To serve portions of the market that cannot adequately receive the main signal, WIBW-TV operates a digital fill-in translator in Topeka, which broadcasts on channel 33.

[4][5] Channel 13 was originally owned by the family of the late Kansas Senator Arthur Capper, and was co-owned with the Topeka Daily Capital and WIBW radio.

This was largely because the only other VHF frequency in the Topeka area, channel 11, had been designated for non-commercial broadcasting use; that allocation eventually was occupied by KTWU, which signed on the air in October 1965.

WIBW-TV and KSNT continued to split the local rights to ABC programming for 16 years, until KLDH (channel 49, now KTKA) signed on the air as the market's third television outlet in June 1983.

The attacker, identified as 48-year-old Ray Miles, was upset because WIBW news director Jon Janes was unable to help him with a problem involving the Department of Veterans Affairs.

[12][13] MyNetworkTV was created to compete against another upstart network that would launch at the same time that September, The CW—a network created through a partnership between CBS Corporation and Time Warner, which had announced one month earlier on January 24 that the two companies would respectively shut down UPN and The WB, which originally consisted primarily of the higher-rated programs from its two predecessors; MyNetworkTV was also formed to give UPN- and WB-affiliated stations that were not named as The CW's charter affiliates another option besides converting into independent stations.

In September 2009, WIBW-DT2 became a secondary affiliate of This TV, carrying a mix of syndicated programming to fill select evening time periods otherwise occupied by feature film content from the network.

The subchannel disaffiliated from This TV on September 10, 2012, and switched its secondary affiliation to MeTV (both networks were owned at the time by Weigel Broadcasting).

In a September 5 interview with The Topeka Capital-Journal, then-WIBW-TV general manager Jim Ogle cited that the station chose to switch 13.2's secondary affiliation to allow leverage in scheduling local newscasts and sports programs onto the subchannel, as the vast majority of MeTV programs run either 30 minutes or an hour in length, in comparison to the feature-length movies aired by This TV.

Most of the syndicated programming aired on the subchannel was dropped by September 2014, when WIBW-DT2 began clearing most of the MeTV schedule outside of the first two hours of prime time on weeknights that are occupied by MyNetworkTV content.

[19] As of 2021, MyNetworkTV programming now airs in an overnight slot from 1 to 3 a.m. CT.[20] WIBW-TV presently broadcasts 28+1⁄2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week.

The station is noted for its coverage of a destructive F5 tornado that killed 16 people and injured 450 others as it tracked northeast across Topeka on the early evening of June 8, 1966.

A then-unknown Bill Kurtis – at the time, a 26-year-old balancing duties as a reporter for WIBW-TV while also a law student at Washburn University – wanted to get a message across to viewers watching the station's storm coverage to take shelter from the impending twister before it struck their particular area; ultimately, he advised viewers to get to safety by urging in a calm but stern manner, "for God's sake, take cover!"

In the days after the tornado hit the city, the station was flooded with viewer letters thanking Kurtis and channel 13 for the urgent warning.

[21] On November 11, 1998, WIBW announced that it would cancel its noon newscast (known for most of its history as Midday in Kansas) due to unspecified economic conditions, replacing the program with Martha Stewart Living; the move to cancel the program (at the time and presently, the only midday newscast among the Topeka market's television stations) after the November 25 broadcast, which would have resulted in the layoffs of 12 staffers, resulted in viewer letters protesting the move to convince then-WIBW vice president/general manager Gary Sotir "get creative" to save the highly rated program, which received its highest viewership among farmers and senior citizens, leading the station to reverse course on the decision.

The morning and prime time newscasts on WIBW-DT2 competed with those produced by NBC affiliate KSNT seen on that station's Fox-affiliated sister KTMJ-CD (channel 43).

[26][27][28] However, since the transition, some viewers in urban areas of the Topeka market have experienced difficulty receiving the station's channel 13 signal over-the-air.