Local high school sports coverage remains a tradition at the station in addition to Ohio State Buckeyes football.
WPTW began operation as a daytime-only AM station with a middle of the road format on December 7, 1947 and was founded by the Miami Valley Broadcasting Company.
For much of its early years, WPTW held the distinction as the only commercial radio station in the Upper Miami Valley between Dayton and Lima; as such, the station opened up several locally originating studios in its service area including the Hotel Lollis in Troy, the Ohio Building in Sidney, and a studio on South Broadway in Greenville.
That distinction was held until the late 1950s and early 1960s with the founding of stations in Bellefontaine, Sidney, Greenville, Urbana and Wapakoneta; the auxiliary studios were closed by the mid-1960s.
The vintage on-air studio gear (a Collins tube-type audio console with original transmitter and Gates transcription turntables almost dating back to the station's beginnings) were properly maintained in mint condition thanks to longtime chief engineer Don Kuether and remained in use until upgrades were made in the late 1970s and 80s.
According to a Piqua Daily Call story dated July 8, 2011, owner Miami Valley Radio LLC announced that it may leave the air and shut down permanently unless a buyer is found.
WPTW is the last locally originating commercial radio station still serving Miami County as the former WPTW-FM is now WHIO-FM and the former short-lived competitor WTRJ-FM (later WRNB) in nearby Troy which is now WYDA, a repeater of K-LOVE.