WEVU began in the late 1980s as W07BR channel 7; the station also maintained a repeater in Naples, W09BS channel 9. The stations were originally a part of the Channel America network. In the early 1990s, they switched to American Independent Network; a few years later, they dropped AIN for Network One. On September 1, 1995, W07BR became WBRP-LP, while W09BS became WBSP-LP. One month later, WEVU channel 26 dropped those call letters in favor of WZVN-TV. In response, Caloosa Television, the then-owners of the low-power stations, picked up the WEVU-LP calls for channel 7 on November 6, 1995. At that time, the station referred to itself as "The Real Channel 7". WEVU-LP picked up National Empowerment Television some time before N1 shut down. In March 1998, WTVK, at that time the UPN affiliate, dropped UPN for The WB. The original WB affiliate, cable-only "WB 10" picked up UPN. However, not everyone in the market could get "TV 10", so UPN made an affiliation deal with WEVU, which would allow for wider coverage. It wasn't until later in 1998 when Caloosa Television made a deal with MediaOne to have the cable system take over the station's programming. MediaOne dropped the faux calls of "WSWF" in favor of WEVU, and replaced WEVU-LP's non-network programming with their own, thus unifying the UPN affiliates in the market. This working relationship lasted until midnight on September 1, 2004. This occurred shortly after Holston Valley Broadcasting struck a deal for carriage of the station on DirecTV. This forced WEVU to seek UPN programming via microwave from UPN owned-and-operated stationWTOG out of St. Petersburg, Florida; they also aired WTOG's three-hour E/I block. All other programming on the station consisted of infomercials. Comcast continued to operate its own UPN affiliate, which began going by the faux call letters of "WNFM." WEVU was later picked up by Dish Network. When UPN ended broadcasting in September 2006, WEVU filled the time slot with more infomercials. By this time, the stations had been sold to Equity Broadcasting, and were simulcasting the six o'clock news from Univision affiliate and sister stationWUVF-CA. Equity subsequently decided to rebroadcast WUVF's entire schedule on WEVU. In 2007, Equity struck a deal with LatinAmerican Broadcasting to carry LAT TV on its group of stations beginning May 30, 2007; WEVU was to be one of the stations. However, WEVU continued to rebroadcast WUVF, and is included in WUVF's station identification. WBSP signed off March 11, 2008 after suffering technical problems. On April 4, 2008 Equity announced the sale of all five of its Southwest Florida stations to Luken Communications, LLC for $8 million. Equity has cited corporate financial losses as a reason for the sale. Equity Media Holdings has been in chapter 11 bankruptcy since December 2008 and offers by Luken Communications to acquire Equity-owned stations in six markets have since been withdrawn. WEVU was sold at auction to Silver Point Capital on April 16, 2009. The sale closed on August 17, 2009. WBSP was not named in the sale. WEVU has since surrendered its previous class A classification, which it had held since 2002. Three days before the completion of the sale to Silver Point, WEVU was taken silent. As a result, Dish Network began to obtain WUVF's programming via another satellite station, WLZE-LP, on October 7, 2009. On March 10, 2011, WEVU-LP's license was cancelled by the FCC. WBSP's license had been cancelled on June 15, 2010.
