The service is primarily carried on digital subchannels and multichannel subscription television providers, although it maintains primary affiliations on full-power and low-power stations in certain markets.

Conceived under the same concept as Foxnet (developed by WB network co-founder and original president Jamie Kellner during his preceding tenure as the original president of the Fox network), The WB 100+ was designed to distribute WB programming to small- and select medium-sized "white area" markets, primarily Designated Market Areas (DMA) ranked #100 and higher under annual Nielsen Market Universe estimates, that had five or fewer commercial television stations licensed within the designated market area through local cable providers (which owned affiliates of the feed individually or in consortiums, often entering into agreements with a local broadcast station to handle advertising and other management services for the WB 100+ outlet), or stations The WB refused to make affiliation offers due to overall low broadcasting quality standards or giving a priority to another network.

(In certain “white area” markets, the only option for over-the-air carriage was to maintain a secondary affiliation with an existing network outlet, subjecting WB programs to being aired via tape delay outside of key timeslots.)

That was the case with The WB 100+, promotions for syndicated programs aired on The CW Plus omit affiliate references – either in the form of verbal identification or use of the affiliate's logo – in favor of network branding; the timeslot cards also only list airtimes based on Eastern and Central Time Zone scheduling, with the announcer being used to read the promo's airtime card only identifying that the program airs "[today/tonight/day of week] on The CW."

On January 5, 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Paramount Global (at the time ViacomCBS) and WarnerMedia (who was splitting off from AT&T and merging with Discovery, Inc.) were exploring a possible sale of either a majority stake or all of The CW, and that Nexstar Media Group, which became The CW's largest affiliate group when it acquired former WB-era network co-owner Tribune Broadcasting in 2019, was considered a leading bidder.

[14] In late June 2022, the WSJ indicated a purchase of The CW by Nexstar was close, with the company acquiring a 75-percent majority, while the remaining 25-percent would be shared equally by Paramount and Warner Bros.

(The CW Daytime, which was also designed to be tape-delayed, had followed this scheduling as well until the block was discontinued on September 3, 2021, as a trade-off to the network's affiliates tied to its October 2 expansion of prime time programming to Saturdays.

[21]) Syndicated programs broadcast on The CW Plus during non-network programming hours as of September 2024[update] include The Steve Wilkos Show, Karamo, Divorce Court, We the People with Judge Lauren Lake, Friends, Dish Nation, The Good Doctor, Chicago P.D., TMZ on TV / TMZ Live, and Maury.

To fill dayparts on The CW Plus not reserved to the main network feed, The CW – asserting programming acquisition duties traditionally handled by the local affiliate operator – purchases cash- and barter-sold programs distributed for first-run and off-network syndication to occupy most daytime and evening timeslots throughout the week, syndicated feature film packages to occupy afternoon and late access timeslots on Saturdays and Sundays, and paid programming purchased through time-buys with direct response infomercial production firms and teleministries to occupy overnight and some early afternoon timeslots.

Individual CW Plus affiliate operators handle advertising sales for local commercials inserted into the corresponding feed during designated ad breaks within network and syndicated programs aired on the service.

The feed’s supplementary E/I content was reduced to just one half-hour in September 2015 (consisting solely of Elizabeth Stanton's Great Big World) and was concurrently shifted to a Saturday late-night timeslot; the supplementary syndication E/I window was eliminated in September 2016, leaving the shows aired within the One Magnificent Morning block as the only educational programming offered by the feed (which later reduced its runtime to three hours since 2017).

(The predecessor WB 100+ Station Group had originally acquired the national syndication rights for the program, which aired on that feed from September 2002 until its conversion into The CW Plus.

Counting mainly over-the-air affiliates of the service, The CW Plus covers an estimated national audience reach of 73,120,898 U.S. residents or 23.40-percent of all households with at least one television set.