WDRB went on the air in February 1971 as the first independent station in the Louisville market, being owned in turn by a Missouri consortium, the Minneapolis Star & Tribune Company, and Block.

[6] On July 7, 1965,[7] Consolidated Broadcasting Company, a group of five people from Chillicothe, Missouri, with no television station experience at the time (but who were eventually shareholders in KCIT-TV in Kansas City),[8][9] filed for a construction permit for the channel.

Initially, the station signed on at 3 p.m. on weekdays;[15] its programming included low-budget afternoon children's programming, occasional news updates provided by anchor Wilson Hatcher, and, most notably, the Saturday night horror film strand Fright Night, hosted by local theater actor Charlie Kissinger.

[17] The station was profitable within months and unexpectedly respectable, matching then-ABC affiliate WLKY (channel 32) in the ratings, even without a local news department.

[7] In 1981, however, an administrative law judge denied the application and preferred the competing bid from the Word Broadcasting Network, only for the FCC review board to overturn the decision.

[20] Cowles exited television in the early 1980s; after selling its only other station, KTVH in Hutchinson, Kansas, it sold WDRB to Block Communications of Toledo, Ohio, for $10 million in 1983.

[22] Block began to increase WDRB's profile in the market by acquiring higher-rated and more recent off-network sitcoms and dramas to its schedule, along with a focus on the broadcast rights for the burgeoning athletic programs of the University of Louisville's Cardinals, which the station won in 1985 and held for two years.

[26] In 1990, the station also regained rights to Louisville athletics after the university spent three years with WHAS-TV[23] and upgraded its transmitter, improving signal coverage.

[27] A weekend edition of The News at 10 debuted that October, pairing ex-WLKY staffer Bill Francis with Susan Sweeney, who prior to joining channel 41 had worked at WHAS radio.

[42][43] This was later followed by the debut of an hour-long 4 p.m. newscast in September 2001[44] and weekly editorials by general manager Bill Lamb, the first on any Louisville station since the 1980s, in 2002.

[53] To coincide with the promo, WDRB posted on its website a "contract" outline of its journalism practices with its viewers and advertisers, with the former list promising to judiciously use "breaking news" (applying the term to stories that are "both 'breaking' and 'news'"), as well as a general promise to deliver news in a truthful, balanced and informative manner, and without overt hype and sensationalism.

Schnatter had made the claim to WDRB's Stephan Johnson that he had found the quality control of the chain had declined after saying he ordered forty pizzas to eat from it in a month-long period and warned of a 'day of reckoning' for company board member Mark Shapiro for participating in Schnatter's ouster from the company.