The station was unable to make any headway against the region's two powerful VHF outlets, WALB-TV and WCTV. The station found it difficult to get advertising; Southwest Georgia is one of the poorest regions of the South, and there were very few businesses able to advertise on the station. By the late-1980s, WVGA was in a battle for its survival. By the start of the 1990s, it had shut down its news department and began relying on infomercials and barter programming to fill the schedule. It also began signing off following "Nightline".