As early as 1953, a construction permit for the analog UHF channel 59 allotment was issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and was originally owned by the Connecticut Radio Foundation.

Although WHNB had boosted its power to cover New Haven a few months earlier, some areas in Southern Connecticut still could not get a good signal from the station.

On April 3, 1995, the station finally began broadcasting as a WB affiliate with the callsign WTVU under a local marketing agreement (LMA) with LIN TV, owner of WTNH.

It also ran classic sitcoms and drama shows such as Hawaii Five-O, Perry Mason, M*A*S*H, I Love Lucy, Happy Days, The Honeymooners, The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched and Gilligan's Island among others that were removed from the schedules of WTXX (channel 20, now WCCT-TV) and WTWS (channel 26, now Ion Television affiliate WHPX-TV) some years back.

It also picked up the over-the-air rights to Hartford Whalers hockey games, which aired on the station until the team became the Carolina Hurricanes in 1997.

On September 19, 2005, WCTX became known as "UPN 9" (the same branding as fellow New York affiliate WWOR-TV), highlighting its cable channel position in some areas.

[4][5] WTXX was chosen as Connecticut's CW affiliate after its owner Tribune announced a ten-year deal with the upcoming network leaving WCTX to tentatively become an independent station once again.

It recently signed a multi-year television deal with the WNBA's Connecticut Sun to broadcast select regular season games as well.

Nexstar was required to sell two of the stations (including one ranking in the top four in ratings) to a separate, unrelated company to comply with FCC ownership rules.

On March 30, 2020, WTNH planned to launch an expansion of WCTX's prime time newscast to the three-hour entirety of prime time on weeknights and 90 minutes on weekends, presumably pushing back MyNetworkTV programming to the graveyard slot in late night, an increasingly common fate for the service.

Until TheCoolTV was added on WCTX-DT2 in 2010 (which was subsequently dropped on July 15, 2013), the subchannel aired a 24-hour live feed of WTNH's regional weather radar called the "SkyMax Doppler Network".