[5] From 1956 to 1959, WITI used the DuMont Vitascan color system—which required a completely darkened set with a single strobe light, causing eye strain—for its locally produced programs.

The situation was difficult for the on-air talent, according to Sid Armstrong, who worked at WITI as a news reporter during the station's early years.

During the 1975–76 season, ABC emerged as the highest-rated broadcast network in the United States–thanks in part to the success of two Milwaukee-set sitcoms, Happy Days and its spin-off Laverne & Shirley.

However, Storer Broadcasting had developed a bitter relationship with the network stemming from ABC's June 1976 decision to move its affiliation in the San Diego market from Storer-owned KCST-TV (now KNSD) to former NBC outlet KGTV.

Three years earlier KCST, a UHF independent station, won a long battle to strip the market's ABC affiliation from Tijuana, Mexico-based VHF outlet XETV.

Storer purchased KCST the following year, but ABC was not happy with being forced to surrender an affiliation with a VHF station in favor of a UHF outlet.

[10] Without hesitation, WISN-TV aligned with ABC, officially reversing the earlier 1961 affiliation swap;[11] the two stations switched networks once again on March 27, 1977; the final ABC program to air on channel 6 was a rerun of the two-part Starsky & Hutch episode "Murder at Sea", which aired at 8 p.m. Central Time on the night before the station rejoined CBS.

SCI Television also missed repayment of $162 million in bank loans before a June 30 deadline; as a consequence of its financial difficulties, Gillett/SCI decided to sell its broadcast holdings.

[14][15][16] On May 23, 1994, as part of a broad deal that also saw News Corporation acquire a 20% equity interest in the company, New World Communications signed a long-term agreement to affiliate its nine CBS-, ABC- or NBC-affiliated television stations with Fox, which sought to strengthen its affiliate portfolio after the National Football League (NFL) accepted the network's $1.58 billion bid for the television rights to the National Football Conference (NFC) – a four-year contract that began with the 1994 NFL season – on December 18, 1993.

Although WCGV had become a formidable competitor to rival independent WVTV, Fox found the prospect to having its programming carried on a VHF station too much to resist, considering that WITI had a relatively stronger market position despite its then-third place placing behind WTMJ-TV (channel 4) and WISN-TV – in total day and news viewership, though its news department has been long-respected and well-awarded.

With only a few months before WITI was set to switch to Fox, CBS began making plans to find a new Milwaukee affiliate and approached all of the market's major television stations to potentially reach an agreement, which was hampered partly because of the network's then-faltering ratings and an older-skewing programming slate.

WISN-TV was automatically eliminated as an option for CBS as it was in the middle of a long-term affiliation agreement between ABC and that station's owner, Hearst Broadcasting.

The respective owners of WCGV and WVTV at the time—ABRY Communications and Gaylord Broadcasting (the latter of which had already reached deals to switch two fellow independents, KTVT in Fort Worth and KSTW in Tacoma, to CBS)—also turned the network's offers down.

This left the market's lower-rated independents—commercial outlets WJJA (channel 49, now independent station WMLW-TV) and WDJT-TV (channel 58) or religious outlet WVCY-TV (channel 30)—as the only viable options with which CBS could reach an affiliation agreement; WVCY owner VCY America would eliminate itself from the running after the owner of its parent licensee, Vic Eliason (in consultation with the VCY America board), declined a $10 million offer by CBS Inc. to acquire that station directly on grounds that the bid was "unreasonably" below market value in a letter that also objected to racy programming content carried by the major U.S. broadcast networks.

WCGV temporarily converted into an independent station in the run-up to affiliating with the upstart United Paramount Network (UPN) the following month (on January 16, 1995), though retaining Fox Kids, as WITI held no interest in carrying the network's children's lineup due to a successful weekday afternoon and Saturday morning lineup, as most New World stations did.

