The station first signed on the air on March 19, 1989 as WCCL; it originally operated as an independent station with a general entertainment format, along with numerous CBS programs preempted by WWL. Due to financial issues, the station ceased operations and went off the air on May 23, 1990. Flinn Broadcasting Corporation purchased the station's license three years later and returned channel 49 to the air on May 25, 1994, carrying programming from the Home Shopping Network. The station changed its call letters to WPXL-TV on August 31, 1998; that same day, the station became a charter affiliate of the family-oriented network Pax TV. As part of the affiliation deal with Pax TV, Flinn Broadcasting entered into a time brokerage agreement with Pax TV owner Paxson Communications to operate the station. On July 30, 2001. Paxson entered into a joint sales agreement with Hearst-Argyle Television, owner of NBC affiliate WDSU, to provide advertising and marketing services for WPXL.
In early September 2005, shortly after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southern Louisiana, WPXL partnered with WDSU, whose transmitter building in Chalmette was damaged due to flooding caused by the storm, to simulcast channel 6's programming. The station also added programming from The Worship Network and the signals of the Tribune Broadcasting-owned duopoly of ABC affiliate WGNO and CW affiliate WNOL as subchannels on its digital signal for New Orleans area residents that had television sets with built-in digital tuners. On March 29, 2008, almost a month after WGNO and WNOL resumed digital transmissions over WNOL's digital allocation on UHF channel 15, WPXL began to carry the Ion-owned children's network Qubo and lifestyle network Ion Life on digital channels 49.2 and 49.3; both networks had launched a year-and-a-half after Katrina hit the area.
On August 21, 2007, Ion Media Networks announced that it would purchase WPXL-TV and Memphissister stationWPXX from Flinn Broadcasting outright for $18 million. The sale was completed on January 2, 2008, with WPXL becoming an Ion Television owned-and-operated station.
Digital television
Analog-to-digital conversion
WPXL shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 49, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition UHF channel 50. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 49.
Newscasts
In September 2001, as part of the JSA with that station, WPXL began airing tape delayed rebroadcasts of NBC affiliate WDSU's 10:00 p.m. newscasts each Monday through Friday evening at 10:30 p.m.. The news share agreement ended on June 30, 2005, due to Paxson Communications' decision to discontinue carriage of network affiliate newscasts as a result of Pax TV's financial troubles.
