During the 1960s, WGEM shared its secondary ABC affiliation with CBS affiliate KHQA-TV. This arrangement ended in 1969, when WJJY-TV in Jacksonville, Illinois, went on the air as the ABC affiliate for Quincy; when WJJY went bankrupt and shut down in 1971, WGEM resumed carrying a few ABC shows until the mid-1990s. The station also had a secondary affiliation with Fox between 1990 and 1994, after which the station moved its Fox affiliation to a separate cable-only channel. WGEM-TV is one of the few and longest operating television stations in the country, outside of network owned-and-operated stations, that has had the same call letters, owner, channel number, and primary network affiliation throughout its history. It is also the only locally owned and operated station in the market.