The stations share studios on Halsted Street in the Greektown neighborhood; WCIU-TV's transmitter is located atop the Willis Tower in the Chicago Loop.

[6] In 1970, channel 26 became the birthplace of the groundbreaking African American music program Soul Train, hosted by its creator (and then-WCIU station employee) Don Cornelius.

The show later entered into national syndication and moved production to Los Angeles the following year, although WCIU continued to produce a local version of Soul Train exclusively for the Chicago market until 1976, initially and simultaneously with the Los Angeles-based version, with Cornelius himself as host, succeeded by Clinton Ghent, the main producer under Cornelius.

Later in the 1980s, Weigel Broadcasting expanded coverage of WCIU-TV to areas of western Illinois, northwest Indiana and southeastern Wisconsin through translator stations.

[16] Channel 26's programming began to feature mostly classic sitcoms and drama series (such as The Munsters, Gilligan's Island, Hogan's Heroes, The Rockford Files and Leave It to Beaver).

[4][17] Initially, the station continued to run the Stock Market Observer from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and entertainment programming in all other weekday timeslots and throughout much of the broadcast day on weekends.

The agreement also allowed WCIU to carry WB prime time programming in the event that WGN-TV chose to preempt it in order to air Cubs, White Sox and Bulls evening games.

[19][20] In order to make room for the Kids' WB block, the full Stock Market Observer broadcast moved to WFBT-CA, on September 9.

[21][22] In 2000, the program was rebranded as "WebFN", a joint venture between Weigel and Bridge Information Systems (which also aired on Milwaukee sister station WMLW-CA).

[30] By that July, in conjunction with the announcement of WCIU acquiring syndicated reruns of Bob Hearts Abishola, the station announced it would revive "The U" as its branding, with the brand moving from its previous home at WMEU, with the move; the rebrand would take effect on August 1, during the final month of the CW affiliation, with the station promoting the relaunch with a slightly modified version of their original slogan, "The U'z STILL Got It!".

WCIU-TV has broadcast many locally produced programs over the years; among them are Ultrascope (a program sponsored by Sears that was used to sell UHF-capable televisions and boxes within their Chicago area stores, and featured a format similar to Music Choice featuring a clock/album cover display and album audio which aired daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.), Ted and the Angel (a talk show hosted by Ted Weber and Angel Tompkins from 1967 to 1968, which was nominated for a Regional Emmy Award in its first year; Weber later hosted two other WCIU programs, Ted Weber In Old Town and The C.E.T.

The Homework Show (1995–2006), U Dance with B96 (an American Bandstand-style music/dance show hosted by DJs from WBBM-FM, 1995–1997),[4] Stooge-A-Palooza (a showcase of Three Stooges shorts with Rich Koz, 2003–2010),[31] Soul Train (1970–1976, local version only; nationally syndicated version from Los Angeles was seen from 1971 to 2006, locally on WBBM-TV and later, WGN-TV),[31] The Bob Lewandowski Show, (1964–1995), Outdoor Sportsman (1978–1985; originally aired on WSNS-TV, it was produced and hosted by local outdoorsman Joe Wyer), Stock Market Observer (1968–2000), WebFN (2000–2003, replaced the Stock Market Observer), Kiddie-A-Go-Go (1964–1967), Western Theatre with Two Ton Baker (1964–1965), Marty Faye Show, The Chicago Party (c. 1982), Eddie Korosa's Polka Party (c. 1978) and First Business (a business news program which Weigel took over production in 2003, replacing WebFN, and syndicated nationally through MGM Television until 2014).

[33] On July 8, 1999, WGN-TV and WCIU-TV entered into a programming arrangement involving sports coverage, which allowed channel 26 to carry select Chicago Bulls basketball and White Sox baseball games, and a handful of Cubs baseball games that are produced by and contracted to air on WGN-TV, due to that station's network affiliation contracts (with The CW and previously The WB) that limit the number of programming preemptions that WGN-TV is allowed on an annual basis, and rights restrictions enforced by the NBA which limited the number of Bulls telecasts aired on WGN's national superstation feed WGN America—prior to that channel's removal of WGN-produced programs upon its conversion into a basic cable channel in December 2014—to fifteen games per season.

In 2011, all White Sox, Blackhawks, Bulls and Cubs games televised on WCIU began to be syndicated to local stations in central Illinois and Iowa through the "WGN Sports Network" service.

[39] From 2010 until 2016, WCIU has served as a local over-the-air broadcaster of NFL games involving the Chicago Bears that are televised by ESPN's Monday Night Football.

WLS-TV (channel 7), WCIU's news partner, is an owned-and-operated station of ABC (itself a sister network to ESPN through ABC parent The Walt Disney Company's majority ownership of the cable network), but has chosen to exercise its right of first refusal to carry MNF games, deferring most games aired since 2010 in order to air Dancing with the Stars (due to the program's popularity and the structure of its live voting requirements) during that program's fall season.

It also carried a Cubs game in lieu of WLS-TV in mid-September 2019 (when The CW was still in its summer season), as ABC unexpectedly scheduled the sixth-season finale of Bachelor in Paradise for the same evening.

[40] The station refused carriage of the 2023 LIV Golf season after the controversial golf league contracted with The CW (now majority-owned by Nexstar Media Group) to carry their tournaments; in Chicago, it airs on Nexstar's WGN-TV instead, though Weigel does carry it on WCWW-LD in South Bend, making it likely that existing programming commitments (including to the Illinois High School Association) and a strong weekend syndication schedule led Weigel to decline the coverage.

[43][44][45][46] On December 14, 2014, WCIU entered into a news share agreement with ABC owned-and-operated station WLS-TV to produce a weeknight-only 7 p.m. newscast for channel 26.

[47][48] WLS-TV newscasts on WCIU featured news anchors Cheryl Burton and Linda Yu, along with chief meteorologist Jerry Taft and Jim Rose on sports.

On December 1, 2010, WCIU dropped its ethnic programming service FBT on digital subchannel 26.6 and replaced it a simulcast of the station's main channel.

On January 4, 2011, MGM and Weigel Broadcasting announced plans to turn the MeTV format that originated on sister station WWME-CA into a national network.