WTOG went on the air in 1968 as what was then Tampa's second independent television station, and had no local independent competition for most of the 1970s after WSUN went off the air. Even after WFTS went on the air in 1981, WTOG still had all the cartoons and most of the sitcom reruns, so they were the station for kids up until the mid 1980s, which coincided nicely with my formative years in Tampa, watching "The Flintstones" at 3:00, "Scooby-Doo" at 3:30, and "Bugs Bunny and Friends" at 4:00, all part of the "44 Kids' Club."
WTOG also featured local horror movie host Dr. Paul Bearer.
They were a charter Fox affiliate with Joan Rivers' talk show in 1986, but gave up the affiliation two years later.
In 1995, they became a charter UPN affiliate.
They had been the only non-Minnesota TV station owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, but were sold to the Paramount Stations Group in the late 1990s, and their local news operation, "44 Tampa Bay News," which had been running since at least the mid 1980s, was shut down soon afterwards.
Until Paramount took over, WTOG had kept the same logo longer than any other station in the Tampa Bay area; it had been the same since at least 1971.