It is owned by the Miami-Dade County Public Schools district alongside NPR member WLRN-FM (91.3); the two outlets are operated under a management agreement by Friends of WLRN, the stations' fundraising arm.

In 1959, the Dade County school board purchased a transmission facility in Hallandale that had last been used by WITV, a one-time ABC affiliate that had broadcast from 1954 to 1958, struggling through the launch of VHF television stations that took away its network programming and economic viability.

Long a joint effort between the school board and the private Community Television Foundation of South Florida (CTF), this arrangement was consecrated as two separate FCC licenses sharing the channel in 1970.

[16] The stated intention was to sunset WTHS-TV after five years and transition its broadcasts to a closed-circuit system connecting the schools, ceding channel 2 to WPBT full-time.

[18] The inadequate WLRN-TV facilities were cited by one school board member as a poor compensation for giving up half of channel 2; by 1978, the station was operating at an effective radiated power of 38,000 watts, using a transmitter it had acquired used from WHRO-TV in Hampton, Virginia, in 1961.

In August 1978, a rebuilt facility was activated and effective radiated power increased to 2.83 million watts, extending the station's city-grade coverage to take in Cutler Ridge to the south and Boca Raton to the north.

[22] By 1985, the station was producing a panoply of local shows to supplement PBS productions, ranging from panel discussions on public issues to sewing advice and how-tos on acting, as well as high school sports telecasts.

[23] When an appeals court ruling that year struck down FCC regulations requiring must-carry carriage of all TV stations in a local area, two Miami cable systems with 70,000 subscribers pulled WLRN.

The school district recommended the South Florida PBS bid, but after Friends of WLRN challenged the decision in court, a vote on the topic was postponed.

[32] The deal was also reached in the context of superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho leaving Miami to run the Los Angeles Unified School District.