In 1954, the station moved its 1,004-foot (306 m) transmitter from the Penobscot Building in Downtown Detroit to the intersection of Greenfield and Lincoln roads in Southfield.

The station began broadcasting its newscasts and other locally produced programs in color in 1960, when it purchased new studio camera equipment.

Over the years, the Evening News Association acquired several other broadcasting outlets, such as KTVY (now KFOR-TV) in Oklahoma City, KOLD-TV in Tucson, Arizona, and WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama.

Eventually, the Evening News Association created Universal Communications Corporation as a holding company for its broadcasting interests, with WWJ-AM-FM-TV as the flagship stations.

In 1969, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began to impose restrictions on the common ownership of print and broadcast media in the same market.

Additionally, in a series of promotional announcements with news anchor Dwayne X. Riley, the new call letters were said to represent the phrase, "Where Detroit Is Vital".

In 2004, the station bolstered local programming by securing broadcast rights to several Detroit Pistons basketball games (Fox Sports Detroit—now called FanDuel Sports Network Detroit—became the Pistons' sole broadcaster in 2008) as well as returning as the host television station for the North American International Auto Show.

On the evening of April 14, 2011, a suitcase containing a suspected improvised explosive device was left in the WDIV studio lobby after the person who planted the device was denied entry by the station's security guard, prompting the Detroit Police Bomb Squad to evacuate the studio as well as the Doubletree Hotel across the street.

[10] Instead, until 1999, the station opted to rebroadcast The Jenny Jones Show in that timeslot, along with off-network syndicated programs such as Barney Miller.

That season, WDIV also preempted the 1983 revival of Dream House in favor of the much more popular syndicated game show Tic-Tac-Dough.

WDIV was the over-the-air television flagship station of the Detroit Tigers, a relationship that lasted twenty seasons, from 1975 to 1994, and previously from 1947 to 1952.

During the majority of WDIV's second tenure as the Tigers' broadcast outlet, Hall of Famers George Kell and Al Kaline served as play-by-play announcer and color analyst, respectively, on the telecasts.

As a result of the station's carriage of Tigers games (which usually ranged between 40 and 50 telecasts per season, the majority of them on weekends), WDIV preempted or rescheduled any affected NBC programming that was displaced.

The station also carried any Tigers games when they were featured nationally as part of NBC's MLB coverage from its 1947 sign-on until 1989; this included World Series victories in 1968 and 1984.

From 1970 to 1997, via NBC's broadcast contract with the American Football Conference, home interconference contests were aired on channel 4 (which included the Thanksgiving games in some years).

Additionally, through NBC's broadcast contract with the NHL, Detroit Red Wings games were carried until the deal's end in 2021, including the team's winning run through the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals as well as the team's appearance in the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals, though it often had to compete with CBC Television's CBET-DT across the river in Windsor, which also carries NHL playoff coverage.

Since 2023, the station has carried select Michigan Wolverines football games through NBC's broadcast contract with the Big Ten Conference.

The station has one micro-ENG E150 van capable of rapid deployment short-range broadcasts and one additional satellite uplink vehicle with a much larger 1.8-meter antenna.

In August 2013, WDIV dropped its noon newscast and converted it into an online-only broadcast to attract viewers who are at work during that timeslot.

The station's signal is multiplexed: WDIV's second digital subchannel formally carried programming from NBC Weather Plus, which folded in November 2008.

On January 3, 2020, WDIV-TV activated a fourth subchannel, which broadcasts Cozi TV, a network owned by NBC's parent company NBCUniversal.

This makes WDIV-TV the third station in the Detroit market to have been affiliated with Cozi TV, which was previously on WMYD and on WADL.

[23][24] As part of the SAFER Act,[25] WDIV kept its analog signal on the air until June 26 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.

WDIV's over-the-air signal can be picked up as far away as Flint, Lapeer, and Adrian in Michigan, as well as Toledo, Ohio, and even London, Ontario.

WDIV is also one of only three American stations that mention Windsor and London as among their primary viewing areas, alongside WMYD and WJBK.

WDIV is also carried on some cable providers in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in communities such as Seney, Republic and Grand Marais.

Coverage on cable providers outside the Detroit–Windsor market may be subject to syndication exclusivity and network blackouts in the United States and simsubbing in Canada.