In addition to expanding its local news programming at the time it joined Fox, the station replaced CBS daytime and late night programs that migrated to WDJT with an expanded slate of syndicated talk shows as well as some off-network sitcoms, game shows and documentary-based reality series, and also acquired some syndicated film packages and first-run and off-network syndicated drama series for broadcast in weekend afternoon timeslots on weeks when Fox did not provide sports programming; most notably it still holds the rights to a package of colorized RKO Pictures films (now a part of the Warner Bros.

On December 22, 2007, Fox sold WITI and seven other owned-and-operated stations – WJW, WBRC, WGHP, WDAF-TV, KTVI in St. Louis, KDVR in Denver and KSTU in Salt Lake City – to Local TV LLC (a broadcast holding company operated by private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners that was formed on May 7 of that year to assume ownership of the broadcasting division of The New York Times Company) for $1.1 billion; the sale was finalized on July 14, 2008.

[33] On July 1, 2013, the Tribune Company announced it would acquire the assets of Local TV LLC for $2.75 billion; the sale was completed on December 27.

Sinclair had already announced that it had sold WCGV's spectrum in April in the FCC's 2016 spectrum auction and it would cease operations in technicality, albeit with WCGV's main schedule and subchannel moving to WVTV's DT2 subchannel on January 8, 2018; that move effectively would have alleviated any regulatory complications involving the sale for the Milwaukee stations, outside any physical and employee assets that would have been sorted out prior to the deal's closure.

[38] On July 18, 2018, the FCC voted to have the Sinclair–Tribune acquisition reviewed by an administrative law judge amid "serious concerns" about Sinclair's forthrightness in its applications to sell certain conflict properties; with the future of the deal still uncertain, 21st Century Fox reached a multi-year agreement with Tribune to renew the affiliations of WITI and five of the group's other Fox affiliates on August 6, 2018.

[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53] On December 3, 2018, Irving, Texas-based Nexstar Media Group announced it would acquire Tribune's assets for $6.4 billion in cash and debt.

Some other syndicated programs seen on WITI include Judge Judy, TMZ on TV/TMZ Live and Extra among others, along with Access Hollywood, the latter three forming a late night entertainment news block.

It was also among the handful of CBS affiliates that opted not carry Pryor's Place due to concerns that parents would protest a station airing a Saturday morning program starring a comedian known for using controversial and racially insensitive material.

[75] The station does carry a paid advertorial segment called Fox Focus during its daytime programming, though only within the form of an extended traditional commercial break.

Real Milwaukee returned again on September 27, 2021, this time airing at 10 a.m., with it now a part of 7½ consecutive hours of news and local programming in the morning.

From September 9, 2013, to July 11, 2016, WITI aired a weekday afternoon talk show, Studio A, which aired at 4 p.m. and was hosted by anchors Ted Perry and former news anchor Katrina Cravy, who left to launch a consulting firm, and former WLUM-FM (102.1) morning host Brian Kramp, the program focused mainly on community issues and events in Milwaukee, and provided breaking news coverage if needed.

WITI has aired most regional or national Packers game telecasts since returning to CBS in 1977, albeit with a three-month interruption due to CBS losing its contractual rights to the National Football Conference following the 1993 season (the games instead aired on WCGV for the first three months of Fox's NFC telecasts as a lame-duck affiliate, but without any pre-game programming).

The practice was temporarily suspended in the 2020 and 2021 seasons due to the league's COVID media restrictions making a live postgame from the game site impossible and resumed in 2022.

On March 28, 2009, the station suspended its morning and early evening newscasts on weekends during the Great Recession; the weekend morning newscasts were briefly replaced by reruns of Ask Gus on April 4 (Gnorski was forced by his physicians to retire, ending WITI's plans to revive Ask Gus, with the program ending its 15-year run on November 24, 2007).

While at least one station offered a separate broadcast on 87.7,[88] WITI opted to restore the audio feed via an HD Radio subchannel of WMIL-FM (106.1) in August 2009 through an agreement to provide news and weather content for WMIL owner Clear Channel Communications's Milwaukee radio cluster (a forecast-only content agreement between WITI and Entercom's three local stations and occasional check-ins during WakeUp News on WXSS and WSSP's morning shows continues without any audible forecasts from channel 6's weather staff).