On April 20, 2012, then owner MIK LLC announced it was selling the
construction permit for the station (which initially held the
call sign W18DR-D) to Gray Television. Under the transfer, MIK would receive $4,000 and would turn over the permit to
DTV America Corporation which would, in turn, transfer the permit to Gray. Gray exercised a purchase option that was part of the deal to acquire the station outright on May 11, 2012. Gray changed the calls to WECP-LD on June 4, 2012. On July 17, 2012, Gray Television signed an affiliation agreement with CBS for WECP-LD and two other low-powered stations
WSVF-LD in
Harrisonburg, Virginia, and
WIYE-LP in
Parkersburg, West Virginia. As a result, WECP-LD became the CBS affiliate for the Panama City area when the station took to the air on September 24, 2012. It is the second CBS affiliate that is licensed to the immediate Panama City market. WJHG had previously carried a secondary affiliation with the network from its December 1953 sign-on until 1961. Since then, sister station
WTVY in
Dothan, Alabama, had served as the default CBS affiliate for Panama City; in fact, WTVY's tower is located in
Bethlehem, Florida, in the Panama City market. In October 2012, WTVY was officially removed from
cable systems in the
market with WECP taking its place. The application was approved on November 14, 2014, giving WECP its construction permit. The switch of WECP to channel 29 (retaining 18 as virtual) and WJHG to channel 18 (virtual 7) took place on May 21, 2015, with the FCC issuing the station's license on June 5, 2015. WECP moved to RF channel 35 on August 21, 2019, as a result of the spectrum auction and to offset interference issues with adjacent stations. Gray twice acquired other companies that owned Panama City-area television stations, selling them off to retain WJHG-TV and WECP-LD. In 2014, it acquired most of
Hoak Media, owner of
ABC affiliate
WMBB; that station was spun off to
Nexstar Broadcasting Group. When Gray acquired
Raycom Media in 2019, it spun off
Fox affiliate
WPGX (channel 28) to
Lockwood Broadcast Group. On March 2, 2021, WECP transferred from channel 18 to channel 21. ==News operation==