Channel 13 also became known for its heavy schedule of local programs during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably two popular shows aimed at younger audiences hosted by two early staples of Birmingham television.

Magician Cliff Holman hosted a children's program on the station for 15 years from 1954 to 1968; originally debuting in March 1954 as The Tip Top Clubhouse (named after the Ward Baking Company's Tip Top Bread brand), the afternoon cartoon showcase featured Holman—who previously served as the voice and puppeteer of Mr. Bingle, a marionette character originated in 1949 by City Stores of New York, for a Loveman's-sponsored holiday series that aired on WAFM-TV in November 1950—in the persona of "Cousin Cliff" (which was given to him by Ward executives as the then-25-year-old was too young to fit the "uncle" image then common among other children's show hosts), and underwent three format and title changes between 1956 and 1958, first as Cliff's Clubhouse (after Ward Baking withdrew sponsorship due to corporate difficulties) and then as Cartoon Clubhouse and later, The Popeye Show, after WAPI acquired the local rights to the Fleischer Studios animated shorts.

Benny Carle hosted Western Theatre, a showcase of western films interspersed with studio segments with local children as part of its studio audience that aired from 1953 to 1954, when Carle left to take over Bob Bandy's role as host the similarly formatted Circle Six Ranch on WBRC-TV, where he remained until 1964.

This was rather unusual, since in most two-station markets, ABC (which would not be on equal footing with CBS and NBC until the early 1970s) was typically relegated to a secondary affiliation on either one or both of the existing television stations.

The market also has areas of fairly rugged terrain—particularly in the eastern part of the state, which lies within the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains—which often created impairment issues with the over-the-air reception of UHF television stations.

This came after George Storer's company donated the two frequencies and accompanying transmitters to the Alabama Educational Television Commission (which were respectively signed on WCIQ and WBIQ on those channels in 1955) in a move that may have been an attempt to forestall future commercial competition in the market.

Compounding things, channel 42 operated at a comparatively low effective radiated power, producing a signal that was considerably weaker than that of either WAPI-TV or WBRC-TV.

[citation needed] In May 1970, WAPI-TV became the exclusive NBC affiliate for Birmingham, simultaneously resulting in the CBS programs not already carried by that station moving to WBMG.

On January 9, 2006, NBC Television Stations announced that it would place four of its smaller-market owned-and-operated stations—WVTM, WJAR-TV in Providence, Rhode Island, WCMH-TV in Columbus, and WNCN in Raleigh, North Carolina—up for sale.

[17] On April 6, 2006, NBC Universal and Media General announced that the latter would purchase WVTM-TV as part of a $600 million four-station deal between the two companies.

[21] On August 2, Media General announced that it had sold WIAT and fellow CBS affiliate KIMT in Mason City, Iowa, to New Vision Television for $35 million; that sale was finalized on October 12, 2006.

Because LIN already owned CBS affiliate WIAT, due to the same FCC duopoly restrictions based on total day viewership that prompted Media General to sell WIAT to New Vision eight years earlier, the companies were required to sell either WVTM-TV or WIAT to another station owner in order to comply with the agency's ownership rules; the sales that Media General and LIN voluntarily chose to conduct in that situation were also in response to planned changes to the FCC's media ownership regulations, which would prohibit sharing agreements involving two or more television stations in the same market.

[23][24][25][26] On August 20, 2014, Media General announced that it would reacquire WIAT and sell WVTM, along with WJCL in Savannah, Georgia, to Hearst Television.

One of the more popular CBS shows that WAPI-TV did not air was The Ed Sullivan Show, which resulted in Central Alabama viewers missing The Beatles' debut American performance on the variety series in February 1964, unless they were lucky enough to be able to get reception of CBS' affiliates in the adjacent markets of Atlanta (WAGA-TV, now a Fox owned-and-operated station), Huntsville (WHNT) or Montgomery (WCOV-TV, now a Fox affiliate).

During the 1970s, WAPI ran a distant second to WBRC in local news and general viewership, but was far ahead of WBMG, which was one of the lowest-rated commercial television stations in the U.S. at the time.

It was only in western and eastern Alabama that the CBS affiliates, WCFT and WHMA, were competitive against WBRC and WAPI, particularly in local newscasts designed specifically for those areas of the state.

After it exclusively aligned with NBC, channel 13 chose to fill the now-vacated 10 p.m. hour with off-network syndicated reruns to serve as a lead-in to its late newscast, which itself would move to 10 p.m. in 1977; however, the station continued to delay The Tonight Show by one hour in favor of running syndicated programming until September 1993, when it moved the program to its network-standard 10:35 slot.

This remained the case even during the second half of the 1980s, despite having the benefit of NBC's powerful prime time programming lineup of that period (which included such series as Hill Street Blues, The Cosby Show and The A-Team) as a lead-in to its 10 p.m. newscast.

This was followed three weeks later on September 8 by the launch of an hour-long late afternoon newscast at 4 p.m. On April 27, 2015, the station expanded its 6 p.m. newscast to one hour, ending Alabama Tonight, another Media General-mandated program that had eventually taken on a sports focus after the failure of its original format which stunted the station's ratings leading into prime time.

[36] WVTM was one of more than ten television stations around the country that requested for a power increase due to problems with the reception of VHF digital signals in areas within their markets of service following the transition.