WSIL became a member for the first time on December 1, 1953. It began broadcasting an analog signal on UHF channel 22, but switched to VHF channel 3 in March 1959, as did many other stations assigned to UHF allocations before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandated that television manufacturers include UHF tuning capability in their products in 1964. Before Paducah, Harrisburg, and Cape Girardeau were combined into one single market, the initial UHF transmitter was erected in Harrisburg. In 1989, the station relocated its operations from Harrisburg to Carterville. WSIL was the station's initial call letters before adding the "-TV" suffix in 1979.