OSTN created a national collegiate news show anchored at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

In 2007 Chief architect Prashant Chopra was arrested in a child sex sting and later pleaded guilty to importuning and attempted abduction of a 12 year old girl.

However, the WMV version of OSTN suffered from reliability issues, and was replaced in the fall of 2007 by a highly robust, scalable, and enterprise-grade IPTV distribution system.

OSTN is delivered to consumers via two methods: over IP to the desktop computer via a web port and via traditional "legacy" CATV systems.

When injected onto a legacy CATV system or onto a student television channel, OSTN utilizes a set top box converter device outputting analog NTSC or component video, which is then either mixed with local student TV programming (a network-affiliate model, such as Buckeye TV) or directly inserted onto the CATV line-up as its own separate channel.