However, due to several delays, the station did not actually go on the air until March 15, 1949, as WLWD, on channel 5,[4] twenty days after CBS affiliate WHIO-TV began broadcasting.

(The property has changed jurisdictions since the original airdate: first it was within the now-defunct Van Buren Township, which voted to incorporate as Kettering in November 1952; in 1953, the western portion of Kettering, which included the property, voted to secede, forming Moraine Township, which in turn incorporated as Moraine in 1957.)

The three outlets shared common regional programming, most of which was produced in Cincinnati and sent by way of microwave link to Dayton and Columbus (such as The 50-50 Club with Ruth Lyons, and later Bob Braun; The Paul Dixon Show; and Midwestern Hayride).

[5][6] All three stations were also NBC affiliates, and had secondary relationships with the DuMont Television Network; WLWD also carried ABC programs.

To reflect their connection to each other, the WLW Television stations hyphenated their call signs on air; the Dayton outlet was known as WLW-D.

The Crosley television group would later expand to include WLWA (now WXIA-TV) in Atlanta, WLWI (now WTHR) in Indianapolis, and WOAI-TV in San Antonio.

The release of the FCC's Sixth Report and Order in 1952 resulted in shifts of VHF channel assignments in the Midwest region.

By the mid to late-1970s, ABC was searching for stronger affiliates in order to cement its status as the leading network in the United States.

Meanwhile, WKRC-TV and WTVN-TV were not only preempting ABC's daytime programs, but also its late night shows and some of its Saturday morning cartoons.

ABC also wanted a station in Dayton with both stronger ratings and signal, and one which could reach portions of the Cincinnati and Columbus markets.

Five months after joining ABC, in May 1980, Grinnell College announced it would sell WDTN to the broadcasting division of the Hearst Corporation.

Argyle had purchased WDTN's former sister station, WLWT, that January, as part of a trade deal between Argyle II and Gannett Broadcasting which caused WLWT and its Oklahoma City sister station, KOCO-TV, to swap ownership with WZZM in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and WGRZ-TV in Buffalo, New York.

It opted to keep the larger WLWT and trade WDTN, together with WNAC-TV in Providence, Rhode Island, to Sunrise Television for WPTZ in Plattsburgh, New York, WNNE in Hartford, Vermont, and KSBW in Salinas, California.

In May 2002, Sunrise merged with LIN TV; both television companies were owned by private equity firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst.

In early June, WDTN's website (along with those of several other LIN TV-owned stations not affiliated with Fox such as WNDY-TV, WWHO, WAND, WWLP, and WLFI-TV) underwent a redesign.

On October 3, 2008, LIN TV pulled WDTN (and its other stations) from Time Warner Cable, due to a dispute over "retransmission fees".

[25][26][27] On June 4, 2010, it was announced LIN TV would begin operating CW affiliate WBDT (then owned by ACME Communications) through shared service and joint sales agreements.

[28][29] Three months later, LIN TV exercised an option to purchase that channel along with another LIN-operated ACME station, fellow CW affiliate WCWF in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

During the summer of 1983, WDTN was exempted from running ABC's soap operas after 2 p.m., since WKRC-TV's signal easily covered Dayton.

On August 18, 2007, the station began to produce a nightly prime time newscast for WBDT, known as 2 News at 10 on Dayton's CW.

This show achieved higher ratings than WRGT-TV's nightly prime time news in Dayton's metered market households on the 26th day of its broadcast.

In August 2011, the station announced plans to replace its weekday hour-long newscast, 2 News at Noon, with a local lifestyle talk show called Living Dayton, starting in early January 2012.

Allan arrived at the station in fall 1995 from KAKE (TV) in Wichita, Kansas, first anchoring coverage of the then-ongoing Dayton Peace Accords.

[70][71][72] WDTN includes segments from the syndicated consumer and personal finance series Money Talks with Stacy Johnson as part of its newscasts.

For many years, Charlie Van Dyke was the voice heard on WDTN's station IDs, news intros, promos, and other voice-over work.

On February 1, 2018, the Justice Network was dropped, replaced by Ion Television, which was moved from sister station WBDT's DT3 subchannel.