On December 12, 1996, the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a
construction permit for a low-power television station on
UHF channel 51 in
Pinconning, Michigan, with the
call sign W51CS. In 2001, the permit was moved to VHF channel 12 in Traverse City under call letters W12CX. In 2003, the call letters were changed to WLLZ-LP. From 1980 to 1996, the WLLZ calls were used by an
album oriented rock FM radio station broadcasting on 98.7 in the
Detroit area, nicknamed "Detroit's Wheelz" (later
Smooth Jazz WVMV "V98.7" and now top-40 "AMP Radio"
WDZH). After the FM station dropped the call letters, they were used for several years on an
AM station in the market, and were picked up by Channel 12 after the AM station dropped them in 2003. WLLZ's owner at the time, P & P Cable Holdings, is known for picking up calls discarded by other Michigan radio and television stations for use on their own stations. WLLZ-LP signed on in January 2004 as an affiliate of
Urban America Television. It added
America One programming to its schedule in Summer 2004. WLLZ became a full affiliate of the network in May 2006 when Urban America Television ceased operations. On December 4, 2017, the sale to Freelancer Television Broadcasting was completed, making it a sister station to
WMNN-LD; the station then modified its branding to "MI TV 12". It changed its call sign to WXII-LP on December 21, 2017. On April 23, 2019, the FCC granted WXII-LP a construction permit to operate a digital companion channel on UHF channel 30. In the meantime, digital
over-the-air access to this station had been being provided through a simulcast over a
digital subchannel of co-owned station WMNN-LD; that simulcast continued post-transition to improve this station's over-the-air reach and also to feed local cable systems. On September 14, 2021, WXII-LP commenced digital operations and the FCC changed this station's call sign to WXII-LD to reflect this station's new digital operations. Concurrent with the launch of this station's digital operations, a simulcast of sister station WMNN-LD, which carries programming from
NewsNet, was added as a second subchannel. The subchannel was removed in August 2024 after the shutdown of NewsNet. On January 13, 2022, Freelancer Television Broadcasting's portfolio, including NewsNet, WMNN-LD, and WXII-LD, were sold to investor
Manoj Bhargava, with Eric Wotila retaining 10% ownership in the new company Bridge News, LLC. Under the terms of the deal, Bridge News would operate the stations via a
time brokerage agreement with Freelancer Television Broadcasting. The sale was consummated on March 24. ==News programming==