FCC to block the transfer, citing the urge of UHF development in the area.

[4][5] On May 2, 1986, WRBT was the first local station in Baton Rouge and the first NBC affiliate in Louisiana to broadcast in stereo, after WYES and WNOL in New Orleans and KMSS-TV in Shreveport.

It changed its calls to WVLA on November 26, 1987, after building a higher and more powerful tower that boosted its signal to a full five million watts.

From April 1990 until February 1991, the station took a secondary affiliation with Fox by airing week-delayed episodes of The Simpsons, In Living Color, and Married... with Children.

This move created a partnership, as Communications Corporation of America, a company controlled by Galloway's father, Thomas, owned Fox affiliate WGMB.

When the upgrades were completed, the station rebranded itself as Local 33 and adopted the news theme "Evolution" in place of "The Rock", similar to sister NBC affiliates KTAL-TV in Shreveport and KTVE in Monroe–El Dorado.

In mid-September 1983, the station received national attention when it pulled Late Night with David Letterman and replaced it with All in the Family reruns due to poor ratings.

Other Baton Rougeans, including then-Secretary of State Jim Brown, lobbied WRBT to keep Letterman on the air, and this compelled Vetter to reinstate the program by late September.

[11] Eventually, many residents of New Orleans tuned to WRBT to watch Letterman when NBC affiliate WDSU preempted the show in favor of Thicke of the Night.

This has led to several errors when the show ultimately aired in Baton Rouge, including on November 16, 2008, when an entire newscast from the previous Sunday was shown.

[9] On September 8, 2015, on-air personality Derek Myers was fired from WVLA-TV after asking Senator David Vitter, who was running for governor, about an allegation that the elected official frequented prostitutes.

[17] After Myers asked the question, Vitter's campaign pulled hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in advertising from the NBC station in an attempt to silence the story.

[22] The station's signal is multiplexed: WVLA had carried NBC Weather Plus as channel 33.2, a digital subchannel, before that network ceased national operation on December 1, 2008.

On March 1, 2023, WVLA added Antenna TV to a channel 33.4, approximately 1+1⁄2 months after original affiliate WLFT-CD discontinued broadcasting it upon being purchased by Family Worship Center.